It is necessary to understand what an essay is

The essay, perhaps, is one of the most difficult to identify genres of journalism. In fact, this is a genre that absorbed both journalism and fiction. It very subtly combines elements of journalism and fiction.

What is an essay, you can find out by opening an artistic and journalistic magazine. In it there is such a way of transferring socially important factors and phenomena, which accurately describes the vital activity of certain social groups in society. The material is given in the form of an author's study of certain aspects of the life of society.

What are the main elements of the essay? There are three main ones - publicism, sociology and artistic description. The first two are closer to journalistic research.

Sociological description in the essay consists in the study of relations in society, the analysis of relations between the individual and society.

In journalism, the author expresses his opinion on various aspects of life, while relying on concrete facts.

With an artistic description, the task is to create an image that consists of those phenomena and facts that present reality. In this case, typing is used - collective and selective. In the collective character you can see all the properties and traits of character, as well as actions that are typical for different people with different characters. In selective typification in the invented character, signs of behavior and the character of a certain type of people are collected . Thus, one can take the essay as a literary work.

What is an essay, Can be understood by reading the works of researchers of this genre of literature. For today there are about 50 varieties of essay. There is no single genre classification. However, there are types of essays:

• Documentary is based on real facts with real characters.
• Fiction describes the "life" situation with fictional characters.
• Portrait creates an image of a representative of a certain environment and analyzes the reality.
• On the mores in society - describes the foundations of life, characteristic of certain segments of society.

The definition of what an essay is, is largely based on the types of author's narrative. The narrative can be conducted from a third party. The author examines the problem while outside of it. Many well-known essays are written in this vein.

From the first person the author conducts the story as a direct participant in events. At the same time the story is constantly in the present tense. That is, the author "does not know" how the events will develop further. Another version of the story about an event that has already happened.

Another type of essay is a story in the form of research. The author in the course of events develops his own assessment of phenomena and facts.

There is a type of essay in which the story comes from the first person plural. The author describes the events that concern all participants of the described action.

The most accurate answers to the question about what an essay is, Are contained in the essays themselves.