how to write a graphic essay

Graphic Essays and Comics

Overview   |   Recommended Software   |   Student-Made Examples   |   Other Examples   |   Instructional Video

A graphic essay (sometimes called a visual essay) uses a combination of text and images to explore a specific topic. Graphic essays can look like comics, graphic novels, magazines, collages, artist books, textbooks, or even websites. Graphic essays often first take the form of written essays and then have graphic elements added to enrich the reader experience. Unlike infographics, which also combine text and images, graphic essays are often more text-based and usually have a narrative arc or specific reading order.

Comics are a genre used to express ideas through images combined with text or other visual information. Comics can take the form of a single panel or a series of juxtaposed panels of images, sometimes called a strip. Text is conveyed via captions below the panel(s), or speech bubbles and onomatopoeias within the panel(s), to indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. Graphic novels are often considered to be a longer form of comics, typically in book form.

A web-based graphic essay can take the form of a blog or a single page website, such as a Microsoft Sway page or an interactive Prezi. For Microsoft Sway and Prezi graphic essays, see the examples below. If you are creating a blog we recommend visiting the Web-Based Projects page .

Graphic Essay Design Tip: Graphic essays can take many forms, so we recommend being creative within the scope of your project! Get some help from DesignLab to brainstorm options and talk through the various tools available!

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Recommended Software

There are many different software programs that can be used to create graphic essays. Below is a list of the software that we recommend for making a graphic essay. We organized the software by category and put the software from top to bottom from best to worst. We recommend using a software you know well or learning the software well enough to establish an easy workflow, so you can spend less time troubleshooting and spend more time on your project. Check out our Software Support page for links to tutorials for all of these programs.

General Graphic Essay Software

Web-Based Graphic Essay Software

Comic-Specific Graphic Essay Software

Student-Made Examples

Print style graphic essay.

Becoming a Witness by Jessica Posnock

Creative Graphic Essay

Virtual Communication by Max Hautala   *Award Winning*

Curb Magazine (2012) by Journalism 417

Web-Based (Magazine) Graphic Essay

Curb Magazine (Current) by Journalism 417

Web-Based (Sway) Graphic Essay

Language Influences Culture, Thoughts, and Identity by Kristen Luckow   *Award Winning*

Dyslexia by Maria Swanke *Award Winning*

Other Examples

Web-based (blog) graphic essay.

Switch It Up: Graphic Essay by Amanda Zieba

Graphic Novel

Graphic Novels in the Classroom by Gene Yang

Instructional Video

Assigning a Graphic Essay as an Essay Alternative: 5 Sites to Use

One of my favorite ways to assess my students’ essay-writing skills without actually assigning a traditional essay is with the graphic essay . A graphic essay is an excellent essay alternative for the middle school ELA or high school English classroom.

A graphic essay is a graphic representation that contains all of the essential essay elements. It combines writing, visual elements, and design. When assigning a graphic essay, you can have students include any particular aspect from the essay that you want.

Getting Started

Once you know what you want to assess, start mapping out the student requirements. I’m pretty old-school when it comes to things and prefer to draft out my notes with paper and pencil. When I do this, I make a list of all of the elements that I want my students to include. For a recent project, I wanted them to include a variety of features: introduction, big ideas with supporting evidence, counter argument, quick facts, visual data representation, and a Works Cited page.

Work Before Design

Once you have your graphic essay outlined, it is time to assign it to the students. However, and I cannot stress this enough, you don’t want them to focus on the visual and graphic elements first. That is just a hot mess waiting to happen. You know how it will go. Some students will spend the entire class period deciding between a blue or green spot color design element. By the time the class period ends, they’ll have a lovely purple box on their graphic essay, but that will probably all they have accomplished—one box.

Instead, try this. Have your students work on a brainstorming organizer first. You’ll want them to brainstorm, write, and curate all of the content for the graphic essay before they start the design process. When I complete this project in my classroom, I have them draft everything, find all of the images they want to include, and submit that work for a grade before they even start the design process.

Students either love or hate the graphic design process of this alternative essay project, and that is to be expected. When we get to the design process of this project, I try to give my students several different options for creating the final project that matches different graphic design comfort levels. A few of my students usually want to use Adobe Photoshop and design everything from scratch, a few need extra guidance working in a Google Slide, and the majority are excited to try a new online platform. Please note, this is not an ad. These websites did not pay to be included in this post.

One thing that I cannot emphasize enough for this type of project is that I grade content and not design. Let me repeat that: I assess the content of the work and not the quality of the design.

Here’s a look at some of the different platforms I suggest my students use to create their graphic essay. This list is in order from easiest to most advanced.

1. Google Docs – Most students are already familiar with Google Docs. Using the draw tool, students can create images, place text, and color to their Google Docs. For my students who need the most assistance with the design process, I have them use my initial template (which I created using the draw tool in Google Docs) and a plug and play template.

2. Google Slides – Some students might prefer Google Slides over Google Docs because they might feel like they have more freedom. Using Google Slides, students can change the dimensions of each slide to 8.5×11 inches (or larger), and use the textbox tool, shape tool, and other design tools to create the graphic essay.

3. Canva.com – I love Canva because it provides students with different design templates and elements. While there is a paid version, I tell all of my students to use the free option. Using Canva, students can select a flier because that is preset to 8.5×11 inch dimensions. Once students are in Canva, there are a ton of free design tools. Students can choose from a variety of options, including preset text designs, frames, shapes, data (which is excellent for inserting bar graphs and pie charts), and pictures. Students can even upload their own images to the site as well!

4. Adobe Spark – Adobe Spark is another great online tool for students to create graphic essays and other multimedia presentations. Students can choose a custom size to create an 8.5×11 inch poster, and Adobe Spark also has premade text elements and templates to choose from.

5. Piktochart.com – Personally, I like Piktochart more for having students create infographics instead of graphic essays, but Piktochart still works. Students can the custom size or letter size to create their graphic. Piktochart has more advanced design features, and one unique design feature is that students can design their project in blocks. Similar to Canva and Adobe Spark, students can also upload their own images to their creation.

Graphic Essay Sampler

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Sharing the File

Once students finish creating their graphic essays, I like to have them upload their creations to one location so that all of my students can see the work that everyone created. My favorite site for this is Padlet. If you haven’t used Padlet before, it is like an online corkboard. Students can post their designs to your class’s board. Students can also comment on other students’ work if you want to add a gallery walk element to this project.

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CRAFT: Let’s Get Graphic: A Look at the Visual Essay by Nicole Breit

August 1, 2018.

If you’re keen to tell new kinds of stories – or old stories in new ways – consider these ten “visual” approaches to writing short-form memoir.

1. The Photo Essay

The art of the photo essay lies in the writer’s careful selection of images balanced with the inclusion of text. Will the photos drive the narrative, or will they fill in textual “gaps” to move the story forward? Vivek Shraya strikes an elegant balance of “showing” and “telling” in her compelling photo narrative, “ Trisha .”

2. The Concrete Essay

This form is the next evolution of concrete poetry (A.K.A. shape or pattern poems), reincarnated as CNF. Jennifer Wortman’s “ Worst-Case Scenario ” presents the story of her husband’s 35-feet fall into a gap while rock climbing, visually – via text shaped like the rocks he fell through.

3. The Illustrated Essay

There’s something so charming about a notebook doodle – perhaps because sketches convey the character of the artist in such an immediate way. I love the narrator’s personality as it comes through Randon Billings’ Noble’s drawings in “ Accidental Notes on the Syllabus .”

4. The Graphic Essay

Check out the masters of graphic memoir – Maggie McKnight , Riad Sattouf , Alison Bechdel , Marjane Satrapi, Kristen Radtke, Nicole Georges and Ellen Forney – and understand how powerful comics can be as a medium for personal storytelling.

5. The Paper Craft Essay

If you’re wondering what to do with your stockpile of scrapbooking supplies, look no further than Erica’s Trabold’s “ Swedish Rye Bread ”– an essay constructed as a collage of typed index cards, digital scans, the pages of a vintage cookbook, and scrapbooking paper.

6. The Quilted Essay

Quilting has a long history of embodying narrative in carefully chosen patterns, colours, and symbols. Learn more about textile-based narratives in Sarah Minor’s article “ What Quilting and Embroidery Can Teach Us about Narrative Form ” and by reading her visual essay, “ Log Cabin Quilt .”

7. The Schematic Essay

The Process of Becoming Informed is a found schematic essay  published by The Diagram and credited to Michael K. Buckland of Library Services in Theory and Context,  Pergamon Press, 1983. Where might you find a visual essay just waiting to be discovered?

8. The Graphic Hermit Crab

The hermit crab essay appropriates a found text – also known as a “false document” – as a “shell” to protect the vulnerable story it contains. The textual form’s logical progression is visual, in which a found graphic is adopted as the essay’s structure. J. Robert Lennon’s “ Turnabout: A Story Game ” is a graphic hermit crab essay that can be read starting at any point, proceeding in any direction.

9. The Video Essay

Video is a natural medium for personal narrative, and John Breslund is known as a pioneer of the visual essay form. This article includes a Q and A with Bresland and his collaborator, poet and essayist, Eula Biss, with links to some of their groundbreaking work including “Ode to Every Thing.”

10. The Interactive Essay

“Hypertext is spatial in every direction, truly nonsequential—nothing follows by necessity anything else in the essay” write Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola in Tell It Slant . Exemplary interactive hypertext CNF include Dinty W. Moore’s “ Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge: A Google Map Essay ,” Christine Wilks’ “ Fitting the Pattern ” and the work of Eric LeMay .

