what does i essay mean

What is an Essay?

10 May, 2020

11 minutes read

Author:  Tomas White

Well, beyond a jumble of words usually around 2,000 words or so - what is an essay, exactly? Whether you’re taking English, sociology, history, biology, art, or a speech class, it’s likely you’ll have to write an essay or two. So how is an essay different than a research paper or a review? Let’s find out!

Defining the Term – What is an Essay?

The essay is a written piece that is designed to present an idea, propose an argument, express the emotion or initiate debate. It is a tool that is used to present writer’s ideas in a non-fictional way. Multiple applications of this type of writing go way beyond, providing political manifestos and art criticism as well as personal observations and reflections of the author.

An essay can be as short as 500 words, it can also be 5000 words or more.  However, most essays fall somewhere around 1000 to 3000 words ; this word range provides the writer enough space to thoroughly develop an argument and work to convince the reader of the author’s perspective regarding a particular issue.  The topics of essays are boundless: they can range from the best form of government to the benefits of eating peppermint leaves daily. As a professional provider of custom writing, our service has helped thousands of customers to turn in essays in various forms and disciplines.

Origins of the Essay

Over the course of more than six centuries essays were used to question assumptions, argue trivial opinions and to initiate global discussions. Let’s have a closer look into historical progress and various applications of this literary phenomenon to find out exactly what it is.

Today’s modern word “essay” can trace its roots back to the French “essayer” which translates closely to mean “to attempt” .  This is an apt name for this writing form because the essay’s ultimate purpose is to attempt to convince the audience of something.  An essay’s topic can range broadly and include everything from the best of Shakespeare’s plays to the joys of April.

The essay comes in many shapes and sizes; it can focus on a personal experience or a purely academic exploration of a topic.  Essays are classified as a subjective writing form because while they include expository elements, they can rely on personal narratives to support the writer’s viewpoint.  The essay genre includes a diverse array of academic writings ranging from literary criticism to meditations on the natural world.  Most typically, the essay exists as a shorter writing form; essays are rarely the length of a novel.  However, several historic examples, such as John Locke’s seminal work “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” just shows that a well-organized essay can be as long as a novel.

The Essay in Literature

The essay enjoys a long and renowned history in literature.  They first began gaining in popularity in the early 16 th century, and their popularity has continued today both with original writers and ghost writers.  Many readers prefer this short form in which the writer seems to speak directly to the reader, presenting a particular claim and working to defend it through a variety of means.  Not sure if you’ve ever read a great essay? You wouldn’t believe how many pieces of literature are actually nothing less than essays, or evolved into more complex structures from the essay. Check out this list of literary favorites:

• The Book of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon
• Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
• Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
• High-Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now and Never by Barbara Kingsolver
• Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion
• Naked by David Sedaris
• Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau

Pretty much as long as writers have had something to say, they’ve created essays to communicate their viewpoint on pretty much any topic you can think of!

The Essay in Academics

Not only are students required to read a variety of essays during their academic education, but they will likely be required to write several different kinds of essays throughout their scholastic career.  Don’t love to write?  Then consider working with a ghost essay writer !  While all essays require an introduction, body paragraphs in support of the argumentative thesis statement, and a conclusion, academic essays can take several different formats in the way they approach a topic.  Common essays required in high school, college, and post-graduate classes include:

Five paragraph essay

This is the most common type of a formal essay. The type of paper that students are usually exposed to when they first hear about the concept of the essay itself. It follows easy outline structure – an opening introduction paragraph; three body paragraphs to expand the thesis; and conclusion to sum it up.

Argumentative essay

These essays are commonly assigned to explore a controversial issue.  The goal is to identify the major positions on either side and work to support the side the writer agrees with while refuting the opposing side’s potential arguments.

Compare and Contrast essay

This essay compares two items, such as two poems, and works to identify similarities and differences, discussing the strength and weaknesses of each.  This essay can focus on more than just two items, however.  The point of this essay is to reveal new connections the reader may not have considered previously.

Definition essay

This essay has a sole purpose – defining a term or a concept in as much detail as possible. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, not quite. The most important part of the process is picking up the word. Before zooming it up under the microscope, make sure to choose something roomy so you can define it under multiple angles. The definition essay outline will reflect those angles and scopes.

Descriptive essay

Perhaps the most fun to write, this essay focuses on describing its subject using all five of the senses.  The writer aims to fully describe the topic; for example, a descriptive essay could aim to describe the ocean to someone who’s never seen it or the job of a teacher.  Descriptive essays rely heavily on detail and the paragraphs can be organized by sense.

Illustration essay

The purpose of this essay is to describe an idea, occasion or a concept with the help of clear and vocal examples. “Illustration” itself is handled in the body paragraphs section. Each of the statements, presented in the essay needs to be supported with several examples. Illustration essay helps the author to connect with his audience by breaking the barriers with real-life examples – clear and indisputable.

Informative Essay

Being one the basic essay types, the informative essay is as easy as it sounds from a technical standpoint. High school is where students usually encounter with informative essay first time. The purpose of this paper is to describe an idea, concept or any other abstract subject with the help of proper research and a generous amount of storytelling.

Narrative essay

This type of essay focuses on describing a certain event or experience, most often chronologically.  It could be a historic event or an ordinary day or month in a regular person’s life. Narrative essay proclaims a free approach to writing it, therefore it does not always require conventional attributes, like the outline. The narrative itself typically unfolds through a personal lens, and is thus considered to be a subjective form of writing.

Persuasive essay

The purpose of the persuasive essay is to provide the audience with a 360-view on the concept idea or certain topic – to persuade the reader to adopt a certain viewpoint. The viewpoints can range widely from why visiting the dentist is important to why dogs make the best pets to why blue is the best color.  Strong, persuasive language is a defining characteristic of this essay type.

The Essay in Art

Several other artistic mediums have adopted the essay as a means of communicating with their audience.  In the visual arts, such as painting or sculpting, the rough sketches of the final product are sometimes deemed essays.  Likewise, directors may opt to create a film essay which is similar to a documentary in that it offers a personal reflection on a relevant issue.  Finally, photographers often create photographic essays in which they use a series of photographs to tell a story, similar to a narrative or a descriptive essay.

Drawing the line – question answered

“What is an Essay?” is quite a polarizing question. On one hand, it can easily be answered in a couple of words. On the other, it is surely the most profound and self-established type of content there ever was. Going back through the history of the last five-six centuries helps us understand where did it come from and how it is being applied ever since.

If you must write an essay, follow these five important steps to works towards earning the “A” you want:

• Understand and review the kind of essay you must write
• Brainstorm your argument
• Find research from reliable sources to support your perspective
• Cite all sources parenthetically within the paper and on the Works Cited page
• Follow all grammatical rules

Generally speaking, when you must write any type of essay, start sooner rather than later!  Don’t procrastinate – give yourself time to develop your perspective and work on crafting a unique and original approach to the topic.  Remember: it’s always a good idea to have another set of eyes (or three) look over your essay before handing in the final draft to your teacher or professor.  Don’t trust your fellow classmates?  Consider hiring an editor or a ghostwriter to help out!

