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Frequently Asked Questions about essays for Dr. Moreira:

1. Why do you make such a big deal about the introduction, development, and conclusion

of an essay?

2. How to write a proper introduction, development, and conclusion? How do I strike the

right balance between description and explanation?

3. Why is ChatGPT forbidden in this class?

4. Example of a bad essay

5. How to write a good essay? A typology of writing styles + example and analysis of a good

essay.

1. Why do you make such a big deal about the introduction, development, and conclusion of an

essay?

The introduction, development, and conclusion structure is a neat little trick that is used in almost all

mediums of communication. You see it in movies, theater plays, fictional and non-fictional books,

YouTube videos, songs, blogposts, cooking blogs, and tv shows – at a macro level of the entire

narrative arch and, then, at a micro level for each episode. Once you’ll understand how the

introduction/development/conclusion structure works, you’ll realize that we use this structure for

everything. It’s a simple and great technique to convince and to convey emotions.

We even use this structure unconsciously. Think of when you are telling a story to your friends – a

story about something funny, maddening, or strange. First, you set the scene for the story and hint at

its outcome (you’re enticing and poking). Then, you develop the story and arrive at its central action

(the funny part, the thing that made you mad, the wild event that occurred). Finally, you close your

story by talking about its aftermath, its dénouement, and/or by posing further questions. For

instance, you conclude your story by asking “Unbelievable, right? how could this have happened?”

Or maybe you pose questions about specific details of your story.

Most of my students don’t know how to use the tripartite structure when they enroll. If they finish

this course without knowing it, they will (1) miss out on a great and simple tool that will infinitely

improve their writing for the rest of their lives, and they will (2) lack a crucial tool to analyze the

arguments of thinkers, politicians, activists…

Once you master the tripartite structure, you will be able to see that arguments and ideas usually

follow a specific order for maximum effect. For instance, a typical argumentative structure that

politicians and political thinkers use is the Golden Age narrative: “once upon a time, America used to

be a place where traditions and family values were truly respected” or “once upon a time, America

used to be a place with a robust welfare state where we all shared the benefits of our collective hard

work.” By introducing their ideas narratively, they set the scene for the introduction of a villain

(socialism, capitalism) that came to destroy this Golden Age, and they hint at the solutions that

America will need to restore the blessings of that idyllic past.

2. How to write a proper introduction, development, and conclusion? How do I strike the right

balance between description and explanation?

The goal of these essays is to show me that you are thinking through the ideas we saw in class. You

have to meaningfully engage with what we’re discussing in this course. It doesn’t have to be some

deep, complex, PhD-level type of writing. You are undergraduates and are still in your early stages –

that’s totally fine. But you have to show me that you are thinking through and engaging with the

ideas we saw in class.

Ask yourself the following question: how will I use the three parts of the essay to achieve the goal

showing him that I am thinking through the ideas we saw in class? The three parts of your essay

aren’t places to dump information – and ChatGPT is an expert at mindlessly dumping information.

The problem is that I can’t see if you’re thinking through the ideas we saw in class if you are merely

describing and dumping information.

Good writers and academics are able to use the three parts of their essays to poke their readers and

incite emotions. What emotion do you want to incite in the reader? Do you want to intrigue, to

shock, to perplex? Maybe you want the reader to go “ah! how interesting”? Each part has a specific

function, and each part can help you achieve that goal if you exploit them.

To achieve the main goal of thinking and engaging with the ideas we saw in class, you need an

introduction to set the scene for the rest of your answer. You want to tell the reader why you’re here

and what you want to do. The introduction is very important since it’s the place where you set the

main tone and the emotion that you want to transmit to the reader (we’ll talk more about tone and

emotions below in “5. how to write a good essay?”)

The introduction is not a place to say vague stuff like “Adam Smith is very important and influential!”

Sure, but this is uninteresting – we all knew that already. Rather, ask yourself: if I’m going to

introduce data about Smith (that he’s important, influential, or anything else), how will I make this

data work to motivate the reader? How will I use this data to create surprise, curiosity, intrigue, or

some other reaction? “Adam Smith is an influential thinker who can help us answer such and such

crucial questions” or “Smith is influential but, in this essay, let’s look at this particular problem in his

theory that undermines his claim to fame.” That’s more like it.