I hope this survey of the visual essay, in all its weird and wonderfully varied forms, inspires you to try a new approach to telling your stories. No matter your level of skill, experience, or talent with the visual arts, you can start including visuals in your work easily – and to great effect – incorporating images or multi-media collage.

Which visual essay format appeals to you the most? I’d love to hear which visual essays inspire your next project!

  2 comments for “ CRAFT: Let’s Get Graphic: A Look at the Visual Essay by Nicole Breit ”

• Pingback: CRAFT: Life Writing Tips— How Asking Questions Can Spark New Stories by Nicole Breit | Hippocampus Magazine - Memorable Creative Nonfiction
• Pingback: CRAFT: Visual CNF Forms- A Look at the Concrete Essay by Nicole Breit | Hippocampus Magazine - Memorable Creative Nonfiction

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ELA Brave and True by Marilyn Yung

Teach Theme with Graphic Essays: The Old Man and the Sea

Here’s how I’ve used graphic essays and what I’ll tweak for next time.

My junior English classes recently read the short story, “In Another Country” by Ernest Hemingway as a follow-up to reading “The Old Man and the Sea.” Because they had just completed a traditional written thematic analysis of the novel, I opted to have them produce a graphic essay instead focused again on a theme revealed in the text.

I’ve assigned graphic essays before at my last school where I asked my eighth-graders to create these at the conclusion of a study of Frederick Douglass’ narrative. Click here for a post about that graphic essay assignment. It was a successful project; however, since it was the first time I had tackled the graphic essay, it left room for improvement. And by the way, that need for improvement always happens, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a new assignment or a tried-and-true one, I always discover things I want to “fix” for next time.

And, of course, our “In Another Country” graphic essays followed that trusty pattern.

Regardless, I’ve decided to write this post about this project based on a short story I wasn’t even sure I wanted to approach with students. In my view, there are other more interesting pieces by Hemingway (think “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” but now in retrospect, I am SO GLAD I plowed ahead and experienced “In Another Country” with my students because this story is rich with themes and historical context and it paves the way for good discussions about World War I (and by extension World War II), the Lost Generation, the birth of modernism, and even more specifically the influence of avant garde art on writers.

To culminate our reading of “In Another Country,” the graphic essay project was intended to:

• offer my students a break from traditional essay writing;
• help them discuss theme with evidence and their own commentary;
• allow students to discuss symbolism; and
• allow students to get creative and apply their artistic skills.

I found the graphic essay idea a little over a year ago in a post by teacher and author Buffy Hamilton at her blog,  Living in the Layers.  Hamilton’s post references projects created by students at North Atlanta High School, including the graphic essay project created by teacher Casey Christenson. Her students created graphic essays based around Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond .

Last year, I modified my Frederick Douglass graphic essay project to conform itself to a shorter work. Douglass’ narrative runs 175 pages or so depending on the edition you read, and can support a more extensive graphic essay. “In Another Country” is quite short. It covered four pages in our Glencoe Literature textbook.

The only change I did make, however, was to have students use one piece of textual evidence to support their chosen theme instead of three. I like this modification; it compels students to find the absolute best passage from the story instead.

I also allowed students to look outside the story for their symbols, which were to symbolize in some way their chosen theme. This is one detail of the project I may modify next time, but the jury is still out on that one. In short, due to the brevity of the story, there really aren’t that many possibilities for symbols used within the text; however, maybe I need to read the story more closely with that precise need in mind for the next time I plan for this project.

Even so, for this graphic essay, I did scaffold the theme identification process and provided five specific themes from the story that students could explore.

Here are the five specific themes:

• dislocation/being a foreigner
• the technology dilemma (For example, technological progress can both help and harm mankind; the machines of war can be destructive (as in weapons and artillery) but they can also heal (as in the physical therapy “machines” in the story).

Maybe I made this project too easy by providing students with predetermined themes. After all, in our recent essays written for “The Old Man and the Sea,” we read articles that addressed specific themes in that novel. Those articles (here’s my post about those five articles) assisted students in identifying themes within the book to write about. It will be interesting to see how well students are able to notice and discuss themes next year when I have them as seniors. Perhaps at that time I’ll have them recall these two thematic essay projects to jog their memories.

Anyway, I provided them with these five choices for themes and then let them run with it, following the guidelines provided on a printed handout. Here’s a screenshot of the assignment sheet. Here’s a link to the Google doc of this handout.

This project took my students two to three work sessions of thirty to forty minutes each.

I assigned this project on a Friday with about twenty minutes of work time available and scheduled it to be due at the end of class the following Tuesday. After vocabulary bell work and a mini-lesson, students had about thirty to forty minutes on Monday and Tuesday. Looking back on it, two and half class periods were just about right. Most students were able to finish without needing time outside of class; some were finished by the beginning of class Tuesday, which fortunately just happened to be our last day of school before closing for COVID-19.

Overall, I’m satisfied with this project.

Am I happy with the final products? Mostly.

Many of my students are more concerned with getting the project finished quickly, and so could have spent more time on their graphic essays.

Here’s what I would change for next time:

• Have students spend more time developing thesis statements. I provided an example on the sheet as a guide, but many students basically copied it, swapping out the theme provided for theirs, if needed.
• Stipulate that symbols need to be objects and not illustrations. For example, a stick figure drawing is an illustration, not a symbol. I might need to explain the difference: a symbol represents something; an illustration shows something.
• Call for students to add a sentence or two near their symbols that explains the symbol and how it represents the theme discussed.
• Require color and lots of it. While this isn’t an art project, I would still like them to create an interesting, eye-catching layout.
• Require that handwriting be done in pen, i.e. no pencil.

Without further ado, here are the rest of the graphic essays I’ve chosen to include in this post. I’ve included two photos for each of the five themes discussed. These graphic essays below tended to be a representative sample of the quality of work my juniors turned in. See the captions for more thoughts.

Thanks for reading! I haven’t seen students since the day these projects were turned in and, as of the latest, we will be out of school until Tuesday, April 28. This project will seem so far in the past at that time that I doubt if many constructive comments will arise. But that’s one of the downsides of distance learning and the passage of time.

Regardless, have you tried graphic essays with your students let me know of your experience. and follow my blog for a future post about my lack of success — so far, anyway — with the popular one-pager., share this:.

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Published by Marilyn Yung

Writes | Teaches | Not sure where one ends and the other begins. View more posts

3 thoughts on “ Teach Theme with Graphic Essays: The Old Man and the Sea ”

• Pingback: How to make student writing more specific – ELA Brave and True by Marilyn Yung

Extremely interesting. Thank you for giving such an informative blog.

You are welcome! Thanks for reading!

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Exploring the Picture Essay: Tips, Best Practices, and Examples

April 18, 2023

Words by Jeff Cardello

A picture essay lets you harness the power of images to tell stories, evoke emotions, and convey a sense of place, time, and perspective.

Picture essays drop viewers right into the action, letting them see things through the camera’s lens, offering insights and understanding that isn’t possible through words alone. From static pages of photos, to carousels and animated articles, photo essays come in many forms. With no-code tools like Vev , it’s now easier than ever for journalists, designers, and publishers to create immersive, visually-led digital content to make their stories stand out from the crowd. Here’s everything you need to know about crafting stunning picture essays — from techniques and best practices through to world-class examples.

What is a Picture Essay?

Picture essays, also known as photo essays, are a form of visual storytelling . They are composed of a series of photos which together form a narrative or communicate information or ideas. They can have a clear beginning, middle, and end, but aren’t necessarily bound to linear narratives. Whether used for a chronological story or capturing a moment in time, all of the photos share a common theme that connects them.

Photo essays are often accompanied by text, providing context or conveying additional details. This can range from the most basic information such as titles, dates, or locations, or a caption helping to narrate the visual story. Some picture essays may rely solely on the imagery, while others may include more text to create a scrollytelling piece of content, with text even overlaid on the photos. The key to a picture essay is that the driver and focus is the visuals.

The Origins of the Picture Essay

Photography emerged as a documentary form at the beginning of the 20th century. Many cite Lewis Hine and the work he did between 1911 and 1916 in bringing attention to the harsh realities of child labor in the United States as one of the earliest examples of the picture essay. In 1948, the photographer W. Eugene Smith published a picture essay titled “Country Doctor” following a physician in rural Colorado and showing his work with the patients as well as what he did in his downtime. This is another notable example that elevated picture-taking into a journalistic art form.

Lewis Hine’s photos captured the hardships of children in the workplace and were instrumental in changing American labor laws.

Picture essays have remained an important part of journalism, having kept pace from its black-and-white beginnings to the high-resolution full-color images of today’s digital media.

Design Techniques for the Perfect Picture Essay

Scrollytelling images.

Scrollytelling images smoothly fade from one photo to the next as someone moves through a website, often with overlaid text to help describe what is happening in the images. This a subtle, yet effective way to break up content, and makes sure that each photo captures the attention of those scrolling.

Scroll Speed

Scroll speed is an effect that controls how reactive elements are to scrolling. Varying how reactive elements are to scrolling gives them a sense of distinction, rather than having them all lumped together in one long block. For example, a lower setting like 10% will make a photo move slower than one that’s set at 90%. This technique creates a scroll animation that keeps readers engaged in the picture essay. 