If you are still unsure on whether you can cope with your task – you are in the right place to get help. HandMadeWriting is the perfect answer to the question “Who can write my essay?”

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a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.

anything resembling such a composition: a picture essay.

an effort to perform or accomplish something; attempt.

Philately . a design for a proposed stamp differing in any way from the design of the stamp as issued.

Obsolete . a tentative effort; trial; assay.

to try; attempt.

to put to the test; make trial of.

Origin of essay

Other words from essay.

• es·say·er, noun
• pre·es·say, verb (used without object)
• un·es·sayed, adjective
• well-es·sayed, adjective

Words that may be confused with essay

• assay , essay

Words Nearby essay

• essay question

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use essay in a sentence

As several of my colleagues commented, the result is good enough that it could pass for an essay written by a first-year undergraduate, and even get a pretty decent grade.

GPT-3 also raises concerns about the future of essay writing in the education system.

This little essay helps focus on self-knowledge in what you’re best at, and how you should prioritize your time.

As Steven Feldstein argues in the opening essay , technonationalism plays a part in the strengthening of other autocracies too.

He’s written a collection of essays on civil engineering life titled Bridginess, and to this day he and Lauren go on “bridge dates,” where they enjoy a meal and admire the view of a nearby span.

I think a certain kind of compelling essay has a piece of that.

The current attack on the Jews,” he wrote in a 1937 essay , “targets not just this people of 15 million but mankind as such.

The impulse to interpret seems to me what makes personal essay writing compelling.

To be honest, I think a lot of good essay writing comes out of that.

Someone recently sent me an old Joan Didion essay on self-respect that appeared in Vogue.

There is more of the uplifted forefinger and the reiterated point than I should have allowed myself in an essay .

Consequently he was able to turn in a clear essay upon the subject, which, upon examination, the king found to be free from error.

It is no part of the present essay to attempt to detail the particulars of a code of social legislation.

But angels and ministers of grace defend us from ministers of religion who essay art criticism!

It is fit that the imagination, which is free to go through all things, should essay such excursions.

British Dictionary definitions for essay

a short literary composition dealing with a subject analytically or speculatively

an attempt or endeavour; effort

a test or trial

to attempt or endeavour; try

to test or try out

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for essay

A short piece of writing on one subject, usually presenting the author's own views. Michel de Montaigne , Francis Bacon (see also Bacon ), and Ralph Waldo Emerson are celebrated for their essays.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Meaning of essay – Learner’s Dictionary

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• Have you handed your history essay in yet ?
• There's a few spelling mistakes in your essay.
• I got an A minus for my last essay.
• I read over my essay to check for mistakes .
• I had to rewrite my essay.

(Definition of essay from the Cambridge Learner's Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Translations of essay

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pitch-perfect

singing each musical note perfectly, at exactly the right pitch (= level)

Alike and analogous (Talking about similarities, Part 1)

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What Are the Different Types and Characteristics of Essays?

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

The term essay comes from the French for "trial" or "attempt." French author Michel de Montaigne coined the term when he assigned the title Essais to his first publication in 1580. In "Montaigne: A Biography" (1984), Donald Frame notes that Montaigne "often used the verb essayer (in modern French, normally to try ) in ways close to his project, related to experience, with the sense of trying out or testing."

An essay is a short work of nonfiction , while a writer of essays is called an essayist. In writing instruction, essay is often used as another word for composition . In an essay, an authorial voice  (or narrator ) typically invites an implied reader  (the audience ) to accept as authentic a certain textual mode of experience. 

Definitions and Observations

• "[An essay is a] composition , usually in prose .., which may be of only a few hundred words (like Bacon's "Essays") or of book length (like Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding") and which discusses, formally or informally, a topic or a variety of topics." (J.A. Cuddon, "Dictionary of Literary Terms". Basil, 1991)
• " Essays are how we speak to one another in print — caroming thoughts not merely in order to convey a certain packet of information, but with a special edge or bounce of personal character in a kind of public letter." (Edward Hoagland, Introduction, "The Best American Essays : 1999". Houghton, 1999)
• "[T]he essay traffics in fact and tells the truth, yet it seems to feel free to enliven, to shape, to embellish, to make use as necessary of elements of the imaginative and the fictive — thus its inclusion in that rather unfortunate current designation ' creative nonfiction .'" (G. Douglas Atkins, "Reading Essays: An Invitation". University of Georgia Press, 2007)

Montaigne's Autobiographical Essays "Although Michel de Montaigne, who fathered the modern essay in the 16th century, wrote autobiographically (like the essayists who claim to be his followers today), his autobiography was always in the service of larger existential discoveries. He was forever on the lookout for life lessons. If he recounted the sauces he had for dinner and the stones that weighted his kidney, it was to find an element of truth that we could put in our pockets and carry away, that he could put in his own pocket. After all, Philosophy — which is what he thought he practiced in his essays, as had his idols, Seneca and Cicero, before him — is about 'learning to live.' And here lies the problem with essayists today: not that they speak of themselves, but that they do so with no effort to make their experience relevant or useful to anyone else, with no effort to extract from it any generalizable insight into the human condition." (Cristina Nehring, "What’s Wrong With the American Essay." Truthdig, Nov. 29, 2007)

The Artful Formlessness of the Essay "[G]ood essays are works of literary art. Their supposed formlessness is more a strategy to disarm the reader with the appearance of unstudied spontaneity than a reality of composition. . . . "The essay form as a whole has long been associated with an experimental method. This idea goes back to Montaigne and his endlessly suggestive use of the term essai for his writing. To essay is to attempt, to test, to make a run at something without knowing whether you are going to succeed. The experimental association also derives from the other fountain-head of the essay, Francis Bacon , and his stress on the empirical inductive method, so useful in the development of the social sciences." (Phillip Lopate, "The Art of the Personal Essay". Anchor, 1994)

Articles vs. Essays "[W]hat finally distinguishes an essay from an article may just be the author's gumption, the extent to which personal voice, vision, and style are the prime movers and shapers, even though the authorial 'I' may be only a remote energy, nowhere visible but everywhere present." (Justin Kaplan, ed. "The Best American Essays: 1990". Ticknor & Fields, 1990) "I am predisposed to the essay with knowledge to impart — but, unlike journalism, which exists primarily to present facts, the essays transcend their data, or transmute it into personal meaning. The memorable essay, unlike the article, is not place or time-bound; it survives the occasion of its original composition. Indeed, in the most brilliant essays, language is not merely the medium of communication ; it is communication." (Joyce Carol Oates, quoted by Robert Atwan in "The Best American Essays, College Edition", 2nd ed. Houghton Mifflin, 1998) "I speak of a 'genuine' essay because fakes abound. Here the old-fashioned term poetaster may apply, if only obliquely. As the poetaster is to the poet — a lesser aspirant — so the average article is to the essay: a look-alike knockoff guaranteed not to wear well. An article is often gossip. An essay is reflection and insight. An article often has the temporary advantage of social heat — what's hot out there right now. An essay's heat is interior. An article can be timely, topical, engaged in the issues and personalities of the moment; it is likely to be stale within the month. In five years it may have acquired the quaint aura of a rotary phone. An article is usually Siamese-twinned to its date of birth. An essay defies its date of birth — and ours, too. (A necessary caveat: some genuine essays are popularly called 'articles' — but this is no more than an idle, though persistent, habit of speech. What's in a name? The ephemeral is the ephemeral. The enduring is the enduring.)" (Cynthia Ozick, "SHE: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body." The Atlantic Monthly, September 1998)

