Purdue OWL
Purdue University Online Writing Lab
Purdue University's Online Writing Lab section on academic essays, covering expository, argumentative, narrative and descriptive essays. Readers learn to build a thesis, structure paragraphs, use evidence and transitions, and plan an essay from prompt to conclusion.
More resources on Essay Writing
Writing in the Sciences
Stanford's online course on clear scientific prose, taught by Kristin Sainani. Covers cutting clutter, active voice, paragraph structure, the parts of a research manuscript, peer review, grant writing and publication ethics, so learners can draft and revise papers that read clearly.
The Art of the Personal Essay
Phillip Lopate's anthology of personal essays spanning four centuries, from Seneca and Montaigne to Baldwin and Didion, with an introduction on the form. Readers see how voice, digression and candor work, and study models for their own first-person nonfiction.
Memoir and Personal Essay
Wesleyan University's four-module Coursera class with novelist Amy Bloom on writing personal essays: finding the idea worth telling, structuring the piece, selecting concrete detail, and revising. Peer-reviewed assignments produce a finished draft in roughly seven hours.
On Essays: Montaigne to the Present
A scholarly collection of chapters tracing the essay as a literary form from Montaigne and Bacon through Hazlitt, Woolf and contemporary writers. Readers gain a historical and critical understanding of how the essay developed and what distinguishes it from other prose genres.
writersdigest.com
WritersDigest.com is a comprehensive resource for writers, featuring craft articles, writing prompts, market guides, contests, and publishing tips to help aspiring and established authors improve their craft and get published.