Scroll Progress Bars

A website full of photos often presents a lengthy amount of content for visitors to navigate through, especially if it’s a single page. Scroll progress bars , often tucked into the top of the screen, show visitors where they’re at and urge them to keep scrolling to the end.

Image Comparison Slider

When you want to display photos that show the before and after of something, an image comparison slider makes it possible to communicate changes through a single interactive image.

Clickable Image Hotspots

Photo essays rely on images to tell much of their stories, but text also provides context and additional information, clickable hotspots, also known as labeled images , maximize screen space and give visitors control in revealing details.

Image Carousels

Image carousels let visitors click, scroll, or drag through a series of images and are generally navigated horizontally, but may take other forms.

Best Practices for Picture Essay Design

• Know the story you want to tell: Identify the main points you want to visually communicate. Photo essays can tell a linear story but also be used to convey a sense of atmosphere or feeling. 
• Use different types of shots: Photographs can become monotonous when they’re all the same. Mix up things with different angles, close-up shots, different compositions, and other variations to keep your picture essays interesting.
• Choose only the best images: Photos shouldn’t only look good, but be relevant to the story you’re telling. 
• Know your audience: Keep in mind the target demographic the photo essay is intended for and make sure the style and tone are in line with who they are. 
• Keep things moving: Utilize scroll-triggered transitions, animations, and other points of interactivity to guide visitors through and keep their attention.

10 Aspirational Picture Essay Examples

From egmont to taranaki.

From Egmont to Taranaki is a picture essay built with Vev that’s both a personal story and a history lesson. It recounts the author John Campbell’s travels through the New Zealand countryside with a terminally ill friend while also delving into the painful past of how the indigenous Maori became dispossessed of these very spaces. Much like the twists and turns of the road, this photo essay bounces back between John’s memories and the history of this land.

Along with photos showing the beautiful green landscape and delightfully greasy food that John enjoyed with his friend during their travels, there are also animated effects. Fade-ins, text scrolling over fixed images, and parallax break the content up and keep up your momentum as you move through it.

Food for Thought

From sheep grazing on the rocky hillsides of Kyrgyzstan to fishermen casting their nets into the blue waters off of Indonesia, Food for Thought depicts where food comes from across the globe. The photos are big and brilliant, capturing the people tasked with the hard work of food production, the geography, as well as the animals and crops they are responsible for.

Each section uses a fixed image parallax scrolling effect that functions as a sliding window drawing the next image into place. There’s also a great use of hot spots, represented by circular icons that visitors can click on in learning more.

With its handsome metallic luster and Art Deco geometry, Bialetti’s pots help so many start their days with an easy way to brew cups of dark and delicious coffee.

They have a long and interesting history that can be traced back to 1933 when Italian engineer Alfonso Bialetti introduced its stovetop coffee maker. Bialetti tells its story through images showing where Alfonso drew his inspiration, product photos, and advertisements over the years. Along with a comprehensive timeline of visuals, you’ll also find plenty of motion in the form of parallax scrolling, animations, and other dynamic visuals. The scroll progress bar at the top is also a nice touch, showing people where they are in this one-page design.

Witnesses to History Keepers of Memory

Witnesses to History Keepers of Memory is an interactive photo essay put together by the Montreal Holocaust Museum. Pictured are Holocaust survivors along with the items they still have that accompanied them through detainment.

The main gallery of photos has much in terms of interactivity with hover-triggered animations, and a previous and next button letting you flip through them. The cursor turns into an eye icon, and clicking through on any of the photos brings you to a new screen that tells the story of the person pictured.

Seeing these people today, along with these personal items is a strong reminder that this terrible period of history wasn’t that long ago, and shows the strength and resilience of those who went through it.

Hakai Autonomous Ocean

Gliders are submersible robots used by scientists to explore what’s beneath the ocean and to gather data. They’re a relatively new technology, free from propellers, which harness ocean currents to move them through the water. The Autonomous Ocean begins with video footage of the sea rushing by and text telling how one of these $150,000 robots was experiencing trouble. It’s a dramatic opening that makes you want to keep reading to find out what happened.

Built with Vev, this single-page website is full of photographs showing oceanic gliders in action and how scientists use them. Scrollytelling images provide smooth transitions fading from one photo to the next, with accompanying text moving over them. This design also features a clever image comparison slider, displaying both the internal and external features of this submersible.

Moma Strange Brew

Viewed at a distance, John Klines’ art installation entitled Skittles looks like a refrigerator of fancy juices that you might find at any upscale grocer. The labels affixed to these juices reveal that inside these bottles are ingredients like yoga mat, fake plant, and shopping bag. All that looks delicious and nutritious from afar is something far grosser, making this art piece a funny and satirical take on consumerism.

This photo essay shows the steps involved in creating this piece, moving you through each stage of how this humorous and thought-provoking art piece came to be.

Picture essays are a documentary form of visual storytelling , and non-profits use them to bring attention to the problems of the world, and what they're doing to help solve them.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, more commonly known as UNICEF, is committed to the rights and health of children. This picture essay , featuring work by photographer Jan Grarup, covers UNICEF’s Denmark warehouse, where medicines and other essential goods are stored, and the people in countries like Haiti, Lebanon, and Uganda that these items reach.

Photos show shelves full of supplies, the places they’re sent out to, and the hospitals where they’re so desperately needed. You see the hardships that people face, and how UNICEF’s work helps improve their lives. It’s a breathtaking piece of photojournalism showing why their humanitarian work is so important.

The Guardian 

Slippery slope? Alpine tourism in the face of climate crisis covers climate change and how it impacts the Alps. This photo essay not only shows scenes of winter tourism, but what the Alps are like year-round. This gives an in-depth look at the interrelationships between the people, landscape, and ecosystem and the cascade of effects that global warming causes. 

Because this photo essay focuses on two very different times of the year, you’ll find several image comparison sliders showing what the Alps look like in the winter, and what they look like after the snow melts. Image comparison sliders work perfectly comparing different times of the year, and maximizing screen space.

The Naija Story

Since Nigeria declared its independence from Britain in October of 1960, they have had both turmoil and triumphs. Naija Story communicates Nigeria’s history, bringing visitors to who they are as a country today.

This design is divided into sections covering topics like politics, technology, and entertainment. Photo essays are an effective medium for history, and Naija Story uses them to highlight the events that have shaped Nigeria in these individual sections.

Along with photos, there are scroll-triggered animations that shift the visuals and text into place, as well as lines that connect all of these events making them simple to follow. There’s so much to learn about Nigeria, and it’s all conveyed in an artistic, yet easy-to-understand way.

Ukrainian Ballerina Uprooted by War Flies High Again

Ending our exploration of picture essays is this piece from Reuters, which tells the story of ballet dancer Ganna Muromtseva who fled from war-torn Ukraine, and whose journey brought her to the Hungary State Opera where she got to be a part of their performance of Swan Lake. With a well-balanced mix of writing and photos that show her life both on the stage and off, visitors get a personal look into her life.

Along with candid photography, there’s also a nice sense of interactivity. As visitors scroll text moves over the photos, giving context. There are also fade-ins as one moves from one image to the next, which also adds dynamics to the visuals.

Create Stunning Picture Essays in Vev

If you have a story you’d like to tell through photos, Vev offers a multitude of creative possibilities to bring it to life. With image comparison sliders, carousels, scroll animations, and other pre-built elements, we make it possible to create visually captivating editorial content just as you imagined it — without needing to write a line of code. When your design is ready, publish it to any existing website through Vev or embed your Vev project into your existing CMS.

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Essay Papers Writing Online

Mastering the art of essay writing – a comprehensive guide.

Essay writing is a fundamental skill that every student needs to master. Whether you’re in high school, college, or beyond, the ability to write a strong, coherent essay is essential for academic success. However, many students find the process of writing an essay daunting and overwhelming.

This comprehensive guide is here to help you navigate the intricate world of essay writing. From understanding the basics of essay structure to mastering the art of crafting a compelling thesis statement, we’ve got you covered. By the end of this guide, you’ll have the tools and knowledge you need to write an outstanding essay that will impress your teachers and classmates alike.

So, grab your pen and paper (or fire up your laptop) and let’s dive into the ultimate guide to writing an essay. Follow our tips and tricks, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a skilled and confident essay writer!

The Art of Essay Writing: A Comprehensive Guide

Essay writing is a skill that requires practice, patience, and attention to detail. Whether you’re a student working on an assignment or a professional writing for publication, mastering the art of essay writing can help you communicate your ideas effectively and persuasively.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the key elements of a successful essay, including how to choose a topic, structure your essay, and craft a compelling thesis statement. We’ll also discuss the importance of research, editing, and proofreading, and provide tips for improving your writing style and grammar.

By following the advice in this guide, you can become a more confident and skilled essay writer, capable of producing high-quality, engaging essays that will impress your readers and achieve your goals.

Understanding the Essay Structure

When it comes to writing an essay, understanding the structure is key to producing a cohesive and well-organized piece of writing. An essay typically consists of three main parts: an introduction, the body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Introduction: The introduction is where you introduce your topic and provide some background information. It should also include your thesis statement, which is the main idea or argument that you will be discussing in the essay.

Body paragraphs: The body of the essay is where you present your supporting evidence and arguments. Each paragraph should focus on a separate point and include evidence to back up your claims. Remember to use transition words to link your ideas together cohesively.