The Status of the Essay "Though the essay has been a popular form of writing in British and American periodicals since the 18th century, until recently its status in the literary canon has been, at best, uncertain. Relegated to the composition class, frequently dismissed as mere journalism, and generally ignored as an object for serious academic study, the essay has sat, in James Thurber's phrase, ' on the edge of the chair of Literature.' "In recent years, however, prompted by both a renewed interest in rhetoric and by poststructuralist redefinitions of literature itself, the essay — as well as such related forms of 'literary nonfiction' as biography , autobiography , and travel and nature writing — has begun to attract increasing critical attention and respect." (Richard Nordquist, "Essay," in "Encylopedia of American Literature", ed. S. R. Serafin. Continuum, 1999)

The Contemporary Essay "At present, the American magazine essay , both the long feature piece and the critical essay, is flourishing, in unlikely circumstances... "There are plenty of reasons for this. One is that magazines, big and small, are taking over some of the cultural and literary ground vacated by newspapers in their seemingly unstoppable evaporation. Another is that the contemporary essay has for some time now been gaining energy as an escape from, or rival to, the perceived conservatism of much mainstream fiction... "So the contemporary essay is often to be seen engaged in acts of apparent anti-novelization: in place of plot , there is drift or the fracture of numbered paragraphs; in place of a frozen verisimilitude, there may be a sly and knowing movement between reality and fictionality; in place of the impersonal author of standard-issue third-person realism, the authorial self pops in and out of the picture, with a liberty hard to pull off in fiction." (James Wood, "Reality Effects." The New Yorker, Dec. 19 & 26, 2011)

The Lighter Side of Essays: "The Breakfast Club" Essay Assignment "All right people, we're going to try something a little different today. We are going to write an essay of not less than a thousand words describing to me who you think you are. And when I say 'essay,' I mean 'essay,' not one word repeated a thousand times. Is that clear, Mr. Bender?" (Paul Gleason as Mr. Vernon) Saturday, March 24, 1984 Shermer High School Shermer, Illinois 60062 Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us — in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed... But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club (Anthony Michael Hall as Brian Johnson, "The Breakfast Club", 1985)

• What Is a Personal Essay (Personal Statement)?
• The Difference Between an Article and an Essay
• The Essay: History and Definition
• What Is Expository Writing?
• 'Whack at Your Reader at Once': Eight Great Opening Lines
• Classic British and American Essays and Speeches
• Definition and Examples of Analysis in Composition
• The Title in Composition
• What is a Familiar Essay in Composition?
• Understanding Organization in Composition and Speech
• Development in Composition: Building an Essay
• What Is Tone In Writing?
• List (Grammar and Sentence Styles)
• Point of View in Grammar and Composition
• A Guide to Using Quotations in Essays
• Compose a Narrative Essay or Personal Statement

An Overview of the Writing Process

What is an essay.

Okay, well, in one word, an essay is an idea.

No idea; no essay.

But more than that, the best essays have original and insightful ideas.

Okay, so the first thing we need to begin an essay is an insightful idea that we wish to share with the reader.

But original and insightful ideas do not just pop up every day.  Where does one find original and insightful ideas?

Let’s start here: an idea is an insight gained from either a) our personal experiences, or b) in scholarship, from synthesizing the ideas of others to create a new idea.

In this class (except for the last essay) we write personal essays ; therefore, we will focus mostly on a) personal experience as a source for our ideas.

Life teaches us lessons. We learn from our life experiences. This is how we grow as human beings.  So before you start on your essays, reflect on your life experiences by employing one or more of the brainstorming strategies described in this course. Your brainstorming and prewriting assignments are important assignments because remember: no idea; no essay . Brainstorming can help you discover an idea for your essay. So, ask yourself: What lessons have I learned? What insights have I gained that I can write about and share with my reader? Your reader can learn from you.

Why do we write?

We write to improve our world; it’s that simple.  We write personal essays to address the most problematic and fundamental question of all: What does it mean to be a human being? By sharing the insights and lessons we have learned from our life experiences we can add to our community’s collective wisdom.

We respect the writings of experts. And, guess what; you are an expert! You are the best expert of all on one subject— your own life experiences . So when we write personal essays, we research our own life experiences and describe those experiences with rich and compelling language to convince our reader that our idea is valid.

For example:

For your Narrative essay: do more than simply relate a series of events. Let the events make a point about the central idea you are trying to teach us.

For your Example essay: do more than tell us about your experience. Show us your experience.  Describe your examples in descriptive details so that your reader actually experiences for themselves the central idea you wish to teach them.

For the Comparison Contrast essay: do more than simply tell us about the differences and similarities of two things. Evaluate those differences and similarities and draw an idea about them, so that you can offer your reader some basic insight into the comparison.

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“What Is an Academic Essay?”

Overview (a.k.a. TLDR)

• Different professors define the academic essay differently.
• Thesis (main point)
• Supporting evidence (properly cited)
• Counterarguments
• Your academic essay is knowledge that you create for the learning community of which you’re a member (a.k.a. the academy).

As a student in Core classes, especially in COR 102, you can expect that at least some of the major work in the course will entail writing academic essays. That term, academic essay , might sound as if it’s referring to a specific writing genre. That’s because it is. An academic essay is not a short story, an electronic game design document, a lesson plan, or a scientific lab report. It’s something else. What exactly is it, though? That depends, to some extent, on how the professor who has asked you to write an academic essay has chosen to define it. As Kathy Duffin posits in an essay written for the Writing Center at Harvard University, while an academic essay may “vary in expression from discipline to discipline,” it “should show us a mind developing a thesis, supporting that thesis with evidence, deftly anticipating objections or counterarguments, and maintaining the momentum of discovery.”

Even though Duffin’s essay is more than 20 years old, I still find her description interesting for a few reasons, one of which being the way that she has sandwiched, so to speak, some established content requirements of academic essays in between two broad intellectual functions of the academic essay. Here’s what I see:

When Duffin writes that an academic essay “should show us a mind,” she is identifying an important quality in many essay forms, not just academic essays: a sense of a mind at work. This is an important consideration, as it frames an academic essay as an attempt to understand something and to share that understanding. Essay is, in fact, also a verb; to essay is to try or attempt.

