Writing an academic essay means fashioning a coherent set of ideas into an argument. As it is a text about an idea, the essay must be a clear well-structured text and make clear for the reader what are the important points of it.
The focus of such an essay predicts its structure. It
dictates the information readers need to know and the order in which they need
to receive it. Despite of the existence of guidelines to construct certain kind of essays, there is not a set formula to suit all of them.
Answering Questions: The Parts of an Essay
A typical essay contains many different kinds of
information, often located in specialized parts or sections. Introductions and conclusions have fixed
places, but other parts don't. Counterargument, for example, may appear within
a paragraph, as part of the beginning, or before
the ending. Background material (historical context or biographical information, the definition of a key term) often
appears at the beginning of the essay, between the introduction and the first
analytical section, but might also appear near the beginning of the specific
section to which it's relevant.
To help yourself out you can ask to your essay these three following questions, if it can answer them, then your essay is correct, if not it could be seen as a simply observation of a fact.
"What?"
To answer this question you should give an evidence demostrating that your argument is true. Normally you should put this directly after the introduction. As you are writing about your observations, in this part is where you should write more, but be aware that this part should not occupy more than a third of your finished essay or it will lack balance.