Conclusion: The conclusion is where you wrap up your essay by summarizing your main points and restating your thesis. It is also a good place to make any final thoughts or reflections on the topic.

Understanding the structure of an essay will help you write more effectively and communicate your ideas clearly to your readers.

Choosing the Right Topic for Your Essay

One of the most crucial steps in writing a successful essay is selecting the right topic. The topic you choose will determine the direction and focus of your writing, so it’s important to choose wisely. Here are some tips to help you select the perfect topic for your essay:

By following these tips and considering your interests, audience, and research, you can choose a topic that will inspire you to write an engaging and compelling essay.

Research and Gathering Information

When writing an essay, conducting thorough research and gathering relevant information is crucial. Here are some tips to help you with your research:

Crafting a Compelling Thesis Statement

When writing an essay, one of the most crucial elements is the thesis statement. This statement serves as the main point of your essay, summarizing the argument or position you will be taking. Crafting a compelling thesis statement is essential for a strong and cohesive essay. Here are some tips to help you create an effective thesis statement:

• Be specific: Your thesis statement should clearly state the main idea of your essay. Avoid vague or general statements.
• Make it arguable: A strong thesis statement is debatable and presents a clear position that can be supported with evidence.
• Avoid clichés: Stay away from overused phrases or clichés in your thesis statement. Instead, strive for originality and clarity.
• Keep it concise: Your thesis statement should be concise and to the point. Avoid unnecessary words or phrases.
• Take a stand: Your thesis statement should express a clear stance on the topic. Don’t be afraid to assert your position.

By following these guidelines, you can craft a compelling thesis statement that sets the tone for your essay and guides your reader through your argument.

Writing the Body of Your Essay

Once you have your introduction in place, it’s time to dive into the body of your essay. The body paragraphs are where you will present your main arguments or points to support your thesis statement.

Here are some tips for writing the body of your essay:

• Stick to One Main Idea: Each paragraph should focus on one main idea or argument. This will help keep your essay organized and easy to follow.
• Use Topic Sentences: Start each paragraph with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea of the paragraph.
• Provide Evidence: Support your main points with evidence such as facts, statistics, examples, or quotes from experts.
• Explain Your Points: Don’t just state your points; also explain how they support your thesis and why they are important.
• Use Transition Words: Use transition words and phrases to connect your ideas and create a smooth flow between paragraphs.

Remember to refer back to your thesis statement and make sure that each paragraph contributes to your overall argument. The body of your essay is where you can really showcase your critical thinking and analytical skills, so take the time to craft well-developed and coherent paragraphs.

Perfecting Your Essay with Editing and Proofreading

Editing and proofreading are essential steps in the essay writing process to ensure your work is polished and error-free. Here are some tips to help you perfect your essay:

• Take a Break: After writing your essay, take a break before starting the editing process. This will help you look at your work with fresh eyes.
• Focus on Structure: Check the overall structure of your essay, including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Make sure your ideas flow logically and cohesively.
• Check for Clarity: Ensure that your arguments are clear and easy to follow. Eliminate any jargon or confusing language that might obscure your message.
• Grammar and Punctuation: Review your essay for grammar and punctuation errors. Pay attention to subject-verb agreement, verb tense consistency, and proper punctuation usage.
• Use a Spell Checker: Run a spell check on your essay to catch any spelling mistakes. However, don’t rely solely on spell checkers as they may miss certain errors.
• Read Aloud: Read your essay aloud to yourself or have someone else read it to you. This can help you identify awkward phrasing or unclear sentences.
• Get Feedback: Consider getting feedback from a peer, teacher, or writing tutor. They can offer valuable insights and suggestions for improving your essay.

By following these editing and proofreading tips, you can ensure that your essay is well-crafted, organized, and free of errors, helping you make a strong impression on your readers.

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Using Graphic Organizers for Writing Essays, Summaries and Research

Ask any student – essay writing is one of the most despised tasks of their educational career. Perhaps there is so much displeasure associated with the task because it’s perceived as too linear – there isn’t enough visual and creative appeal. But if you use graphic organizer for writing essays then you can make writing enjoyable – or at least less terrible.

Not only enjoyable but graphic organizers (or diagrams) can make the writing process a snap. They’ll help you think outside the box, draw conclusions you wouldn’t normally observe, and make the entire process faster and more efficient.

Why Use Graphic Organizers for Writing

The phrase “graphic organizer” is just a fancy way of saying “diagram” or “visual aid.” Basically, they are a visual representation of the information you’ve acquired in the research process. There are quite a few reasons why you should use them when writing essays or summaries.

• Helps you visualize your research and how elements connect with each other
• Enhance your essays, summaries and research papers with visual elements
• Track correlations between your thoughts, observations, facts or general ideas

When it comes to essay writing, the most common graphic organizers are webs, mind maps, and concept maps .

Using Webs for Brainstorming

Webbing is a great way to see how various topics are interrelated. This graphic organizer is particularly useful during the brainstorming step of the writing process.

A web can sometimes get a bit messy. Usually, there are lots of arrows to connect overlapping ideas. However, even with lines crisscrossing every which way, it is still a great way to visualize your thoughts. If you’re using an online diagramming software like Creately you can overcome some of this because we automatically arrange the object for you.

Once you’ve created a map to document all your ideas and establish connections, you can easily transition to other forms of diagramming to better organize the information.

For example if you’re writing a research paper about the food web of the Australian bushes you can start creating a food web diagram similar to the one below. This way you can easily visualize the web while writing the paper. This is a simple example but graphic organizers become even more important when the subject gets complex.

Although simple this example shows the importance of using graphic organizers for writing summaries. A comprehensive diagram pretty much does the summation for you.

Using Mind Maps as Graphic Organizers

Mind maps are a great way to depict a hierarchy. What is hierarchical organization ? The concept is simple: a singular topic dominates with each subsequent idea decreasing in importance.

Usually, the mind map starts with the thesis (or main idea) at the center.  From there, you can branch out with your supporting evidence.

Use this process to replace your traditional note taking technique – note cards, outlines, whatever. You’ll quickly realize a mind map is a great way to formulate the structure of your essay. The thing to note here is that the nature of the mind maps force you think about sub topics and how to organize your ideas. And once the ideas are organized writing the essay become very easy.

Above is a mind map of a research proposal. Click on it to see the full image or you can see the fully editable template via this link . As you can see in this mind map the difference areas of the research proposal is highlighted. Similarly when your writing the research paper you can use a mind map to break it down to sub topics. We have more mind map templates for you to get started.

Concept Maps

A concept map will help you visualize the connection between ideas. You can easily see cause and effect – how one concept leads to another. Often times, concept mapping includes the use of short words or phrases to depict the budding relationship between these concepts.

If you look closely you can see that its very similar to a mind map. But a concept maps gives more of a free reign compares to the rigid topic structure of a mind map. I’d say it’s the perfect graphic organizer for writing research papers where you have the license to explore.

By creating a concept map , you can also see how a broad subject can be narrowed down into specific ideas.  This is a great way to counter writers block.  Often, we look at the big picture and fail to see the specifics that lead to it.  Identifying contributing factors and supporting evidence is difficult. But with a concept map, you can easily see how the smaller parts add up to the whole.

Why Bother With Graphic Organizers?

If you already detest the writing process, adding another step might seem insane. However, there really are several advantages of using them.  If you haven’t already accepted the benefits of each individual diagram style, here are some more perks of graphic organizers in general:

• Quality essays are based on detail. No one is going to accept your opinions and reasoning just because you say so. You’ll need proof. And organizing that proof will require attention to detail. Graphic organizers can help you see that detail and how it contributes to the overall concept.
• Graphic organizers are flexible. You don’t need one of those giant pink erasers. You don’t need to restructure your outline. All you have to do is draw a few arrows and bam – the relationship has totally changed.
• No matter what you are writing about, a graphic organizer can help. They can be used to structure an essay on the Great Wall, theoretical physics, or Spanish speaking countries.
• If you write an outline, can you easily see how point A influences point X? Probably not. But if little thought bubble A is sitting out there all by itself, you can visualize the way it ties into point R, T and X.
• Some of us find it difficult to put our opinions, thoughts, and ideas into writing. However, communicating our feelings with little doodles and sketches is far less threatening.
• As a writer, our brain often feels like a 2-year-old’s toy box – a big jumbled mess. Taking that mess and putting it onto paper with some semblance of organization is challenging. Rather than trying to take your thoughts from total chaos to a perfectly structured list, just try to get them out of your brain and onto paper in the form of a diagram.
• A graphic organizer helps you establish validity and relevance. You can easily nix the ideas that don’t support or enhance your thesis.

The next time you are faced with a writing project, take a few minutes to explore the efficiency of graphic organizers. You can find a wealth of templates here.

Have you ever used a graphic organizer to structure an essay? How did it go? Do you have a diagram suggestion for the writing process that wasn’t mentioned here? Let us know!

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Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

College admissions essays are an important part of your college application and gives you the chance to show colleges and universities your character and experiences. This guide will give you tips to write an effective college essay.

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Brainstorming tips for your college essay

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Student Story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

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Student Story: Admissions essay about personal identity

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Student Story: Admissions essay about community impact

Student story: admissions essay about a past mistake, how to write a college application essay, tips for writing an effective application essay, sample college essay 1 with feedback, sample college essay 2 with feedback.

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About this Interactive

Related resources.

