Ensayo

In countries like the United States, essays have become a major part of a formal education. Secondary students in these countries are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills,and essays are often used by universities in these countries in selecting applicants (see admissions essay). In both secondary and tertiary education, essays are used to judge the mastery andcomprehension of material. Students are asked to explain, comment on, or assess a topic of study in the form of an essay. During some courses, university students will often be required to complete one ormore essays that are prepared over several weeks or months. In addition, in fields such as the humanities and social sciences,[citation needed] mid-term and end of term examinations often requirestudents to write a short essay in two or three hours.
In these countries, so-called academic essays, which may also be called "papers", are usually more formal than literary ones.[citation needed] They maystill allow the presentation of the writer's own views, but this is done in a logical and factual manner, with the use of the first person often discouraged. Longer academic essays (often with a wordlimit of between 2,000 and 5,000 words)[citation needed] are often more discursive. They sometimes begin with a short summary analysis of what has previously been written on a topic, which is oftencalled a literature review.[citation needed]
Longer essays may also contain an introductory page in which words and phrases from the title are tightly defined. Most academic institutions[citationneeded] will require that all substantial facts, quotations, and other porting material used in an essay be referenced in a bibliography or works cited page at the end of the text. This scholarlyconvention allows others (whether teachers or fellow scholars) to understand the basis of the facts and quotations used to support the essay's argument, and thereby help to evaluate to what extent the...