The following styles are hereby discussed

• General Remarks for Writing the TWE Essay

• Compare and Contrast

• Narrative or Chronological Structure

• Descriptive Structure

• Cause-and-Effect
  

General Remarks for Writing the TWE Essay

The TWE essay criteria dmeans you observe the rules of a traditional academic essay: begin with a main argument or thesis statement, follow this with three or four pieces of evidence that support the argument, and wrap up in a conclusion by stating what the essay has shown. The power of this kind of esssay lies in its simplicity. Because it allows you to present several points neatly in support of a single claim, it lends itself well to making a persuasive argument.

Compare and Contrast Style

For some questions, this structure is a natural choice, as in a "personal growth and development" TWE essay, which asks you to compare yourself now to the way you were when you were a child say. You can structure a cause-and-effect essay point for point, by comparing one aspect of the object or situation at a time. Or you can choose to employ the block method by thoroughly covering all the points of the first object or situation in the first half of the essay and then comparing it with all the points of the other in the last half.

Narrative or Chronological Structure

This style is used in response to essay questions that ask you to focus on a single event, person or place in your life. In an essay of this kind, you need to make the reader aware of the chronology and keep the story generally moving forward at an appropriate speed. In other words, you should give details which help your portrayal -- but do not give details that do not help your thesis. The briefest and simplest of events can be given meaning when told convincingly. The sequence of events helps reinforce flow from one stage of the essay to the next and makes the task of transitioning between paragraphs very natural. Use concrete rather than abstract language in all parts of the essay since you are trying to make the reader see things the way you see them.

Descriptive Style

This is similar to the chronological style except that instead of walking step by step through increments of time, it follows step by step through a description of a place, person, or thing. The first paragraph gives an introduction describing the general feel of the place, person, or thing. The body paragraphs offer in-depth descriptions of two or three particular aspects of the place, person, or thing. In the last paragraph, the writer steps out of the descriptive mode and offers a brief conclusion of what the place, person, or thing means to him or her.

A common TWE essay question addresses the topic of 'a life-changing experience' often phrased as 'someone or something that has had a great influence on you.' This essay demands that you show you understand and appreciate the effect that other entities have had on your development and maturity. For these essays, you will want to use the body paragraphs to first describe the influence and then move on to how that has had an effect on you. You can either divide the essay into a “cause section" and an “effect section" or you can mesh the two together by taking each small apsect of the influence you experienced and explaining the effect it has had on you.