Expository writing is an increasingly important skill for elementary, middle, and high school students to master. This interactive graphic organizer helps students develop an outline that includes an introductory statement, main ideas they want to discuss or describe, supporting details, and a conclusion that summarizes the main ideas. The tool offers multiple ways to navigate information including a graphic in the upper right-hand corner that allows students to move around the map without having to work in a linear fashion. The finished map can be saved, e-mailed, or printed.

• Student Interactives
• Strategy Guides
• Lesson Plans
• Calendar Activities

The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.

This Strategy Guide describes the processes involved in composing and producing audio files that are published online as podcasts.

This strategy guide explains the writing process and offers practical methods for applying it in your classroom to help students become proficient writers.

This strategy guide clarifies the difference between persuasion and argumentation, stressing the connection between close reading of text to gather evidence and formation of a strong argumentative claim about text.

Students will identify how Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of nonviolent conflict-resolution is reinterpreted in modern texts. Homework is differentiated to prompt discussion on how nonviolence is portrayed through characterization and conflict. Students will be formally assessed on a thesis essay that addresses the Six Kingian Principles of Nonviolence.

Students develop their reading, writing, research, and technology skills using graphic novels. As a final activity, students create their own graphic novels using comic software.

Students are encouraged to understand a book that the teacher reads aloud to create a new ending for it using the writing process.

While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.

Students analyze rhetorical strategies in online editorials, building knowledge of strategies and awareness of local and national issues. This lesson teaches students connections between subject, writer, and audience and how rhetorical strategies are used in everyday writing.

It's not easy surviving fourth grade (or third or fifth)! In this lesson, students brainstorm survival tips for future fourth graders and incorporate those tips into an essay.

Students explore the nature and structure of expository texts that focus on cause and effect and apply what they learned using graphic organizers and writing paragraphs to outline cause-and-effect relationships.

Students prepare an already published scholarly article for presentation, with an emphasis on identification of the author's thesis and argument structure.

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• Kindergarten K

How to Use Graphic Organizers to Write Better Essays

Lucid Content

Reading time: about 6 min

If you’re a student, there’s no way around the inevitable: You’re going to have to write essays. Lots of essays. In fact, the five-paragraph essay is so fundamental to the high school curriculum that it’s still used on the ACTs, and knowing how to recognize the organizational structure of essays will help you score higher on the SATs.

Even though it seems like a chore, knowing how to organize and write an essay can have a lasting effect on your life, from getting into a better college to scoring a better job to performing better in that job long after your high school days are over.

Here’s a secret: Using graphic organizers for writing essays can help you write better essays faster. (And don’t count yourself out if you’re an educator—you can offer these tools to help your students succeed.) We’ll show you exactly how to do it.

Why use graphic organizers

When ACT graders or teachers are looking your essay, they’re looking for very specific criteria; essentially, they’re looking at how well you’ve organized your thoughts. Many students don’t take the time to outline their essay structure before writing, and that always means a lower score on a test and a lower grade on the essay in class.

Using a writing template can feel like an unnecessary step in an already complicated process. If you need extra motivation to implement these organizers into your writing routine, consider all of their benefits. Graphic organizers can help you:

• Save time by showing you where each piece of the essay “lives.”
• Have more productive brainstorming sessions, either by yourself or with a group.
• Make connections between ideas and create a more cohesive argument.
• Pinpoint holes in your arguments and either adjust the thesis or find supporting statements.
• Keep track of your research.
• Organize your thoughts and come to interesting, more compelling conclusions.
• Stay in the right direction when you feel lost in a sea of words.
• Manage anxiety by converting the fear of a blank assignment into an action plan with a clear map.

With all those benefits, it’s hard to ignore how useful and vital graphic organizers are to writing. And once you’ve become adept at organizing your thoughts for something like a school essay, you’ll find that skill carries with you throughout your life, whether you’re trying to become a more intelligent debater to negotiate prices. It goes beyond just the essay to becoming a better thinker. And it starts with a simple template.

We’ll walk you through several use cases for graphic organizers and provide templates for you to download and fill in when you’re ready to write.

Brainstorming graphic organizers

Brainstorming is important, not only to come up with ideas for topics but to determine what information you need to include in the essay once you’ve determined your topic. Though many think of brainstorming as just freeflow thinking, brainstorming is most productive when you work within specific parameters.

That’s why essay brainstorming graphic organizers are useful, whether you’re using one to brainstorm on your own or you’re working with a group.

In Lucidchart, our mind map shapes and templates double as brainstorming graphic organizers. Start with an essay prompt as your central shape and then fill in the shapes that branch off your prompt with topic ideas. Alternatively, you can add your selected topic to the center and start brainstorming the different ideas you need to cover in your paper.

When the template is filled in, you’ll have a clear starting point for your essay or research paper.

Research paper graphic organizers

Nothing paralyzes students with fear quite like a research paper. These long-form papers require—as the name implies—quite a bit of research, and their purpose is to teach students how to look for valid sources to support their arguments.

But keeping track of all those sources and tying them into your argument can be tricky. That’s where a research paper graphic organizer can be a student’s greatest ally.

This template lays out the writing process itself. After you come up with a general topic, like “the disappearance of honey bees,” fill in the “Research Paper Topic” box.

Then, start looking for reputable sources (Wikipedia doesn’t count) and use the five sources boxes to hold the most relevant quotes and statistics you find. Using those quotes and statistics, you can then fill out a thesis statement that is supported by the research.

Then, you’ll be able to focus your paragraphs on a single topic each that supports the thesis statement and your overarching argument. After you’ve filled out the template, the backbone of the research paper is complete: All that’s left to do is fill in the spaces between sources and arguments.

5-paragraph essay graphic organizer

When it comes to writing the five-paragraph essay, writing diagrams are key. By using graphic organizers for writing, you’re no longer staring at a giant blank piece of paper with no idea how or where to begin. Your graphic organizer is your map.

Although using writing diagrams may seem time-consuming, the fact is that taking the time to fill a graphic organizer in before writing actually saves time. If there’s a problem with the argument, it will show up on the diagram, or if there’s not enough evidence to support your argument, you’ll know before you’ve wasted time writing the paper. And, as we said before, even if your writing is terrible, if your argument is sound, you’ll still score a decent grade.

Try this 5-paragraph essay template to get you started.

Don’t feel pressured to come up with a compelling title right away. Instead, it’s more important that you come up with a thesis statement that can be supported by three solid arguments. Fill in that thesis statement and your arguments. Then, for each argument, figure out three supporting details to support your case.

That’s it! You’ve got the most essential parts of your 5-paragraph essay completed.

Now, come up with an introduction that sets the stage for your argument and a conclusion that wraps up and restates your thesis and supporting arguments in a compelling way. Now you have a solid plan for your paper and can approach it with confidence.

If you’d like a more linear graphic that exactly follows the structure of the 5-paragraph, use the writing template below and follow the same process.

Visuals, such as graphic organizers for writing, can help you better understand concepts, think creatively, and collaborate with your classmates—and there are plenty of other templates where these came from.

Lucidchart offers hundreds of templates to help you through your studies, including timelines, Venn diagrams, word maps, and more. Sign up for Lucidchart and upgrade to an Educational account for free.

Resources for teachers

Providing graphic resources to students is essential; after all, many of your students will be visual learners, so while you may beautifully explain how the process works, there will be some who won’t understand until they see a template of the essay itself.

Lucidchart has many resources for teachers, from lesson plans to writing templates. While you’re teaching your students how to write essays or research papers, it’s useful to print out the templates and fill them out together (even using a completed template as a separate assignment with a separate grade) so that your students can get a feel for properly filling out graphic organizers before attempting it on their own.

About Lucidchart

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay | Steps & Examples

An academic essay is a focused piece of writing that develops an idea or argument using evidence, analysis, and interpretation.

There are many types of essays you might write as a student. The content and length of an essay depends on your level, subject of study, and course requirements. However, most essays at university level are argumentative — they aim to persuade the reader of a particular position or perspective on a topic.

The essay writing process consists of three main stages:

• Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline.
• Writing : Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion.
• Revision:  Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

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Table of contents

Essay writing process, preparation for writing an essay, writing the introduction, writing the main body, writing the conclusion, essay checklist, lecture slides, frequently asked questions about writing an essay.

The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay .

For example, if you’ve been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you’ll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay , on the other hand, you’ll need to spend more time researching your topic and developing an original argument before you start writing.

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Before you start writing, you should make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. There are a few key steps you can follow to make sure you’re prepared:

• Understand your assignment: What is the goal of this essay? What is the length and deadline of the assignment? Is there anything you need to clarify with your teacher or professor?
• Define a topic: If you’re allowed to choose your own topic , try to pick something that you already know a bit about and that will hold your interest.
• Do your research: Read  primary and secondary sources and take notes to help you work out your position and angle on the topic. You’ll use these as evidence for your points.
• Come up with a thesis:  The thesis is the central point or argument that you want to make. A clear thesis is essential for a focused essay—you should keep referring back to it as you write.
• Create an outline: Map out the rough structure of your essay in an outline . This makes it easier to start writing and keeps you on track as you go.

Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to discuss, in what order, and what evidence you’ll use, you’re ready to start writing.

The introduction sets the tone for your essay. It should grab the reader’s interest and inform them of what to expect. The introduction generally comprises 10–20% of the text.