The established content requirements are as follows:

• a thesis (which Duffin describes also as a “purpose” and “motive”)
• evidence in support of the thesis, and
• an anticipation of objections or counterarguments

Duffin caps this all off with something about “maintaining the momentum of discovery.” Honestly, I’m not positive that I know what this means, but my guess is that it means an academic essay will construct and advance a new way of knowing the essay topic, a way that makes this process seem worth the writer’s and the reader’s time.

Again, your professor may or may not define academic essays as Duffin does. The only thing I would add to the above is a reminder that the academic essays you write in COR 102 and other courses represent knowledge that you’re creating within and for the academy —another word for Champlain College, an academic institution. You’re creating knowledge for a community of learners, a community of which you, your professor, and your peers are members. Keeping this conceptualization of your academic essay in mind may help you appreciate such other common elements of academic essays as voice , citations , and essay format.

Duffin, Kathy. “Overview of the Academic Essay.” Harvard College Writing Center, Harvard U., 1998, https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/overview-academic-essay Accessed 29 July 2020.

Quick tip about citing sources in MLA style

What’s a thesis, sample mla essays.

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27 pages • 54 minutes read

I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read

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Summary and Study Guide

Summary: “i, pencil”.

The essay “I, Pencil,” also known as “I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read,” was first published by the American businessman and libertarian advocate Leonard E. Read in 1958. The essay first appeared in The Freeman, a publication of the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEE), a think-tank he co-founded in 1946. Read was a staunch critic of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” an ambitious series of government policies and public-works programs aimed at re-inflating the US economy during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The essay is considered a classic critique of economic central planning and defense of free-market capitalism.

This guide uses the PDF ebook published by FEE in March 2019.

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Writing in the first person from the perspective of a pencil, Read opens with the counterintuitive claim that this seemingly simple object should elicit “wonder and awe,” because “not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me” (4). He illustrates the point with a “genealogy” identifying the complex, globe-spanning chain of events required to produce even so simple an object as a pencil, let alone something as complex as “an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher” (4). From there, Read concludes that no centralized authority could ever possess all of the knowledge and skills needed to efficiently coordinate these events, whereas market economies do it automatically.

Beginning with the logging of a cedar tree in the Pacific Northwest, Read catalogs “the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding,” and then “all the persons and the numberless skills” required to produce that gear: “the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope” (5). Read posits that the loggers could not do their job without “the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, the cookery and the raising of all the foods” (5).

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Read continues through the remaining links of the supply chain, detailing how the logs are shipped by rail to a mill, where specialized machines fashion them into pencils; how the “lead” core is made from graphite mined in Sri Lanka and mixed with Mississippi clay, Mexican candelilla wax, and various chemicals; how the lacquer, made from castor oil, is applied; how the label is imprinted using resins and carbon black; and how the ferrule is manufactured from brass and black nickel, and the eraser from Indonesian rapeseed oil, Italian pumice, and cadmium sulfide.

Read’s point is twofold: “[M]illions of human beings have had a hand” in making the pencil, and no single individual “contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how” (7) to the complex process. Because each step in the supply chain is indispensable, so, too, are the knowledge and skills of each worker. Even the president of the pencil company represents only one link in the chain; he knows no more about mining iron ore than the miner knows about running a corporation, and without iron there would be no pencils.

Furthermore, none of these individuals “performs his singular task because he wants me” (8). In other words, what motivates the oil-field worker to show up at his job every day is not a specific desire to produce petroleum for making paraffin wax used in pencil leads. Nor is he compelled to do so by some “master mind […] dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions” (8). Instead, all of this labor is elicited and coordinated by “the Invisible Hand”—a metaphor for market economics famously coined by the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith in his groundbreaking 1776 book The Wealth of Nations . The oil worker is motivated solely by the desire to “exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs and wants” (8), which may or may not involve pencils. From the miners and loggers to the company executives, everyone works in order to earn money to spend as they see fit; then others work to supply them with those desired goods and services. This is the “extraordinary miracle” of markets: “[M]illions of tiny knowhows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human masterminding!” (8).

People who fail to understand the “miraculous” logic of supply and demand often conclude, erroneously in Read’s view, that such complex coordination can be achieved only by a central authority. When the government monopolizes the provision of a good or service—he gives the example of mail delivery—many citizens come to believe that the private sector would be incapable of providing it efficiently. However, humans successfully perform much more complex tasks than delivering mail, such as manufacturing an automobile or operating an airline, when they are “left free to try” (9) without government coercion. This pernicious lack of “faith in free people” has encouraged an expansion of government control that is presently making societies less free. Read argues that maintaining a free society requires widespread public understanding of “the Invisible Hand” (9).

The final piece of Read’s argument is implied rather than explicitly stated: that government “masterminding” is not only unnecessary but inherently less efficient than spontaneous market coordination. The best role for government, therefore, is to stay out of the way as much as possible and “leave all creative energies uninhibited,” intervening in economic affairs only for the purpose of removing “all obstacles” (10) to the free functioning of markets. For Read, the logic of “the Invisible Hand” is so unerring that it is akin to natural law: faith in free markets is as “practical,” or reasonable, as faith in “the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth” (10).

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The Difference Between 'i.e.' and 'e.g.'

What to Know I.e. means “that is,” as in “She’s a Hoosier, i.e., she’s from Indiana.” E.g. means “for example,” as in “She roots for the local teams, e.g., the Pacers and the Colts.”

How to Use 'i.e.'

I.e. stands for the Latin id est , or 'that is,' and is used to introduce a word or phrase that restates what has been said previously. What follows the i.e. is meant to clarify the earlier statement:

Research at three British zoos suggests that meerkats "showed increased positive interactions" (i.e. they were happier) when human visitors returned than they were during the visitorless lockdown. — Peter Rhodes, Shropshire Star (Telford, England), 5 Mar. 2021

I.e. is similarly useful for defining or explaining a term or concept whose meaning readers might not know:

Take butterflied — i.e. deboned — whole fish, sprinkle it with lime and orange juices, and sumac, and then bake for about 10 minutes. — Emily Weinstein, The New York Times , 10 June 2022 If your home has “hard water” (i.e., a high mineral content), your sinks, showers, and tubs no doubt bear white or yellow buildup as a result. — Melissa Reddigari, BobVila.com , 22 Aug. 2019

While i.e. is often set off by brackets or parentheses, it can also sometimes follow a comma or em dash. It is usually followed by a comma.

How to Use 'e.g.'

E.g. means “for example.” (It stands for exempli gratia in Latin.) It is used in much the same ways as 'for example,' coming before an item or list of items.

Set an immediate timeline, e.g., three weeks, to learn all this. — Waterloo Region Record (Kitchener, Canada), 12 July 2022 WIPA will launch a 12-week choral program for up to 60 older adults that explores musical themes (e.g., Jazz, Rock, Great American Songbook, Classical) chosen by the participants. — Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), 2 July 2018

E.g. is similar to i.e. in the way it is punctuated: it is often placed inside brackets or parentheses, and can sometimes follow a comma or em dash. It is also usually followed by a comma.

