Article Categories
Essays on Accounting Should Conform to Basic Rules of Exposition
Essays on accounting can show up on the assignment sheets of courses at any level. Although the bulk of many introductory courses are probably going to consist of problems that you ‘plug and chug’, you need to be able to write an essay on accounting articulately.
Since your argument depends on the evidence and points you assemble to support your thesis statement, organization is crucial. Let’s deconstruct an essay on typical accounting subjects.
Essays for accounting courses: traditional structure
Your essay needs to follow all the expository rules you have doubtless read about or studied elsewhere and (one hopes) know to how follow! However, just in case, here is a brief summary:
- Formulate a thesis that you can confidently and clearly express, and for which you can marshal solid and convincing evidence. Essays on accounting require some assiduous research and careful preliminary thought.
- Pick at least three major points to bolster your thesis.
- Why three? The rule of three is ancient, dating back to classical rhetoricians
- It works. Try lobbying your parents for an infusion of cash using only two arguments to convince them – it is simply not as powerful
- Summarize these three or more supporting arguments concisely in your introductory paragraph or section. Be brief, but be sure that you are comprehensible. In other words, be telegraphic but clear.
- Explain each supporting point very briefly in a thesis or introductory sentence. This will lead off the paragraph or section that expands on the point.
- The rest of the paragraph or section for each supporting point should not merely repeat this thesis sentence, but give greater detail, and examples. Anticipate any potential counter-arguments and, naturally, demolish them neatly.
- Do not introduce arguments not foreshadowed in your introduction
- Conclude by re-stating and re-framing your thesis. Summarize your supporting ideas and refer briefly to striking examples you have introduced, but add nothing that is not in the body of the text, in other words, your 3+ arguments.
- Cite, cite, cite – obsessively and correctly!
Your essay on accounting should be carefully composed.
Just because you are discussing documents featuring numbers and telegraphically compressed headings does not excuse sloppy writing. This paper needs to be just as well-written as if it were about philosophy. Ask someone to listen to you read it or proof it for you.