Understanding Essays: Characteristics, Types, and Journalistic Applications

The Essay

The essay is a literary genre characterized by digressions where the author expresses thoughts on a topic, or even without a specific issue. It has greatly influenced liberal thought and journalism.

Features:

• Free structure, form, and relatively brief extent
• Thematic variety
• Careful and elegant style
• Varied tone, reflecting the author's worldview

Types of Essays:

Literary Essay

Defined by the ideas it explores, covering disciplines like morality, science, history, and politics. It's a dynamic miscellany where the author expresses personal and subjective impressions and reflections about life. It is a critical product par excellence.

Scientific Essay

Blurs the boundaries between science and poetry. It's called a scientific-literary genre because it combines scientific reasoning and creative imagination. Like science, it aims to explore reality and truth. Like art, it values originality, beauty, and expressive intensity.

Essays in the 20th Century

98 Generation

• Antonio Machado (The core)
• Miguel de Unamuno (Around the castle, Life of Don Quixote and Sancho)
• Azorín (Trials of a small philosopher)

Novecentismo

• José Ortega y Gasset (Meditations on Don Quixote, The dehumanization of art)
• Gregorio Marañón (Three Essays on the sex life)

Journalistic Features

Morphosyntactic Characteristics

• Tendency to place the subject at the end of the sentence
• Propensity for sentence lengthening through various procedures (verbal phrases and paraphrases, conjunctive and prepositional phrases, redundant expressions, appositions, subordination, use of Gallicisms and Anglicisms)
• Mix of direct and indirect style
• Use of passive voice

Lexico-semantic Features

• Neologisms: foreign words, semantic loans, derivation, composition, acronyms
• Euphemisms, metaphors, metonymy, personification, hyperbole

Nonverbal Resources

• Images or graphics
• Font size and type
• Page design or layout

Information Genres

General Characteristics

• Clear, concise, and correct language with a targeted lexicon
• Predominance of verbs constructed in the third person and past indicative tense
• Expansions through supplements and subordinate clauses
• Use of direct style to emphasize objectivity
• Frequent use of passive voice

The News

The quintessential informative genre. It presents objective, current events of general interest.

Parts:

• Headlines: Condenses the essentials briefly and concisely (title, subtitle, and sometimes an introductory headline)
• Intro: The first paragraph, containing the most relevant elements
• Body: Development of the news, often using an inverted pyramid structure and repetition

The Report

A longer newspaper account with a personal writing style that provides insight into the facts. Documentation is crucial. Key elements include title, subject, and image.