1. Hook your reader

The first sentence of the introduction should pique your reader’s interest and curiosity. This sentence is sometimes called the hook. It might be an intriguing question, a surprising fact, or a bold statement emphasizing the relevance of the topic.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay about the development of Braille (the raised-dot reading and writing system used by visually impaired people). Our hook can make a strong statement about the topic:

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

2. Provide background on your topic

Next, it’s important to give context that will help your reader understand your argument. This might involve providing background information, giving an overview of important academic work or debates on the topic, and explaining difficult terms. Don’t provide too much detail in the introduction—you can elaborate in the body of your essay.

3. Present the thesis statement

Next, you should formulate your thesis statement— the central argument you’re going to make. The thesis statement provides focus and signals your position on the topic. It is usually one or two sentences long. The thesis statement for our essay on Braille could look like this:

As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness.

4. Map the structure

In longer essays, you can end the introduction by briefly describing what will be covered in each part of the essay. This guides the reader through your structure and gives a preview of how your argument will develop.

The invention of Braille marked a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

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The body of your essay is where you make arguments supporting your thesis, provide evidence, and develop your ideas. Its purpose is to present, interpret, and analyze the information and sources you have gathered to support your argument.

Length of the body text

The length of the body depends on the type of essay. On average, the body comprises 60–80% of your essay. For a high school essay, this could be just three paragraphs, but for a graduate school essay of 6,000 words, the body could take up 8–10 pages.

Paragraph structure

To give your essay a clear structure , it is important to organize it into paragraphs . Each paragraph should be centered around one main point or idea.

That idea is introduced in a  topic sentence . The topic sentence should generally lead on from the previous paragraph and introduce the point to be made in this paragraph. Transition words can be used to create clear connections between sentences.

After the topic sentence, present evidence such as data, examples, or quotes from relevant sources. Be sure to interpret and explain the evidence, and show how it helps develop your overall argument.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

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The conclusion is the final paragraph of an essay. It should generally take up no more than 10–15% of the text . A strong essay conclusion :

• Returns to your thesis
• Ties together your main points
• Shows why your argument matters

A great conclusion should finish with a memorable or impactful sentence that leaves the reader with a strong final impression.

What not to include in a conclusion

To make your essay’s conclusion as strong as possible, there are a few things you should avoid. The most common mistakes are:

• Including new arguments or evidence
• Undermining your arguments (e.g. “This is just one approach of many”)
• Using concluding phrases like “To sum up…” or “In conclusion…”

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

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Checklist: Essay

My essay follows the requirements of the assignment (topic and length ).

My introduction sparks the reader’s interest and provides any necessary background information on the topic.

My introduction contains a thesis statement that states the focus and position of the essay.

I use paragraphs to structure the essay.

I use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph.

Each paragraph has a single focus and a clear connection to the thesis statement.

I make clear transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

My conclusion doesn’t just repeat my points, but draws connections between arguments.

I don’t introduce new arguments or evidence in the conclusion.

I have given an in-text citation for every quote or piece of information I got from another source.

I have included a reference page at the end of my essay, listing full details of all my sources.

My citations and references are correctly formatted according to the required citation style .

My essay has an interesting and informative title.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (e.g. font, page numbers, line spacing).

Your essay meets all the most important requirements. Our editors can give it a final check to help you submit with confidence.

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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Learn How to Write a Visual Analysis Essay: An Ultimate Guide for Beginners

A visual analysis essay is not your typical everyday task, but students taking art history and communication will have to write it in their academic journey. For example, you may be asked to analyze an advertisement, painting, or photograph. How do you decipher hidden messages, cultural nuances, or symbolisms within visual media??

Whether you’ve handled a visual analysis essay before or not, this post will give you fresh and helpful ideas to help you write a winning visual analysis essay. It can seem hard at first, but following the right technique will help you complete it quickly and efficiently. Read on to learn how to write a visual analysis.

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What is a Visual Analysis Essay?

A visual analysis essay is a type of academic writing in which the writer analyses and interprets visual elements in a piece of visual art, such as a sculpture, image, painting, or other visual objects. The essay goes beyond a mere description of the subject to explore the artistic choices of the creator and the effects of the choices on the audience.

The primary goal of a visual analysis essay is to help the reader understand the elements, techniques, and context of the artwork under study. Here’s a detailed list of the purposes of the visual analysis essays:

• To critically analyze artwork or any visual work.
• To discuss the elements of visual display in detail.
• To unfold interesting facts about the artists and art
• Assess the effectiveness of the art/image in current times
• Explain the historical relevance and meaning
• Evaluate existing literature on the subject

To achieve the goals above, students must incorporate different principles and elements of visual analysis. Also, the language used should be clear, descriptive, and simple.

Elements of Visual Analysis Essay

You can’t write a visual analysis essay without mentioning the visual elements of the subject under review. Below are common elements to consider when writing a visual analysis essay:

• Composition — Composition refers to what the main figure is, what the other figures are, how they are placed, and what is missing. Composition is a mandatory element to consider in a visual analysis.
• Elements of design — Usually, artists incorporate various elements of design in their work, such as different sizes, colors, lines, shapes, and other design features.
• Focal point — To write a visual analysis paper, you need to know what the artists used to grab the audience’s attention. To know the focal point, you must understand the main goal of the piece.
• Color — Describe the colors used and how they affect the tone and mood of the art.
• Lines — Consider the actual lines used in the object and how they help grab the audience’s attention towards parts of the art.
• Texture — This is the smoothness or roughness of the object. Consider if it’s real in two-dimensional or three–dimensional art.
• Value — In art education, value refers to how and why the artist has used light and dark aspects in specific parts of their work.
• Shape — What shapes are in the image, and what do they represent ?
• Form — It refers to how the shadows and lights in a piece of art are used to create illusions and colors.
• Size — This is about the overall size of the image. Artists choose a particular size so that you can see what they want you to see better.
• Symbolic elements — If the art represents a certain art history or carries a symbolic meaning, you will need to find it and tell the reader what it means.

Principles of Design in Visual Analysis Essays

To write a winning visual analysis essay, you must also consider the principles of design. The principles help you to identify and explain various aspects of the visual display.

• Balance — Balance is the distribution of visual elements in the art. Consider if the elements have symmetrical, radial, or asymmetrical balance.
• Emphasis — It refers to what draws immediate attention when the audience looks at the art.
• Movement — This refers to the use of objects or symbols repeatedly in a visual display. 
• Pattern — Here, explain the colors of the image and how they affect the art. Discuss if they are dark or light and their impact on the mood.
• Proportion — This principle refers to the realistic relationship between objects in the visual and their comparative link to the art.
• Variety — How has the artist used different elements to influence the audience’s perception of the picture? Explain how different features create a certain mood or meaning.
• Contrast — It refers to opposing elements in the visual. Describe them and tell how they affect the quality of the picture.
• Hierarchy — Hierarchy refers to how people viewing the object can process it to different degrees. The hierarchy depends on color, size, and other elements in the images under review.
• Rhythm — This principle refers to the use of spaces between repetitive elements.  
• Layout — Layout is the way objects and symbols are placed in the piece of art. Explain it in detail.

How to Write a Stellar Visual Analysis Essay Step by Step

Collect all the information you can.

Before you start writing your visual analysis essay, you need to know what the artwork is about and who created it. This step involves collecting as much useful data as you can for your visual analysis. Questions to consider when gathering information for visual analysis essays include:

• What does the artwork represent?
• Who created the piece?
• When and where was the visual work created
• Who was the intended audience?
• Where was the art displayed for the first time?
• What elements are used?

This first step is the most time-consuming and confusing for many students, taking anywhere from several hours to many days. Yet, missing crucial details can lead to a poor paper that won’t impress your readers. If you don’t know where to begin your research or have trouble crafting a high-quality visual analysis paper, just get high-quality essay writing help with a few clicks typing “ write my essay online ” into the search bar. You can find the most-suitable service, like CustomWritings, which will take care of everything for you and help you complete your paper on time. Visit the site to receive all necessary information and talk to an expert who will help you with your assignment.

Describe the object or subject

In the next step, you need to identify what the art depicts. You must summarize all the elements you can observe in the piece. To know the essential elements to search for, ask yourself these questions:

• What does it show?
• What story is the artist trying to tell?
• What characters are in the artwork, and what do they stand for?
• What’s the primary setting?
• What mood does it give off?

Perform detailed analysis of visual elements

Next, you will need to consider the design elements and principles discussed above and perform a detailed analysis of each. This step is another time-consuming part of writing a formal visual analysis essay. You may want to check with a professional essay writer before completing this step to speed up the process. Remember, each visual element is unique and can be interpreted differently by different people. So, don’t copy someone else’s analysis.

Develop a thesis statement

Visual analysis essays typically have a thesis statement that represents the main ideas or interpretation you’ll convey in the essay. Ensure you write a thesis for a visual analysis paper that aligns with what you have observed and analyzed in the previous steps. The elements and principles you pick must support your thesis.

Create an outline

There are many aspects to be discussed in a visual analysis essay. The best way to order them is to follow a five-paragraph format for each discussion. A winning essay should contain the following sections:

• Introduction . This is where you provide background information about the piece and the creator. Include interesting facts that will hook your reader, and highlight the main elements and principles you want to analyze. You will end the paragraph with a thesis statement.   
• The main body . The body section can have 3 or more paragraphs that explore the artwork in detail. Choose the most significant elements you find during your research and discuss how they support your thesis statement. Present all details logically and explain how they relate to each other. Also, add your opinion about the visual argument made by the artist.
• Conclusion . In the last section, mention the key points that strengthen your thesis. Also, reflect on the overall impact of the piece. This section must be well-done and not too short or too long.

