French essays schools

The text summary or synthèse de texte is one of the easiest French writing exercises to get a handle on. It essentially involves reading a text and then summarizing it in an established number of words, while repeating no phrases that are in the original text. No analysis is called for.

A commentaire de texte should be written in three parts: An introduction, where the text is presented. An argument, where the text is analyzed. A conclusion, where the analysis is summarized and elevated. Here is a handy guide to writing a successful commentaire de texte, written for French speakers.

The first form of dissertation is the dialectic dissertation, better known as thèse, antithèse, synthèse. In this form, there are actually only two body paragraphs. After the introduction, a thesis is posited. Following the thesis, its opposite, the antithesis, is explored (and hopefully, debunked).