It may help to remember that both 'that is' and 'for example' function in English in the same way as i.e. and e.g. . If you feel uncertain try substituting ‘that is’ for i.e. , or ‘for example’ for e.g. ; if your sentence still makes sense you’ve used the right one.

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How do you spell the Spanish slang - "essay" - meaning person?

used like, "what did you say essay?"

Hi and welcome to the forum.

It's " ese " and it means something like homeboy.

Ese is also like a thug. I wouldn't use it unless you knew the person really well.

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What does it Mean to be an Adult?

This essay about the concept of adulting explores its multifaceted dimensions and implications for individuals and societies. It into the essence of adulthood, including financial independence, emotional intelligence, autonomy, personal growth, and social engagement. Through a nuanced examination, it underscores the importance of holistic education, shifts in societal attitudes, and the necessity of supportive policies and systems for young adults. Ultimately, it advocates for a culture of lifelong learning and empowerment to navigate the complexities of adulthood with resilience and purpose.

How it works

Embarking on the journey of adulthood is akin to setting sail on uncharted waters, where the compass is self-awareness, and the map is laden with myriad responsibilities and challenges. What constitutes adulthood, however, is a question that has intrigued scholars, philosophers, and individuals alike throughout the annals of history. The term “adulting” has become ubiquitous in contemporary lexicon, signifying the transition from adolescence to adulthood and the accompanying responsibilities. In this essay, we shall embark on a scholarly expedition to unravel the essence of adulting, exploring its multifaceted dimensions and the implications it holds for individuals and societies.

Adulthood, in its essence, marks the culmination of physical, psychological, and emotional development, where individuals assume autonomy and responsibility for their actions and decisions. Historically, the delineation between adolescence and adulthood was marked by cultural and societal rituals, such as rites of passage, marriage, or initiation ceremonies. However, in contemporary times, the transition to adulthood is more nuanced and multifaceted, influenced by socio-economic factors, education, and cultural norms.

Financial Independence: A quintessential aspect of adulting is the attainment of financial independence, where individuals are capable of supporting themselves financially, managing expenses, and planning for the future. This entails securing stable employment, budgeting, and making informed financial decisions. Moreover, financial literacy plays a pivotal role in navigating the complexities of modern economics, ensuring fiscal stability and resilience in the face of adversities.

Emotional Intelligence: Adulthood entails the cultivation of emotional intelligence, encompassing self-awareness, empathy, and resilience. It involves navigating the complexities of interpersonal relationships, managing conflict, and regulating emotions effectively. Emotional maturity empowers individuals to communicate assertively, empathize with others’ perspectives, and navigate life’s vicissitudes with equanimity.

Autonomy and Responsibility: Central to the concept of adulting is the attainment of autonomy and responsibility. This entails taking ownership of one’s actions, making informed decisions, and bearing the consequences thereof. Whether it pertains to career choices, relationships, or personal development, adults are entrusted with the agency to shape their lives and contribute meaningfully to society.

Personal Growth and Development: Adulthood heralds a period of profound personal growth and development, characterized by self-discovery, learning, and adaptation. It involves setting goals, pursuing passions, and embracing challenges as opportunities for growth. Continuous learning, whether through formal education, professional development, or life experiences, is imperative for nurturing intellectual curiosity and honing one’s skills.

Social and Civic Engagement: As adults, individuals are called upon to actively participate in civic life and contribute to the betterment of society. This entails exercising civic responsibility, advocating for social justice, and engaging in community service. Moreover, fostering meaningful connections and nurturing social networks is vital for emotional well-being and societal cohesion.

The phenomenon of adulting carries profound implications for individuals, communities, and societies at large. Firstly, it underscores the importance of holistic education that equips individuals with the requisite knowledge, skills, and values to navigate the complexities of adulthood effectively. Education serves as a catalyst for personal and professional development, empowering individuals to realize their potential and contribute meaningfully to society.

Secondly, adulting necessitates a paradigm shift in societal attitudes towards adolescence and adulthood. It calls for the recognition of adolescents as capable and autonomous individuals, deserving of respect and support in their transition to adulthood. Moreover, it underscores the need for intergenerational dialogue and mentorship, wherein adults impart wisdom and guidance to the younger generation, facilitating their transition to adulthood.

Furthermore, adulting underscores the imperative of social policies and support systems that address the unique needs and challenges faced by young adults. This includes access to affordable education, employment opportunities, healthcare, and housing, which are foundational pillars for a thriving society.

In conclusion, adulting encapsulates the myriad dimensions of adulthood, ranging from financial independence and emotional intelligence to autonomy and responsibility. It signifies a transformative journey of self-discovery, growth, and contribution to society. As scholars and students, it behooves us to delve deeper into the intricacies of adulting, unraveling its complexities and implications for individuals and societies. By fostering a culture of lifelong learning and empowerment, we can navigate the uncertainties of adulthood with resilience and purpose, enriching our lives and those of future generations.

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• Knowledge Base
• How to write an essay introduction | 4 steps & examples

How to Write an Essay Introduction | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on February 4, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A good introduction paragraph is an essential part of any academic essay . It sets up your argument and tells the reader what to expect.

The main goals of an introduction are to:

• Catch your reader’s attention.
• Give background on your topic.
• Present your thesis statement —the central point of your essay.

This introduction example is taken from our interactive essay example on the history of Braille.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

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Table of contents

Step 1: hook your reader, step 2: give background information, step 3: present your thesis statement, step 4: map your essay’s structure, step 5: check and revise, more examples of essay introductions, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about the essay introduction.

Your first sentence sets the tone for the whole essay, so spend some time on writing an effective hook.

Avoid long, dense sentences—start with something clear, concise and catchy that will spark your reader’s curiosity.

The hook should lead the reader into your essay, giving a sense of the topic you’re writing about and why it’s interesting. Avoid overly broad claims or plain statements of fact.

Examples: Writing a good hook

Take a look at these examples of weak hooks and learn how to improve them.

• Braille was an extremely important invention.
• The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

The first sentence is a dry fact; the second sentence is more interesting, making a bold claim about exactly  why the topic is important.

• The internet is defined as “a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities.”
• The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education.

Avoid using a dictionary definition as your hook, especially if it’s an obvious term that everyone knows. The improved example here is still broad, but it gives us a much clearer sense of what the essay will be about.

• Mary Shelley’s  Frankenstein is a famous book from the nineteenth century.
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement.

Instead of just stating a fact that the reader already knows, the improved hook here tells us about the mainstream interpretation of the book, implying that this essay will offer a different interpretation.

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Next, give your reader the context they need to understand your topic and argument. Depending on the subject of your essay, this might include:

• Historical, geographical, or social context
• An outline of the debate you’re addressing
• A summary of relevant theories or research about the topic
• Definitions of key terms

The information here should be broad but clearly focused and relevant to your argument. Don’t give too much detail—you can mention points that you will return to later, but save your evidence and interpretation for the main body of the essay.