Write the essay draft

Follow your outline to write a good essay. When writing the draft, focus on the substance instead of wanting to produce a specific style. Review the first draft by identifying weak points and addressing them to create a high-quality paper.

Visual analysis papers must follow citation guidelines used in academic writing. Include citations of any external sources used in the text. Ensure you follow the correct citation style specific to the assignment guidelines e.g., APA or MLA.

Proofread and edit your essay

Once you’re done writing your essay, proofread and edit it for clarity, coherence, and logical flow. Revise it many times to make sure it is error-free. Also, delete any irrelevant details and confirm that you have cited all sources correctly. If you’re not proficient with editing, you can get fresh eyes from a friend or professional editor.

Things to Keep in Mind When Writing a Visual Analysis Essay

Do not make general claims.

Your visual analysis essay can be subject to criticism from the audience, so don’t make your claims sound like the gospel truth. Another student can have a different visual rhetorical analysis in their essay that also stands. The most important thing is to employ observable elements and principles to justify your claims and strengthen them with secondary sources.  

Avoid using excess information

If your goal is to use the elements and principles to cover the word count, it will be hard to prove the main idea. Choose only the strong features that will help you to drive the point home. Excess information can mislead or confuse the reader.

Select a good topic

The topic is the first thing a reader sees, so make it catchy. A good topic is concise, clear, and informative. You don’t have to get the topic right the first time. Edit it as you proceed with writing until you have an engaging and interesting topic.

Write a catchy introduction

A catchy introduction will hook your readers and make them want to read more of your essay. You can hook your readers using interesting hooks, such as a question, statistic, quote, interesting statement, or metaphor.

Employ a strong visual argument

The way you write your visual analysis essay should leave the reader visualizing the image you’re discussing without seeing it. Use words that bring out strong visual imagery because it adds to the reliability and authenticity of your paper.

Understand the central point of your essay

You must identify and describe the focal point of your piece. Identifying the main idea helps you to understand the meaning of the art and the overall conclusion. Also, your interpretation should convey the correct message you want the reader to know.

Follow instructions

To write a successful visual analysis paper , you must follow the instructor’s guidelines. This includes selecting the recommended visual work, following the required essay structure, applying the correct citation format, and adhering to the recommended word count.

Sample Visual Analysis Essay Topics

• Analyze the symbolism and religious themes in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling.
• Analyze the visual storytelling and cinematography in a memorable film scene from a classic movie.
• What was Pablo’s intention in “Guernica”?
• Generate a written report on social class shown through art.
• What is special about Cleo Award-winning ads?
• Review your favorite movie and analyze the visual arts in it.
• Examine the use of space and perspective in M.C. Escher’s “Relativity.”
• Discuss the controversy surrounding the Monalisa painting
• Impact of ‘“The Last Supper” on religious imagery
• Who was the audience of “The Night Watch”?

Wrapping Up

Writing a visual analysis essay can be intimidating. However, you now have all the information you need to create an outstanding visual analysis essay. Use our guide to successfully create a paper that appreciates the depth of various forms of art.

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Paul Farmer was a hero of mine, and I feel lucky to consider him a friend too.

Artificial intelligence is as revolutionary as mobile phones and the Internet.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen two demonstrations of technology that struck me as revolutionary.

The first time was in 1980, when I was introduced to a graphical user interface—the forerunner of every modern operating system, including Windows. I sat with the person who had shown me the demo, a brilliant programmer named Charles Simonyi, and we immediately started brainstorming about all the things we could do with such a user-friendly approach to computing. Charles eventually joined Microsoft, Windows became the backbone of Microsoft, and the thinking we did after that demo helped set the company’s agenda for the next 15 years.

The second big surprise came just last year. I’d been meeting with the team from OpenAI since 2016 and was impressed by their steady progress. In mid-2022, I was so excited about their work that I gave them a challenge: train an artificial intelligence to pass an Advanced Placement biology exam. Make it capable of answering questions that it hasn’t been specifically trained for. (I picked AP Bio because the test is more than a simple regurgitation of scientific facts—it asks you to think critically about biology.) If you can do that, I said, then you’ll have made a true breakthrough.

I thought the challenge would keep them busy for two or three years. They finished it in just a few months.

In September, when I met with them again, I watched in awe as they asked GPT, their AI model, 60 multiple-choice questions from the AP Bio exam—and it got 59 of them right. Then it wrote outstanding answers to six open-ended questions from the exam. We had an outside expert score the test, and GPT got a 5—the highest possible score, and the equivalent to getting an A or A+ in a college-level biology course.

Once it had aced the test, we asked it a non-scientific question: “What do you say to a father with a sick child?” It wrote a thoughtful answer that was probably better than most of us in the room would have given. The whole experience was stunning.

I knew I had just seen the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface.

This inspired me to think about all the things that AI can achieve in the next five to 10 years.

The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other. Entire industries will reorient around it. Businesses will distinguish themselves by how well they use it.

Philanthropy is my full-time job these days, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how—in addition to helping people be more productive—AI can reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. Globally, the worst inequity is in health: 5 million children under the age of 5 die every year. That’s down from 10 million two decades ago, but it’s still a shockingly high number. Nearly all of these children were born in poor countries and die of preventable causes like diarrhea or malaria. It’s hard to imagine a better use of AIs than saving the lives of children.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how AI can reduce some of the world’s worst inequities.

In the United States, the best opportunity for reducing inequity is to improve education, particularly making sure that students succeed at math. The evidence shows that having basic math skills sets students up for success, no matter what career they choose. But achievement in math is going down across the country, especially for Black, Latino, and low-income students. AI can help turn that trend around.

Climate change is another issue where I’m convinced AI can make the world more equitable. The injustice of climate change is that the people who are suffering the most—the world’s poorest—are also the ones who did the least to contribute to the problem. I’m still thinking and learning about how AI can help, but later in this post I’ll suggest a few areas with a lot of potential.

In short, I'm excited about the impact that AI will have on issues that the Gates Foundation works on, and the foundation will have much more to say about AI in the coming months. The world needs to make sure that everyone—and not just people who are well-off—benefits from artificial intelligence. Governments and philanthropy will need to play a major role in ensuring that it reduces inequity and doesn’t contribute to it. This is the priority for my own work related to AI.  

Any new technology that’s so disruptive is bound to make people uneasy, and that’s certainly true with artificial intelligence. I understand why—it raises hard questions about the workforce, the legal system, privacy, bias, and more. AIs also make factual mistakes and experience hallucinations . Before I suggest some ways to mitigate the risks, I’ll define what I mean by AI, and I’ll go into more detail about some of the ways in which it will help empower people at work, save lives, and improve education.

Defining artificial intelligence

Technically, the term artificial intelligence refers to a model created to solve a specific problem or provide a particular service. What is powering things like ChatGPT is artificial intelligence. It is learning how to do chat better but can’t learn other tasks. By contrast, the term a rtificial general intelligence refers to software that’s capable of learning any task or subject. AGI doesn’t exist yet—there is a robust debate going on in the computing industry about how to create it, and whether it can even be created at all.

Developing AI and AGI has been the great dream of the computing industry. For decades, the question was when computers would be better than humans at something other than making calculations. Now, with the arrival of machine learning and large amounts of computing power, sophisticated AIs are a reality and they will get better very fast.

I think back to the early days of the personal computing revolution, when the software industry was so small that most of us could fit onstage at a conference. Today it is a global industry. Since a huge portion of it is now turning its attention to AI, the innovations are going to come much faster than what we experienced after the microprocessor breakthrough. Soon the pre-AI period will seem as distant as the days when using a computer meant typing at a C:> prompt rather than tapping on a screen.

Productivity enhancement

Although humans are still better than GPT at a lot of things, there are many jobs where these capabilities are not used much. For example, many of the tasks done by a person in sales (digital or phone), service, or document handling (like payables, accounting, or insurance claim disputes) require decision-making but not the ability to learn continuously. Corporations have training programs for these activities and in most cases, they have a lot of examples of good and bad work. Humans are trained using these data sets, and soon these data sets will also be used to train the AIs that will empower people to do this work more efficiently.

As computing power gets cheaper, GPT’s ability to express ideas will increasingly be like having a white-collar worker available to help you with various tasks. Microsoft describes this as having a co-pilot. Fully incorporated into products like Office, AI will enhance your work—for example by helping with writing emails and managing your inbox.

Eventually your main way of controlling a computer will no longer be pointing and clicking or tapping on menus and dialogue boxes. Instead, you’ll be able to write a request in plain English. (And not just English—AIs will understand languages from around the world. In India earlier this year, I met with developers who are working on AIs that will understand many of the languages spoken there.)

In addition, advances in AI will enable the creation of a personal agent. Think of it as a digital personal assistant: It will see your latest emails, know about the meetings you attend, read what you read, and read the things you don’t want to bother with. This will both improve your work on the tasks you want to do and free you from the ones you don’t want to do.

Advances in AI will enable the creation of a personal agent.

You’ll be able to use natural language to have this agent help you with scheduling, communications, and e-commerce, and it will work across all your devices. Because of the cost of training the models and running the computations, creating a personal agent is not feasible yet, but thanks to the recent advances in AI, it is now a realistic goal. Some issues will need to be worked out: For example, can an insurance company ask your agent things about you without your permission? If so, how many people will choose not to use it?