Since introductions try to entice/surprise/poke, they do not usually tell everything to the reader. Of

course, you always need to say, to some degree, what you will talk about. But introductions usually

only hint at the main point that the writer has in mind. There are essays where the writer doesn’t

reveal the conclusion at all – although, in an academic context, most essays will at least hint at the

conclusion.

The development fleshes out what you said you were going to talk about in the introduction. After

you set the scene in the introduction, it’s now time to move to the second act, execute what you

talked about, and develop the ideas of the introduction. Developing doesn’t mean “dropping a block

of information.” Connect the development to the introduction and the conclusion. Look back on

what you said in the introduction and on the question that you’re trying to answer. Think of the

successive steps that your reasoning will need to respond to the question you set up in the

introduction. Don’t be afraid to use paragraphs to separate each step of your reasoning.

If you said vague or descriptive stuff in the introduction, then the development and the conclusion

will most likely be vague and descriptive too.1 Without a solid introduction, the level of detail or the

sophistication that you show in the development will be constantly overshadowed by the fact that

your development serves no higher purpose. It’s just there. It aims at nothing. We, the readers, went

through an awkward introduction and, now, we are faced with a development that has an

overwhelming amount of data and information – but we don’t know why it’s there and what we’re

supposed to do with it.

The development is the part with the greatest amount of description and explanation. Never forget:

your essay tries to balance both. You are relating your text to what we saw in class. So you need

some description of what we saw in class to serve as a basis for the explanations you want to give.

Then, you want to use the descriptions to explain, i.e., to get at something: insights, parallels,

interesting remarks, critiques, praises, subtle considerations…

Don’t forget: when you merely describe, your reader feels nothing. It’s only when you relate

description to explanation that your reader feels compelled to listen and keep going. You can’t tell an

entertaining story just by describing the facts of the matter; you need to both describe and entice,

motivate, and make the listener follow you.

The conclusion wraps up the question. Again: avoid vague statements about the importance of these

ideas; avoid over-description; avoid mere repetition. To be sure: talking about the importance of

these ideas, describing, and restating what you talked about... those things, in themselves, are totally

fine. Writers and academics write these in conclusions all the time. But a conclusion that merely

repeats or says vague things is a bad conclusion: it is under-used and under-exploited. Instead, use

your conclusion to poke, surprise, entice, impress… Is there something (something obvious?) that we

didn’t consider while we were musing and thinking? A critique? An ambiguity? Further questions

that we need to urgently address in future essays?

The conclusion is supposed to bring your reflection to a close. It can restate, but it does not add data

that was meant to be in the development. When it adds data, then that data is meant to help build

up and close the conclusion. Imagine that you are watching a play (a tragedy). The play sets up a

scene (a happy family with happy parents) and, then, we arrive at the tragic development (the

parents died, oh no!). However, at the moment we thought we had reached the conclusion, the

parents are resurrected and they are killed a second time! Clearly, this was not the conclusion: the

action (the development) had never ceased. The conclusion would be something like: the remaining

family is mourning the death of the parents and they lament that they were not there to save them.2

At that point, the play will probably restate and talk about the tragic death of the parents, but only

because it wants to use this data to emphasize how tragic this all was and to increase the sadness of

the closing act.

1 Many of the essays that I read have an introduction that goes like this: Adam Smith believed X and Y; this essay describes X and Y. Then, in the development, the student describes X and Y. Finally, in the conclusion, the student merely say that they described X and Y. It’s description all the way down. 2 Maybe the parents do resurrect, but only to indicate the horrible aspect of the conclusion, e.g., the parents will now haunt the family forever. The conclusion brings fright and terror – but it does not go back to the development since that part of the play has passed.

3. Why is ChatGPT forbidden in this class?

I forbid the use of ChatGPT for these essays. “But isn’t ChatGPT just a tool?” Yes. I use it every day.

But a tool in the hands of someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing amplifies that person’s

problems tenfold. Before using ChatGPT, you need to master the basics of how to write an

introduction, a development, and a conclusion, and you need to master how to balance description

and explanation. It’s like using a calculator: if you don’t know the basics of calculus, you shouldn’t

use a calculator yet.

Most of my students don’t know how to write properly yet. Therefore, when they use ChatGPT, they

get the worst possible kind of scenario: the essay looks very good but is very bad. They’re not writing

well, but they don’t realize it.

