GENERAL QUALITIES OF A GOOD ESSAY
A relatively short essay with a defensible thesis and a few insightful claims supported with textual
evidence is better than a longer essay that is about nothing. (If you don’t understand the prompt or the
text, your essay will be about nothing.)
An essay is not a list of separate ideas clumped together.
An essay is not a summary of the text—it is an argument that you control. (A generalization without
support is not an argument.)
A thesis needs to respond accurately to the task given in the prompt.
A good essay is well organized, even if it is a draft. It should have discernible parts: introduction,
body, and conclusion.
