The Elements of the Academic Essay

Thesis:
Your main insight or idea about a text or topic, and the main proposition (though it may have several parts) that your essay demonstrates. It should be true but arguable (not obviously or patently true, but one alternative among several), be limited enough in scope to be argued in a short composition and with available evidence, and get to the heart of the text or topic being analyzed (not be peripheral). It should be given early (not just be implied—though its fullest and sharpest statement may come later), and it should govern the whole essay (not disappear in places).
Motive:
The reason, which you give at the start of your essay, why someone might want to read an essay on this topic: why it isn't just obvious, why there's some doubt about the matter, why it requires careful explanation. This usually means showing either that other people have or might have a view different from yours, or that they are or might be puzzled or conflicted or curious about the topic. The others you mention or imagine should not be straw dummies; you need to make clear that their misapprehension or rival claim can be argued for (that there's a plausible counter-argument, an argument and not just a claim) or that their puzzlement or uncertainty is understandable—that your idea is one that an intelligent reader might really overlook. Your motive thus won't necessarily be the reason you got interested in the topic, or the personal motivation behind your engagement with it: this could be private and idiosyncratic, whereas your motive is what you say to show that your argument isn't idiosyncratic, but rather is of interest to any serious student of your topic. Defining motive should be the main business of your introductory paragraphs, where it is usually introduced by some form of the complicating word "But."
Evidence:
The data—facts, examples, details—that you refer to, quote, or summarize to support your thesis. There should be enough evidence to be persuasive; it needs to be the right kind of evidence to support the thesis (with no obvious pieces of evidence overlooked); it needs to be sufficiently concrete for the reader to trust it (e.g. in analyzing a text, it often helps to find one or two key or representative passages to quote and focus on); and if summarized, it needs to be summarized accurately and fairly (not suppress data that doesn't fit your thesis and might be counter-evidence).
Analysis:
The work of breaking down, interpreting, and commenting upon your data, of saying what can be inferred from the data such that it supports a thesis, is evidence for a claim. Analysis is what you do with data when you go beyond observing or summarizing it: you show how its detail or parts contribute to a whole or how causes contribute to a particular effect or quality; you draw out the significance or implication not apparent to a superficial view, making clear the logic you are using. Analysis is what makes the writer feel present, as a distinct and active mind; so your essay should do more analyzing than it does summarizing or quoting.
Keyterms:
The recurring terms or basic conceptual oppositions that your argument and analysis rest upon, usually literal but sometimes metaphors. An essay's keyterms should be clear in meaning (defined if necessary) and appear throughout (not be abandoned half-way); they should be appropriate for the subject at hand (not unfair or too simple, e.g. implying a false or constraining opposition); and they should not be inert cliches or abstractions (e.g. "the evils of society").
Assumptions:
Beliefs about life, people, history, reasoning, etc. that you don't state but are implied in your keyterms or in the logic of your argument, that you simply take for granted and assume that your reader will too. These should bear logical inspection, and if arguable they should not be assumed but brought into the open and acknowledged.
Structure:
The sequence of your main sections, and the turning points between them. Your sections should follow an apprehensible order: both the shifts between your main topics (see Stitching) and your logic in putting one topic or point after another should be apparent. But that order should also be flexible: it should allow you to incorporate both brief pauses to reflect on what you are doing and larger, deepening turns in your analysis. Briefer pauses might be to define your terms or assumptions (what do I mean by this word? or, what am I assuming here?); or consider a counter-argument—a possible alternative position, or objection or problem, that a skeptical or resistant reader might raise; or offer a qualification or limitation to the case you have made (what you're not saying). On a larger scale, you might turn to incorporate a complication that arises, a way in which the case isn't quite so simple as you've made it seem (possibly by way of a counter-argument that you must accept); or to draw out an implication (so what? what might be the wider significance of the argument I have made? what might it lead to if I'm right? or, what does my argument about a single aspect of this suggest about the whole? or about the way people live and think?); or to consider a possible explanation for the phenomenon you have demonstrated (why might it be so? what might cause or have caused it?).
Stitching:
Words that tie together the parts of your argument, most commonly by (a) signaling transitions or acting as signposts to indicate how a new idea—section, paragraph, sentence—follows from the one previous; but also by (b) recollecting or repeating an idea or word or phrase used or quoted earlier. Repeating keyterms helps especially at points of transition from one section to another, to show how the new section fits in (the repetition need not be mechanical or heavy-handed).
Sources:
Persons or documents—referred to, summarized, or quoted—that help you demonstrate the truth of your argument. They are typically sources of factual information or data, opinions or interpretations of your topic, comparable versions of the thing you are discussing, or applicable general concepts. Whether youÕre affirming or challenging or qualifying your sources, they need to be accurately presented, efficiently integrated, and fairly acknowledged by citation—see Writing with Sources.
Orienting:
Bits of information, explanation, and summary that you give to orient the reader who isn't expert in your subject, enabling such a reader to follow your argument easily. The orienting question is, what does my reader need, and when? And the answer can take many forms: necessary factual information about the text, author, or event (e.g. given in your introduction); a summary of a text or passage about to be analyzed; pieces of information given along the way about passages, people, or events mentioned (including announcing or set-up phrases for quotations and sources—see Writing with Sources. The challenge is to orient briefly and gracefully.
Stance:
The implied relationship of you, as writer, to your readers and your subject; how you implicitly position or characterize yourself as analyst and characterize your readers. Stance is defined by such features as style and tone (e.g. familiar or formal); presence or absence of specialized language and knowledge; willingness or unwillingness to orient a general, non-expert reader; use or avoidance of scholarly conventions of form and style. You should establish your stance within the first few paragraphs of your essay and keep it consistent.
Style:
The choices you make of words and sentence structure. Your style should be exact (find the right word, don't settle for approximations) and clear (emphasize the main idea or action of each sentence, don't bury it), and generally plain without being flat (i.e. graceful and a little interesting, so animated by your own presence, not stuffy).

 

Harvey, Gordon. "Elements of Academic Argument" The Academic Essay.