Tips on Writing an Essay
There is no set format for an essay. The essay should be double spaced for easier reading, however if you are required to make it one page, single spacing is okay. Indent your paragraphs. Title your essay. Use references where necessary.

An essay is a time to write reflectively about an event, person, place, or thing that has meaning to you. It is an opportunity to make a statement. An essay can be creative, humorous, sad or political. And some of the more technical rules of business writing can be put aside for an essay!

There are several places to review good essays. For example, Best American Essays has been published for many years and is available in any library or bookstore.

The only requirement for this essay is that it is in some way hospitality related.

5 easy steps to writing an essay:

1. Focus on what you want to say
2. Write down your main point
3. Write the essay
4. Edit your Rough Draft
5. Final Draft

To focus:

• Think: If you could be a talk show host and you could have the opportunity to interview a person, living or deceased, what would you discuss?
• Discuss an issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you
• Select a creative work: a novel, film, poem, musical piece, painting, or other work of art. How has it influenced the way you view the world? How do you way you view the person who created it? Discuss the work and its effect on you.
• Be honest and write about your subject as if he, she, or it has meaning for you.

Common Pitfalls of the Essay:

• Writing day by day by day by day by...
• Having no point
• Getting too detailed
• Being overly dramatic
• Redundancy
• Excessive informality
• Worrying about length
• Laziness
• Honesty to a fault