Essay Contests for Students

Essay Contests: A Tool to help students improve their writing skills

Essay Contests

Essays form an important part of English literature. With the recent advancements in

digital technology, students are hardly exposed to writing skills except in schools. Students

perceive writing essays as boring and pointless. Consequently the contribution by students to

modern literature is on the decrease. In order to encourage students to improve their writing

skills, the educational institutions often come up with creative ideas to promote writing

among students. Although essay contests cannot be exactly called as a creative idea, this tool

has proven to be effective in encouraging writing skills among high school students. This

article gives a brief overview of what an essay is and the different types of essays.

Types of Essays

Writing a good essay requires a good understanding of the structure of an essay. An

essay generally consists of introduction, body and conclusion. In literature, an essay is

defined as a short write up on the author's opinion, recollections, reflections, criticism and

arguments. There are different types of essays such as persuasive, argumentative, expository

and analytical essays. Persuasive essays are aimed at convincing the readers to accept the

author’s opinion on an issue. Argumentative essays are more like persuasive essays. The only

difference being that the author also argues against other’s opinions. Expository essays are

aimed towards explaining a theme, concept or issues. Analytical essays are aimed at

analysing, examining and interpreting the results.

Conclusion

In a fast changing world, it is imperative for the young students to understand the

importance of writing. The Students can conveniently and freely express their ideas and

opinions through essays. But proper writing skills need to be developed among the students

as the digital era decreases their dependence on hand written literature. Essay contests

conducted in schools, organisations and as part of scholarship tests, help the students to

develop those essay writing skills.