How much space you need for background depends on your topic and the scope of your essay. In our Braille example, we take a few sentences to introduce the topic and sketch the social context that the essay will address:

Now it’s time to narrow your focus and show exactly what you want to say about the topic. This is your thesis statement —a sentence or two that sums up your overall argument.

This is the most important part of your introduction. A  good thesis isn’t just a statement of fact, but a claim that requires evidence and explanation.

The goal is to clearly convey your own position in a debate or your central point about a topic.

Particularly in longer essays, it’s helpful to end the introduction by signposting what will be covered in each part. Keep it concise and give your reader a clear sense of the direction your argument will take.

As you research and write, your argument might change focus or direction as you learn more.

For this reason, it’s often a good idea to wait until later in the writing process before you write the introduction paragraph—it can even be the very last thing you write.

When you’ve finished writing the essay body and conclusion , you should return to the introduction and check that it matches the content of the essay.

It’s especially important to make sure your thesis statement accurately represents what you do in the essay. If your argument has gone in a different direction than planned, tweak your thesis statement to match what you actually say.

To polish your writing, you can use something like a paraphrasing tool .

You can use the checklist below to make sure your introduction does everything it’s supposed to.

Checklist: Essay introduction

My first sentence is engaging and relevant.

I have introduced the topic with necessary background information.

I have defined any important terms.

My thesis statement clearly presents my main point or argument.

Everything in the introduction is relevant to the main body of the essay.

You have a strong introduction - now make sure the rest of your essay is just as good.

• Argumentative
• Literary analysis

This introduction to an argumentative essay sets up the debate about the internet and education, and then clearly states the position the essay will argue for.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

This introduction to a short expository essay leads into the topic (the invention of the printing press) and states the main point the essay will explain (the effect of this invention on European society).

In many ways, the invention of the printing press marked the end of the Middle Ages. The medieval period in Europe is often remembered as a time of intellectual and political stagnation. Prior to the Renaissance, the average person had very limited access to books and was unlikely to be literate. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century allowed for much less restricted circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation.

This introduction to a literary analysis essay , about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , starts by describing a simplistic popular view of the story, and then states how the author will give a more complex analysis of the text’s literary devices.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale. Arguably the first science fiction novel, its plot can be read as a warning about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, and in popular culture representations of the character as a “mad scientist”, Victor Frankenstein represents the callous, arrogant ambition of modern science. However, far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to gradually transform our impression of Frankenstein, portraying him in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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• Write a College Essay
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• College Essay Format & Structure
• Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

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Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

The “hook” is the first sentence of your essay introduction . It should lead the reader into your essay, giving a sense of why it’s interesting.

To write a good hook, avoid overly broad statements or long, dense sentences. Try to start with something clear, concise and catchy that will spark your reader’s curiosity.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, July 23). How to Write an Essay Introduction | 4 Steps & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved April 12, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/introduction/

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Watch CBS News

Can the eclipse impact your astrological sign? An astrologer weighs in

By Kristine Johnson

Updated on: April 5, 2024 / 6:14 PM EDT / CBS New York

NEW YORK —  We're just a few days away from the April 8 solar eclipse , and everyone will be looking skyward to watch this amazing cosmic phenomenon,  with the proper glasses  of course. 

Astrologers who look to the stars say that if you feel a little different during an eclipse, there's a reason. People are impacted by this alignment of the sun, the moon and the earth, according to astrologer Rebecca Gordon.

Gordon acknowledged to WCBS that, for some, astrology is all smoke and mirrors, but she encourages keeping an open mind. She says not all signs will be affected equally during the eclipse.

"Aries will definitely be impacted. Also, their opposite sign of Libra will be. And the signs of Cancer and Capricorn, as well, will certainly be impacted," she said. "Let's just say that every member of the zodiac will be impacted. Nobody gets out of an eclipse without impact." 

Gordon believes the planets always assert an influence over events and our behavior, and eclipses only magnify what is happening. 

"You look at patterns and cycles," Gordon said. "Big things happening on eclipses. That you simply cannot argue with." 

Gordon points to what she calls patterns of significant historical events that have occurred at key astrological times. And she says the impacts of the moon's path are significant in astrology.

"When the moon is full, the tides are high. All crustaceans are born on full moons. Did you know jellyfish are often born on full moons? So essentially, the waters of the ocean swell. What is your body made up of?" Gordon asked. 

"You are sort of in the eye of the needle of eclipse season. That is when there might be a bit of chaos and confusion. So in your life, there might be - why did that job let me go, that relationship just began, that relationship ended? There can be a whole lot of change... You want to not plan too much, leave space open, because you will need that space to react thoughtfully." 

CBS News New York will have complete coverage of the eclipse on April 8, from 2 to 4 p.m. 

Kristine Johnson currently co-anchors the 5 p.m. & 11 p.m. news at the CBS owned and operated station in New York City. She joined CBS 2 in the fall of 2006. Since then, she has been the recipient of several Emmy awards.

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Kamala Harris blames Trump for abortion bans during Arizona visit

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• Israel-Hamas War

Israel Has Been Accused of War Crimes in Gaza. Could Its Allies Be Next?

W hen Israel launched its retaliatory war to root out Hamas from Gaza in the aftermath of the group’s Oct. 7 massacre, it had the overwhelming support of a horrified world. Six months on, Gaza lies in ruin. Its 2.3 million population, most of whom have been internally displaced, faces widespread famine. More than 33,000 Palestinians, the majority civilians, have been killed. And Israel, once backed by the full-throttle support of its closest allies, appears more isolated than ever before.

Nothing exemplifies this isolation more than the growing calls for the U.S., the U.K., and Germany to suspend arms sales to Israel. These calls, which have only grown louder in the days following the killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in an Israeli airstrike, are now coming from some of the highest levels of transatlantic politics. 

In the U.S., 56 congressional lawmakers (among them former House speaker Nancy Pelosi) penned a letter urging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to withhold further weapons transfers to Israel until a full investigation into the deadly airstrike concludes, and to condition future assistance to ensure its compliance with U.S. and international law. One, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, even went so far as to say that Israel’s actions in Gaza could legally be considered a genocide .

Read More: ‘It’s Not Just a One-Off Incident:’ What the World Central Kitchen Deaths Reveal

In the U.K., Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from parliamentarians and legal experts alike to suspend arms sales following revelations that the government received legal advice that Israel has broken international law in Gaza. Meanwhile, in Germany—which this week faces allegations brought forward by Nicaragua at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it is “ facilitating the commission of genocide ” in Gaza by supplying arms to Israel—hundreds of civil servants have reportedly written to Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other senior ministers calling on Berlin to “cease arm deliveries to the Israeli government with immediate effect.”

Central to all of these calls is a concern over whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza could constitute a breach of international humanitarian law—and, if so, what it means for the countries that have backed the Israeli war effort with arms and assistance. If Western weapons are found to have been used in the perpetration of war crimes (or, worse, genocide ) in Gaza, what culpability could their suppliers face? If Israel is deemed to have fallen on the wrong side of international law, could it bring its allies down with it?