4. Example of a bad essay

Let’s use ChatGPT so that I can give you an example of a typically bad essay – one that I often get. AIs

are really perfect at writing horrible structures. Because they limit themselves to describe rather

than explain, they are not only unable to exploit the three parts of an essay but (even worse) they

give the illusion that you are exploiting the power of the tripartite structure while you are not.

For the sake of the example, I asked ChatGPT to write 50 words for each of the three parts:

Question: Why does the division of labor generate universal abundance according to

Adam Smith?

Introduction (50 words): Published in 1776, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" is

a seminal work that transformed economic theory. Smith's ideas on free markets,

division of labor, and the invisible hand principle have profoundly influenced modern

economic thought and policy.

Development (50 words): Smith expounds on the invisible hand, asserting that

individual self-interest, in a competitive market, inadvertently benefits society. He

champions the division of labor, advocating for specialization to boost productivity

and economic growth.

Conclusion (50 words): Smith's enduring principles continue to shape economic

policy globally. His belief in free markets, limited government intervention, and the

invisible hand offers timeless wisdom for navigating our complex, ever-changing

economy. "The Wealth of Nations" remains an invaluable guide for scholars,

policymakers, and practitioners alike.

Let’s set aside the first obvious problem: the AI does not engage with the ideas that we saw in class –

it has already failed the main goal of these essays. The other problem is that this is a purely

descriptive essay where nothing is explained. Smith said this, he published that, he believed this, he

influenced that. There’s no perspective, no personal take. Only trivialities and banalities.

Can you see how the three parts are not helping this essay in any way? It doesn’t matter whether

each part has 50, 500, or 1000 words. The introduction would still say: “Adam Smith had all these

influential ideas”; then the development would still go “Smith said the following things”; and the

conclusion would still say “Smith had these influential ideas.”

In the context of these essays, we must avoid pure description without explanation. I'm very flexible

on the means that the students want to use to explain the ideas we saw in class. You can use

comparisons and parallels (relating two thinkers, for instance), practical examples from real life, you

can relate the ideas to current events, you can criticize, give your opinion and insights… You can even

use pictures and Youtube videos. But don’t forget: you must always relate the descriptions and

explanations to the ideas we saw in class.

Ask yourself: how can I use the three parts of the essay to show him that I am thinking through the

ideas we saw in class? Describing is not in itself the issue – the problem is description without

explanation and without making connections with the ideas we saw in class.

5. How to write a good essay? A typology of writing styles + example and analysis of a good

essay.

There’s not one way to write a good essay. When my students write their first essays, they are all

very similar. At first, they tend to be very descriptive – and that’s ok. You are still developing your

personal style.

Writing well means developing your own voice. You start to write good essays when you gradually

learn how to strike the right balance between description and explanation, i.e., when you start to

develop your own and unique writing style.3

Some students have a more “literary” approach and write a cohesive essay that doesn’t necessarily

have a main point but that successively addresses several ideas. Some are more “scientific” and have

one main point that is systematically fleshed out.4

Aside from this dichotomy between “literature” vs. “scientific” structures, there’s also the tone of

your essay. For some, the main tone is one of critique and suspicion. “Is Adam Smith right about the

things he said? Does his idea of free market really hold up? By comparing him to Marx, we will see in

this essay that his ideas are weak in several ways.”

For others, the tone is more expressive, first person, and personal. “If we lived during Adam Smith’s

time, what would we think about his free-market ideas? In this essay, I explain Smith’s ideas as I

describe how they would be seen by his contemporaries. For instance, as subjects of England, we

would be terrified at the prospects that political power has to be so severely limited.”

Then, we also have a tone that is objective, distant, and analytic. “This essay will develop the ideas of

Adam Smith and compare them to the ideas of the current Republican Party. This essay has three

parts: (1) Similarities between Smith’s ideas and the current US Republicans; (2) Differences between

3 Tolstoy famously starts Anna Karenina with the sentence: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” We see the opposite when it comes to the art of writing essays: “All bad essays are alike; each good essay is good in its unique own way.” 4 The students from more literary and humanistic areas tend to write their essays with that approach, while my scientific student tend to write in a more systematic manner. Sorry, I just can’t find very good terms for the distinctions that I’m making here.

Smith’s ideas and the current US Republicans; and I conclude with (3) shifts in the US republicans due

to Trumpism and further considerations on the relation between Smith and the US Republicans.”