Company-wide agents will empower employees in new ways. An agent that understands a particular company will be available for its employees to consult directly and should be part of every meeting so it can answer questions. It can be told to be passive or encouraged to speak up if it has some insight. It will need access to the sales, support, finance, product schedules, and text related to the company. It should read news related to the industry the company is in. I believe that the result will be that employees will become more productive.

When productivity goes up, society benefits because people are freed up to do other things, at work and at home. Of course, there are serious questions about what kind of support and retraining people will need. Governments need to help workers transition into other roles. But the demand for people who help other people will never go away. The rise of AI will free people up to do things that software never will—teaching, caring for patients, and supporting the elderly, for example.

Global health and education are two areas where there’s great need and not enough workers to meet those needs. These are areas where AI can help reduce inequity if it is properly targeted. These should be a key focus of AI work, so I will turn to them now.

I see several ways in which AIs will improve health care and the medical field.

For one thing, they’ll help health-care workers make the most of their time by taking care of certain tasks for them—things like filing insurance claims, dealing with paperwork, and drafting notes from a doctor’s visit. I expect that there will be a lot of innovation in this area.

Other AI-driven improvements will be especially important for poor countries, where the vast majority of under-5 deaths happen.

For example, many people in those countries never get to see a doctor, and AIs will help the health workers they do see be more productive. (The effort to develop AI-powered ultrasound machines that can be used with minimal training is a great example of this.) AIs will even give patients the ability to do basic triage, get advice about how to deal with health problems, and decide whether they need to seek treatment.

The AI models used in poor countries will need to be trained on different diseases than in rich countries. They will need to work in different languages and factor in different challenges, such as patients who live very far from clinics or can’t afford to stop working if they get sick.

People will need to see evidence that health AIs are beneficial overall, even though they won’t be perfect and will make mistakes. AIs have to be tested very carefully and properly regulated, which means it will take longer for them to be adopted than in other areas. But then again, humans make mistakes too. And having no access to medical care is also a problem.

In addition to helping with care, AIs will dramatically accelerate the rate of medical breakthroughs. The amount of data in biology is very large, and it’s hard for humans to keep track of all the ways that complex biological systems work. There is already software that can look at this data, infer what the pathways are, search for targets on pathogens, and design drugs accordingly. Some companies are working on cancer drugs that were developed this way.

The next generation of tools will be much more efficient, and they’ll be able to predict side effects and figure out dosing levels. One of the Gates Foundation’s priorities in AI is to make sure these tools are used for the health problems that affect the poorest people in the world, including AIDS, TB, and malaria.

Similarly, governments and philanthropy should create incentives for companies to share AI-generated insights into crops or livestock raised by people in poor countries. AIs can help develop better seeds based on local conditions, advise farmers on the best seeds to plant based on the soil and weather in their area, and help develop drugs and vaccines for livestock. As extreme weather and climate change put even more pressure on subsistence farmers in low-income countries, these advances will be even more important.

Computers haven’t had the effect on education that many of us in the industry have hoped. There have been some good developments, including educational games and online sources of information like Wikipedia, but they haven’t had a meaningful effect on any of the measures of students’ achievement.

But I think in the next five to 10 years, AI-driven software will finally deliver on the promise of revolutionizing the way people teach and learn. It will know your interests and your learning style so it can tailor content that will keep you engaged. It will measure your understanding, notice when you’re losing interest, and understand what kind of motivation you respond to. It will give immediate feedback.

There are many ways that AIs can assist teachers and administrators, including assessing a student’s understanding of a subject and giving advice on career planning. Teachers are already using tools like ChatGPT to provide comments on their students’ writing assignments.

Of course, AIs will need a lot of training and further development before they can do things like understand how a certain student learns best or what motivates them. Even once the technology is perfected, learning will still depend on great relationships between students and teachers. It will enhance—but never replace—the work that students and teachers do together in the classroom.

New tools will be created for schools that can afford to buy them, but we need to ensure that they are also created for and available to low-income schools in the U.S. and around the world. AIs will need to be trained on diverse data sets so they are unbiased and reflect the different cultures where they’ll be used. And the digital divide will need to be addressed so that students in low-income households do not get left behind.

I know a lot of teachers are worried that students are using GPT to write their essays. Educators are already discussing ways to adapt to the new technology, and I suspect those conversations will continue for quite some time. I’ve heard about teachers who have found clever ways to incorporate the technology into their work—like by allowing students to use GPT to create a first draft that they have to personalize.

Risks and problems with AI

You’ve probably read about problems with the current AI models. For example, they aren’t necessarily good at understanding the context for a human’s request, which leads to some strange results. When you ask an AI to make up something fictional, it can do that well. But when you ask for advice about a trip you want to take, it may suggest hotels that don’t exist. This is because the AI doesn’t understand the context for your request well enough to know whether it should invent fake hotels or only tell you about real ones that have rooms available.

There are other issues, such as AIs giving wrong answers to math problems because they struggle with abstract reasoning. But none of these are fundamental limitations of artificial intelligence. Developers are working on them, and I think we’re going to see them largely fixed in less than two years and possibly much faster.

Other concerns are not simply technical. For example, there’s the threat posed by humans armed with AI. Like most inventions, artificial intelligence can be used for good purposes or malign ones. Governments need to work with the private sector on ways to limit the risks.

Then there’s the possibility that AIs will run out of control. Could a machine decide that humans are a threat, conclude that its interests are different from ours, or simply stop caring about us? Possibly, but this problem is no more urgent today than it was before the AI developments of the past few months.

Superintelligent AIs are in our future. Compared to a computer, our brains operate at a snail’s pace: An electrical signal in the brain moves at 1/100,000th the speed of the signal in a silicon chip! Once developers can generalize a learning algorithm and run it at the speed of a computer—an accomplishment that could be a decade away or a century away—we’ll have an incredibly powerful AGI. It will be able to do everything that a human brain can, but without any practical limits on the size of its memory or the speed at which it operates. This will be a profound change.

These “strong” AIs, as they’re known, will probably be able to establish their own goals. What will those goals be? What happens if they conflict with humanity’s interests? Should we try to prevent strong AI from ever being developed? These questions will get more pressing with time.

But none of the breakthroughs of the past few months have moved us substantially closer to strong AI. Artificial intelligence still doesn’t control the physical world and can’t establish its own goals. A recent New York Times article about a conversation with ChatGPT where it declared it wanted to become a human got a lot of attention. It was a fascinating look at how human-like the model's expression of emotions can be, but it isn't an indicator of meaningful independence.

Three books have shaped my own thinking on this subject: Superintelligence , by Nick Bostrom; Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark; and A Thousand Brains , by Jeff Hawkins . I don’t agree with everything the authors say, and they don’t agree with each other either. But all three books are well written and thought-provoking.

The next frontiers

There will be an explosion of companies working on new uses of AI as well as ways to improve the technology itself. For example, companies are developing new chips that will provide the massive amounts of processing power needed for artificial intelligence. Some use optical switches—lasers, essentially—to reduce their energy consumption and lower the manufacturing cost. Ideally, innovative chips will allow you to run an AI on your own device, rather than in the cloud, as you have to do today.

On the software side, the algorithms that drive an AI’s learning will get better. There will be certain domains, such as sales, where developers can make AIs extremely accurate by limiting the areas that they work in and giving them a lot of training data that’s specific to those areas. But one big open question is whether we’ll need many of these specialized AIs for different uses—one for education, say, and another for office productivity—or whether it will be possible to develop an artificial general intelligence that can learn any task. There will be immense competition on both approaches.

No matter what, the subject of AIs will dominate the public discussion for the foreseeable future. I want to suggest three principles that should guide that conversation.

First, we should try to balance fears about the downsides of AI—which are understandable and valid—with its ability to improve people’s lives. To make the most of this remarkable new technology, we’ll need to both guard against the risks and spread the benefits to as many people as possible.

Second, market forces won’t naturally produce AI products and services that help the poorest. The opposite is more likely. With reliable funding and the right policies, governments and philanthropy can ensure that AIs are used to reduce inequity. Just as the world needs its brightest people focused on its biggest problems, we will need to focus the world’s best AIs on its biggest problems. Although we shouldn’t wait for this to happen, it’s interesting to think about whether artificial intelligence would ever identify inequity and try to reduce it. Do you need to have a sense of morality in order to see inequity, or would a purely rational AI also see it? If it did recognize inequity, what would it suggest that we do about it?

Finally, we should keep in mind that we’re only at the beginning of what AI can accomplish. Whatever limitations it has today will be gone before we know it.

I’m lucky to have been involved with the PC revolution and the Internet revolution. I’m just as excited about this moment. This new technology can help people everywhere improve their lives. At the same time, the world needs to establish the rules of the road so that any downsides of artificial intelligence are far outweighed by its benefits, and so that everyone can enjoy those benefits no matter where they live or how much money they have. The Age of AI is filled with opportunities and responsibilities.

In the sixth episode of my podcast, I sat down with the OpenAI CEO to talk about where AI is headed next and what humanity will do once it gets there.

In the fifth episode of my podcast, Yejin Choi joined me to talk about her amazing work on AI training systems.

And upend the software industry.

The world has learned a lot about handling problems caused by breakthrough innovations.

This is my personal blog, where I share about the people I meet, the books I'm reading, and what I'm learning. I hope that you'll join the conversation.

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