Criteria for a Good Essay

In class, my group (Skye, Emily, and I) came up with the following criteria:

• The author should sound well informed
• Specific focus/scope
• Descriptive
• Conversational
• It needs a purpose, opinion, audience, and a truly passionate author.
• It must be relatable/appealing
• There should be some form of organization and structure
• No lying

I took some of those ideas and made my Top 10 list of criteria:

1. Conversational: The essay should carry on like a conversation, because an essay needs to flow and is casual.
2. Should answer the question "so what?": This is kind of hard to explain, but here I go. The question "so what?" is asked because in the essay, the author will explain an idea or an event, or a person. But based on that, what should make me care about what was written. I think to put it simply, the essay must have a message.
3. Has a distinct purpose: The author should use the purpose to focus the essay. Slight digressions are allowed if they somehow help accomplish the purpose.
4. Uses appropriate language/vocabulary: The language should convey tone and take into account the audience (what they may or may not already know).
   
5. Engages the reader without losing credibility or truthfulness: We talked about stretching the truth in order to keep the story interesting; I believe that the essay has some discretion but the essay cannot steer to far from the truth.
6. It should convince the reader to strongly consider the thoughts of the author: Since the essay I am writing is a persuasive/informative one I thought this was important.
7. It should inform: The information should come across clearly and it should not confuse the reader. Informing people is not only the act of giving out information, but also making sure that the information is understood.
8. The essay should flow freely: The essay is not pinned down to a specific structure or way of organizing, as long as it fulfills its purpose (there still needs to be some form of structure).
9. It needs to consider it audience: Along with choice of language, the essay must try to relate to the audience in some way, because that makes the essay stronger.
10. It should find new or interesting ideas: The essay can be an exploration in search of ideas. The essay should bring up things that have not been brought up, or interesting to consider.