There’s also the subject-area of your essay: is your essay about history? Is it more about concepts? Is

it more about normative implications? For instance, a typical historical essay would ask: “Was Smith

really a free-market liberal in the way that modern libertarians are?” A more conceptual essay: “Does

Smith’s notion of limited government make sense? What are its weaknesses? Wouldn’t his notion of

limited government paradoxically imply a much greater interference of the government in order to

enforce that “limited” government in all facets of a nation’s life?” A more normative essay: “Should

we read Adam Smith today? Haven’t his ideas been refuted a long time ago?”

Here's an example of a “normative” essay written with a “scientific” structure with a “critique and

suspicion” tone. For the sake of the example, I have drastically reduced the descriptive parts.

Question: Why does the division of labor generate universal abundance according to

Adam Smith?

Introduction: Smith was a famous free-market thinker who believed that a limited

government would help foster the division of labor and generate a universal

abundance of goods. He has had an enormous impact on contemporary political and

economic thought, but is his claim to fame really justified? Karl Marx and the

socialists have refuted Smith’s optimistic arguments a long time ago. Why should we

even read Adam Smith today?

Development: To be sure, Smith’s ideas are perfectly sound – brilliant, even. He

correctly identified the function and multiplying powers of the division of labor, and

he correctly saw that individuals developed the division of labor by seeking to fulfil

one another’s self-interests. However, he failed to reach the further insights that

Marx managed to achieve. Smith was right to say that capitalism creates an

abundance of goods, but he failed to see that these goods would become

increasingly inaccessible to the working class.

Nevertheless, the fact that Marx managed to see further than Smith does not mean

that his claim to fame is unwarranted. Smith was a necessary stepping-stone for the

deeper insights that Marx achieved. Without Smith’s notion of the division of labor,

Marx’s could not have seen that the capitalistic production of goods creates

problems such as social exploitation and alienation. It’s evident that the study of

Marx’s works is only possible to the extent that we carefully study the ideas of Smith.

Conclusion: We sometimes hear on the Left today that we should forget about these

passé thinkers who defended the current outdated capitalist system. In this essay, I

have showed that Smith’s ideas were a necessary stepping-stone for Marx’s insights.

A correct understanding of Marx’s ideas is impossible without a correct

understanding of Smith’s. Only with the study of the first will we be able to develop

the ideas of the second and, hopefully, find new ways to liberate the working class

from the current system of capitalistic domination.

As you can see, this student is a passionate Marxist.5 And that’s fine. In the context of these essays,

the color of your ideology isn’t what matters.

What matters is the fact that the student has fully showed me that they’re thinking through the ideas

that we saw in class. The student:

(1) Answered the question by addressing the ideas we saw in class (e.g. Smith and self-interest,

Marx’s critique of Smith)

(2) Not only offered plenty of description, but framed these descriptions in broader explanations

(the student has a broader thesis, “should we even read Smith today given Marx’s

refutations?”; they show how understanding Smith is a stepping-stone to understand Marx)

(3) Was original (e.g. the student used Marx in an essay on Smith; there’s an original thesis)

(4) Showed me that they were thinking by fully exploiting the three parts of the essay:

a. The introduction sets the scene (“should we read Smith at all today?”)

b. The development fleshes out and responds the question posed in the introduction

(“Smith was refuted by Marx, but it’s still necessary to read Smith to understand

Marx”)

c. The conclusion wraps up the discussion (“We sometimes hear on the Left today that

we should stop reading Smith, but this essay refuted that argument”).

At first, it looked like the student was about to say these dangerously vague things students often say

– “Adam Smith is so important and influential!” But that’s not what happened. The student did say

that Smith was important and influential, but then linked these considerations to explanations,

insights, critiques, and even to a major thesis (“should we read Smith today?”).

Notice, also, how the student decided not to tell the reader about the point that they were trying to

get at (i.e., the idea that we should still read Smith today). It worked great. In the introduction, the

student clearly indicated that they like Marx and dislike Smith. However, the development is very

surprising because, in a great twist, we suddenly realize that the essay will actually support that we

should still read Smith.

Finally, this essay is critical and blunt. That’s fine because the critiques are always grounded in ideas

we saw in class. They are justified, they make sense for the higher purpose that the student set

themselves. The ideas are not stated, arbitrary, or uninteresting.

5 Some of the best students I’ve had were openly in favor of a specific ideology and they had their own favorite authors. They are so passionate about their political ideas that they pour their hearts into crafting great essays that defend these ideas.