Legal experts tell TIME that the answer largely depends on which laws and treaties one consults. Among the most emphasized is the international Arms Trade Treaty, in which Article 7 requires party states to undertake a risk assessment of all arms transfers—and, where there’s an overriding risk that those arms could be used to commit or facilitate violations of international humanitarian law, to prohibit their export. The U.S. hasn’t been a party to the U.N. treaty since former President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2019. (Washington does, however, have its own domestic legislation that prohibits it from providing military assistance to foreign military units suspected of committing human rights violations.) But it nonetheless applies to 113 other state signatories, including Germany, which is the second-largest provider of arms to Israel after the U.S. Some countries, including Canada and Italy , have already opted to halt their arms exports to Israel, citing concerns over their compliance with domestic and international law. In the Netherlands, the government was ordered to suspend its delivery of F-35 fighter aircraft after a Dutch court determined that there was a “ clear risk ” that they could be used to violate international humanitarian law. 

Such a precedent could have serious implications for the U.K., a signatory, which despite providing far fewer arms to Israel has suspended its exports in the past: First in 1982 , and then again in 2009 . While the British government contends that its arms sales to Israel are compliant with international law, human rights organizations have argued that this position is inconsistent with mounting evidence of war crimes. “They’re very well aware that there’s equipment that they’ve currently already licensed, and component parts of equipment that they’ve licensed, that are likely to be used by the IDF in Gaza now,” Yasmine Ahmed, the U.K. Director of Human Rights Watch, tells TIME. “That means that they’re clearly breaching those obligations under international law.”

The obligation that perhaps looms largest over Gaza is the responsibility that states have to prevent and punish genocide under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention. In a landmark decision in January, the ICJ determined in an interim judgment that there is a plausible risk of Israel committing genocide in Gaza. While this doesn’t constitute a definitive ruling (genocide cases can take years to resolve), it does put Israel’s allies on notice. “It makes countries aware that there’s that risk,” Ahmed says. “Continuing to provide arms to Israel when an apex U.N. court has said that there’s a plausible risk of genocide means that there’s a very serious risk that countries are also violating the Genocide convention, to the extent that they’re failing to prevent genocide by continuing to arm Israel.”

That prospect, and the potential criminal liability that comes with it, has prompted concern among British civil servants overseeing U.K. arms exports to Israel, who last week requested to “ suspend all such work ” over fears that it could put them in legal jeopardy. Their request came a week after a third U.S. State Department official publicly resigned over the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza—a decision that Annelle Sheline, who served in the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East, attributed to the administration’s “flagrant disregard for American laws” and the inability of her or other federal employees to influence policy. Indeed, State Department staff have reportedly sent at least eight internal dissent memos registering their disapproval of U.S. policy on the war, according to the Independent . By contrast, just one was sent during the first three years of the Iraq War.

Read More: How Israel and Its Allies Lost Global Credibility

Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin and a former associate legal officer at the ICJ, tells TIME that in a situation where the ICJ has already determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, “it would then be possible for another state that has provided arms to Israel—if such arms were used to commit genocidal acts—also to be found to have violated international law.” He adds, however, that it is difficult to prove that a state was legally complicit in genocide as it would require proving that the state was aware of another state’s genocidal intent; it's easier to prove that a state failed to meet its international obligation to prevent genocide, the responsibility for which is triggered the moment state learns there’s a serious risk that genocide will be committed. Nicaragua’s case against Germany at The Hague, a ruling on which is expected in the coming weeks, rests on the latter argument. 

While what it means to meet one’s obligation to prevent genocide can vary from state to state depending on their relative capabilities or leverage, “Lawmakers in the U.S. and the U.K. and elsewhere need to be thinking very carefully about whether their conduct puts them at risk of violating or breaching their obligation to prevent genocide,” Becker says, adding: “I don’t think it’s a very big leap from that understanding of the obligation to prevent genocide to the conclusion that it’s problematic to continue providing arms to Israel without any meaningful safeguards.

While a judgement on whether Israel has committed genocide is likely years away, if the ICJ were to determine that Israel had committed acts of genocide in Gaza and found that its allies who supplied arms did so with full knowledge of risk, among the tangible consequences that states could face include an order from the ICJ to take remedial action, such as paying financial reparations. What’s less clear, however, is how such orders could be enforced. “The ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions,” Becker says. “At the end of the day, the ICJ has to rely on others to carry out its decisions.”

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Write to Yasmeen Serhan at [email protected]

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Annie Jacobsen: 'What if we had a nuclear war?’

The author and Pulitzer prize finalist, who has written the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, Nuclear War: A scenario, on the "shocking truths" about a nuclear attack

By Annie Jacobsen

12 April 2024

The Titan nuclear missile in the silo in Arizona, US

Michael Dunning/Getty Images

Not long after the last world war, the historian William L. Shirer had this to say about the next world war. It “will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquers and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.”

As an investigative journalist, I write about war, weapons, national security and government secrets. I’ve previously written six books about US military and intelligence programmes – at the CIA, The Pentagon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency– all designed to prevent, or deter, nuclear world war III . In the course of my work, countless people in the upper echelons of US government have told me, proudly, that they’ve dedicated their lives to making sure the US never has a nuclear war. But what if it did?

“Every capability in the [Department of Defense] is underpinned by the fact that strategic deterrence will hold,” US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which is responsible for nuclear deterrence, insists publicly. Until the autumn of 2022, this promise was pinned on STRATCOM’s public Twitter feed. But to a private audience at Sandia National Laboratories later that same year, STRATCOM’s Thomas Bussiere admitted the existential danger inherent to deterrence. “Everything unravels itself if those things are not true.”

If deterrence fails – what exactly would that unravelling look like? To write Nuclear War: A scenario , I put this question to scores of former nuclear command and control authorities. To the military and civilian experts who’ve built the weapon systems, been privy to the response plans and been responsible for advising the US president on nuclear counterstrike decisions should they have to be made. What I learned terrified me. Here are just a few of the shocking truths about nuclear war.

The US maintains a nuclear launch policy called Launch on Warning. This means that if a military satellite indicates the nation is under nuclear attack and a second early-warning radar confirms that information, the president launches nuclear missiles in response. Former secretary of defense William Perry told me: “Once we are warned of a nuclear attack, we prepare to launch. This is policy. We do not wait.”

The US president has sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. He asks permission of no one. Not the secretary of defense, not the chairman of the joint chief of staff, not the US Congress. “The authority is inherent in his role as commander in chief,” the Congressional Research Service confirms. The president “does not need the concurrence of either his [or her] military advisors or the US Congress to order the launch of nuclear weapons”.

