See, there are moments in time where writing the existing thought and the thought alone works. There are other times where such simplistic ideas are unclear and far from concise. I've started to run RPs, participated in multiple, and I'm a staff member of a functioning discord roleplay. That being said, I need to be understood, because I do not have time to expend on repeating myself. This usually expresses itself in a much longer-running piece of writing, typically referred to as an essay.
Of course, one must first understand what is described as an essay. Critiquing someone for writing a single paragraph and referring to it as "an essay" would be childish hyperbole of a much more serious situation. A paragraph, typically, in collegial writing, expresses a fraction of a much larger idea. And while it may seem long in comparison to a sentence, it does not represent an essay. An essay addresses multiple aspects of a topic, almost as many as the author is informed about from his or her knowledge. While the face of a coin can tell you a lot about it for example, it only says so much about the other face, much less about the construction of its interior.
So, when a line isn't enough to express a whole idea, a paragraph is formed, and when that is insufficient, an essay. An essay in and of itself has much more depth, and even a complete one may slightly stray from the original topic. As you may be starting to conclude, I am out of things to say, but seeing as the average essay runs much longer than this one, I will proceed with my elaboration. The majority of essays require some extent of formatting, whereas a paragraph lacks this. It is an excerpt, meant to match the format of wherever it may be recycled.
In summary, essays express more than one aspect of an idea and are meant to bring clarity, even if a paragraph would be enough to eliminate confusion. If you've made it to this point, I must say, your tolerance for the abnormal as well as the inconvenient is extremely surprising and summer must have placed too much time in your hands. You've earned my respect. If you simply skipped to this point, forget everything I said, I don't respect you. Until you read the rest, you'll have to live in the shame that I did this for you. I spent all this time writing and figuring out things to say, just for you. Yet, you have the audacity to completely ignore everything I've said and skip to the end. Walk around your house in shame. If you still don't feel it, walk down the street in shame. And if that somehow isn't enough, WALK to the nearest airline in shame, book yourself a flight to the opposite side of the world, and never type on this forum until you truly understand how shameful you are. Good day.
