Writing the essay is a vital skill for students to learn not only for school itself, but also for the SAT, college applications, and various writing competitions. Essay Writing will help your student learn how to write a variety of essays.

This book is divided into two main parts: Preliminaries and Types of Essays. Although it doesn't specify, I think it is written for the high school or college student. Mature junior high students could also use this clearly written, easy to understand manual. Older students should have no trouble using this book on their own. Rather than a class course book, Essay Writing is a resource for the essay writing process. It could be incorporated into your student's English curriculum or used on its own to help with essay writing assignments.

Part One, Preliminaries, takes the writer through the basics of essay writing and how to go about it, from knowing one's audience and purpose to the structure to various introductions. This nuts and bolts section outlines a simple, seven step process of how to go about writing an essay as well as how to write a thesis statement and how to ensure flow through transitional words.

This part of the book also points out some universally common pitfalls to avoid when writing essays. These are well worth learning! Pertinent grammar and style rules are also included as they apply to the essay.

Part Two, Types of Essays, covers the nine types of essays: description, definition, exemplification, process, comparison/contrast, classification, cause and effect, argumentation, and narration. An example of each type of essay is provided as well as an outline of each essay. Each of the essays is also introduced with a short definition of this particular type of essay and special instructions for writing it.

Finally, there is a one-page chart explaining the similarities and differences between an essay and a research paper.

I think this book could be improved by providing annotations or markings in the example essays highlighting important parts such as the thesis statements, transitions, examples, etc. This would make for easier analysis of the provided essays.

I recommend this book as a quick, easy, no-nonsense way to learn to write essays. If your student has not had much experience with formal writing or is confused about the process, Essay Writing would be an especially helpful tool. Furthermore, parents may very well find this a valuable review on writing the essay and a handy tool to pull out when teaching their children to write essays.