When the president learns he must respond to a nuclear attack, he has just 6 minutes to do so. Six minutes is an irrational amount of time to “decide whether to release Armageddon”, President Ronald Reagan lamented in his memoirs. “Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope… How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?” And yet, the president must respond. This is because it takes roughly just 30 minutes for an intercontinental ballistic missile to get from a launch pad in Russia, North Korea or China to any city in the US, and vice versa. Nuclear-armed submarines can cut that launch-to-target time to 10 minutes, or less.

Today, there are nine nuclear powers, with a combined total of more than 12,500 nuclear weapons ready to be used. The US and Russia each have some 1700 nuclear weapons deployed – weapons that can be launched in seconds or minutes after their respective president gives the command. This is what Shirer meant when he said: “Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it.”

Nuclear war is the only scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end civilisation in a matter of hours. The soot from burning cities and forests will blot out the sun and cause nuclear winter. Agriculture will fail. Some 5 billion people will die. In the words of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, “the survivors will envy the dead”.

I wrote Nuclear War: A scenario to demonstrate – in appalling, minute-by-minute detail – just how horrifying a nuclear war would be. “Humanity is one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” UN secretary-general António Guterres warned the world in 2022. “This is madness. We must reverse course.”

Nuclear War: A Scenario   by Annie Jacobsen, published by Torva (£20.00), is available now. It is the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club: sign up  here  to read along with our members

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Guest Essay

What Worries Me Most About a Trump Presidency

By Caroline Fredrickson

Ms. Fredrickson is an adviser at the Open Markets Institute, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University.

There are almost daily headlines now describing what Donald Trump would do if elected: the mass deportations, the pardons handed out to his friends and golf buddies, the Justice Department settling scores and waging personal vendettas. The former president has even promised violence if the election goes against him, warning that it could be a “ blood bath .”

But as worrying as these prospects are, they are far from the biggest threats he poses. What we should fear most is Mr. Trump transforming our government into a modern-day Tammany Hall, installing a kleptocratic leadership that will be difficult if not impossible to dislodge.

I do not discount the possibility of state-sponsored violence, and I worry deeply about the politicization of the civil service . But those are, for the most part, threats and theories, and while they need to be taken seriously, people should be paying more attention to a far more likely reality: that Mr. Trump would spend much of his time in office enriching himself. He failed spectacularly as an insurrectionist and as a disrupter of the civil service, and his clownish and chaotic style may well lead to failure again — but he has succeeded time and time again in the art of the steal. If his grift continues into a second term, it will not only contribute to the fraying trust Americans have in their institutions, but also impair our ability to lead the world through a series of escalating crises.

Recall how Mr. Trump operated in his first term. Not only did he keep his stake in more than a hundred businesses, he made it a practice to visit his properties around the country, forcing taxpayers to pay for rooms and amenities at Trump hotels for the Secret Service and other staff members who accompanied him — money that went straight into his bank accounts and those of his business partners. Those interested in currying favor with the president, from foreign governments to would-be government contractors, knew to spend money at his hotels and golf clubs. According to internal Trump hotel documents, T-Mobile executives spent over $195,000 at the Trump Washington Hotel after announcing a planned merger with Sprint in April 2018. Two years later, the merger was approved.

Government, like fish, rots from the head down. Mr. Trump’s example freed up cabinet members to award huge contracts to their friends, business associates and political allies, while others ran their departments like personal fiefs. After the State Department’s inspector general was fired , Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s use of official trips for clandestine meetings with conservative donors and allegations that his family misused staff members for tasks like walking his dog, picking up his wife from the airport and fetching his takeout came to light. And, in addition to being accused of improperly accepting gifts from those seeking influence, several other cabinet members were alleged to have used government funds for private travel . These may seem like banal infractions, but taken together, they are a reflection of who Mr. Trump is and how he governs.

Throughout his life, through Trump-branded wine, chocolate bars, sneakers, NFTs, ties, MAGA paraphernalia, a $59.99 Bible (of all things ) and, most recently, his Truth Social meme stock ploy, he has shown an unstoppable drive to enrich himself at all costs. He sees politics, like business, as a zero-sum game in which he wins only if someone else loses. These are the instincts that drive corruption, kleptocracy and grift. And, if past is prologue, we’re looking at a much more damaging sequel.

In a second term, Mr. Trump will have more freedom and power to undertake grift. He has already vowed to use pardons to protect supporters and possibly even himself from efforts to curb corruption (which may explain the nonchalance with which his son-in-law Jared Kushner has greeted criticism about the conflicts of interest raised by his recent real estate investments in Serbia and Albania, as well as the Saudi, Qatari and Emirati investments in his wealth fund). And he and his political advisers are building a deep bench of committed and loyal employees who could corrode and potentially destroy mechanisms of accountability in government, paving the way for kleptocratic leaders to entrench themselves in the bureaucracy where many would be able to remain past Mr. Trump’s term. And the mere presence of a phalanx of unquestioning lieutenants in the civil service will ensure that other civil servants fear retribution for objecting to the self-enrichment.

Naturally, I worry about other things, too, particularly the possibility of political violence. Mr. Trump could well claim he has won the election no matter the vote count and call on his supporters to rise up to ensure his takeover. Even before the votes are cast, his supporters are threatening election officials, judicial officials and state legislators, trying to intimidate them into either helping Mr. Trump or stepping aside to be replaced by Trumpists.

But legal, law enforcement and security obstacles are still in place to slow down or stop these efforts. We must remember that this time around, President Biden will still be president, able to control the military and federal law enforcement, and Congress has amended the outdated and vague Electoral Count Act to make it much harder for Mr. Trump’s congressional allies to contest a Trump loss in the electoral college or on Capitol Hill.

No such guardrails exist to curb Trumpian corruption. The Supreme Court, itself corrupt , has made it virtually impossible to prosecute even the most blatant corruption by government officials.

In a kleptocracy, corruption is a feature, not a bug, where politicians apply the law inconsistently , favoring friends and punishing enemies. By controlling government assets and handing them out to friends and family — and dangling possibilities in front of would-be supporters — as well as using politically motivated prosecutions, kleptocrats cement their control of government and disempower opponents. We need only recall Russia’s erstwhile effort to create a democracy: It quickly drained away into the pockets of Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs, leading to the hopelessness and acquiescence of Russian citizens once they realized they could no longer change their situation through democratic means.

Now we face that danger at home. If Mr. Trump wins, America will have a leader invested in his own personal power, both financial and punitive, and supported by a much more capable team. When lucrative contracts are handed out to Trumpist loyalists regardless of merit and dissident voices are targeted and silenced, America’s leadership on the global stage will dissolve when it’s needed most.

The consequences will echo for generations if we lack the ability and the will to attack problems like climate change, mass migration, a new space race and multiple wars. Nothing of substance will be done, Mr. Trump’s cronies will continue to act with impunity, and millions of Americans — already worried that elites are held to a different standard than regular people are — will lose even more confidence in their government, convinced that everyone in Washington is out for himself.

This combination of passivity on the one hand and impunity on the other could be fatal for our democracy. This is the true danger Mr. Trump poses.

Caroline Fredrickson is an adviser at the Open Markets Institute, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University.

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