Page 54 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

3 Planning an argument

A critical essay should not just express an opinion. It must
advance an argument.
Often you will have been offered by a title—or discovered in
your research—some crucial proposition on which you can
centre the entire structure of your essay, examining the
relevance and accuracy of that one claim. Your essay may
eventually come to a concluding sentence which says little more
than ‘Yes, I do agree’ or ‘No, I do not’. Which of these
destinations you choose to reach, though it should concern you,
may not matter much to your reader. The route, however,
certainly will.
Notice the sleeping metaphors of a journey in clauses like
‘advancing an argument’, ‘exploring an issue’, ‘arriving at a
judgement’. You should conduct your reader along a carefully
planned path. The route must take in all the most interesting
points and yet maintain an overall sense of direction. Good
essays make progress.
Sensible essay-writers, like all competent guides, are
properly equipped before they embark. They have clear
priorities, and have allocated the time available to the
different landmarks so that the more puzzling can be
adequately explained, and the most interesting sufficiently
explored. They have chosen the order in which these points
will be reached, and the linking passages which can best
connect them into a demonstrably logical itinerary. They also,
of course, know the conclusion to which they will finally lead
the reader; but they remember that to travel illuminatingly is
more important than to arrive.