Jordan Peterson's guide on essay writing
❝ The following guide is created by Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist and Professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. His performance in the public debates is impressive and his lectures and speeches are inspirational. Though a somewhat public intellecual, he’s no doubt a veteran in academia. His publication record and authorship of two books, including a best-seller, render his guide on essay writing to be more credential. This is a rather microscopic and step-by-step manner guide on writing. I guess it is better suited for course assigments and short to medium length essays. Yet combined with Andrew Abbott’s Digital Paper and Prof. Perng’s survival handbook, it completes a relatively close-loop procedure for academic research writing. ❞
Table of Content
INTRODUCTION
What is an essay?
Why bother writing an essay?
A note on technology
A note on use of time
LEVELS OF RESOLUTION
Words, sentences, paragraphs and more
Additional levels
Considerations of Aesthetics and Fascination
THE TOPIC AND THE READING LIST
Topic
Reading List
A Psychological Note and some Notes on Notes
THE OUTLINE
PARAGRAPHS
EDITING AND ARRANGING OF SENTENCES WITHIN PARAGRAPHS
RE-ORDERING THE PARAGRAPHS
GENERATING A NEW OUTLINE
REPEAT
REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Essay Writing Guide
You can use this word document to write an excellent essay from beginning to end, using a ten-step process. Most of the time, students or would-be essay writers are provided only with basic information about how to write, and most of that information concentrates on the details of formatting. These are necessary details, but writing is obviously far more than mere formatting. If you write your essay according to this plan, and you complete every step, you will produce an essay that is at least very good. You will also learn exactly how to write an essay, which is something very valuable to learn.
To start writing your essay, go to the next page, for Part One: Introduction.
Jordan B Peterson
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
What is an essay?
An essay is a relatively short piece of writing on a particular topic. However, the word essay also means attempt or try. An essay is, therefore, a short piece written by someone attempting to explore a topic or answer a question.
Why bother writing an essay?
Most of the time, students write essays only because they are required to do so by a classroom instructor. Thus, students come to believe that essays are important primarily to demonstrate their knowledge to a teacher or professor. This is simply, and dangerously, wrong (even though such writing for demonstration may be practically necessary).
The primary reason to write an essay is so that the writer can formulate and organize an informed, coherent and sophisticated set of ideas about something important.
Why is it important to bother with developing sophisticated ideas, in turn? It’s because there is no difference between doing so and thinking, for starters. It is important to think because action based on thinking is likely to be far less painful and more productive than action based upon ignorance. So, if you want to have a life characterized by competence, productivity, security, originality and engagement rather than one that is nasty, brutish and short, you need to think carefully about important issues. There is no better way to do so than to write. This is because writing extends your memory, facilitates editing and clarifies your thinking.
You can write down more than you can easily remember, so that your capacity to consider a number of ideas at the same time is broadened. Furthermore, once those ideas are written down, you can move them around and change them, word by word, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph. You can also reject ideas that appear substandard, after you consider them more carefully. If you reject substandard ideas, then all that you will have left will be good ideas. You can keep those, and use them. Then you will have good, original ideas at your fingertips, and you will be able to organize and communicate them.
Consider your success over the course of a lifetime. Here is something to think about: the person who can formulate and communicate the best argument almost always wins. If you want a job, you have to make a case for yourself. If you want a raise, you have to convince someone that you deserve it. If you are trying to convince someone of the validity of your idea, you have to debate its merits successfully, particularly if there are others with other competing ideas.
If you sharpen your capacity to think and to communicate as a consequence of writing, you are better armed. The pen is mightier than the sword, as the saying goes. This is no cheap cliché. Ideas change the world, particularly when they are written. The Romans built buildings, and the Romans and the buildings are both gone. The Jews wrote a book, and they are still here, and so is the book. So it turns out that words may well last longer than stone, and have more impact than whole empires.