Did you know that college students write 10-15 essays each semester? That is about 60 pages of writing. Could be less or more depending on the course you are pursuing in college or university.
A college assignment is formal and organized writing about a particular subject used to test your understanding and critical thinking skills. For some, writing an essay is as easy as pie. However, for others, it is a tedious process.
A lot goes into writing the perfect essay; you must plan, research, write and revise to ensure your essay is top-notch. Because writing is an integral part of your school life, you must know how to write an essay well. A big part of writing an excellent essay is choosing the right topic. Researchers agree that the more interesting a topic is, the easier it will be to research and write an essay. Take note that the point of writing an essay is to do the following:
In this guide (prepared by our best essay writers), we discuss the qualities of a good essay and explain how to write an essay, including the dos and don'ts of an excellent essay.
By now, you may be asking what a good essay looks like. Getting curious about this is the first step to creating the perfect paper. You will know you have written a good essay if it has the following qualities.
A good essay is only centered on a single idea from the beginning to the end. For instance, if you are writing about the link between autoimmune disorders and gut health, your focus should be on whether a change in your gut microbiome affects your immunity. Defining your topic well is the best way to ensure you are mainly focused throughout the essay.
Every piece of information you share, including ideas, statistics, and examples, should be tied to the central point of your essay. This will make the writing process easier and allow readers to follow smoothly.
A good essay should flow smoothly from the beginning to the end. The central idea should develop logically from the start. You must use as many examples, descriptions, illustrations, and details as possible to explain your idea.
A good essay uses the correct sentence structure and excellent command of English for the information to make sense. It must be free from any errors and use a language that is easy to understand.
Academic essays must be supported by relevant facts and evidence to ensure it is correct and accurate. Evidence could be quotations you've taken directly from a source or parts of a text you are referencing. Every piece of evidence you provide should be properly cited. Your instructor will advise you on the right formatting style (APA, Harvard, MLA, Chicago, etc.)
Like any other academic paper, an essay follows a strict process that ensures an efficient workflow. This process begins with preparation, writing, and revisions. How much time you spend on each section will depend on the type of essay you are working on.
Before you begin writing, you must adequately prepare to clearly understand what you want to discuss and how to convey it. These are steps you should take when learning how to write an essay.
Read all the instructions about the assignment and clarify anything you need with your instructor. Check for information like deadline, length, style, and paper structure. Reading instructions will ensure you submit exactly what you were asked. You should ask yourself two questions:
As you analyze the essay question or prompt, pay specific attention to the following words:
The content of your essay will depend on the type of essay given. The common types of essays you will come across include descriptive, narrative, persuasive, argumentative, and expository. So, consider the assessment criteria and what your instructor expects of you. You must select an interesting topic for your essay if you have not been assigned one. Brainstorming is a helpful technique to help you develop the right topic for your paper. Ensure the topic is specific so you go directly to the point when writing.
Take your time to know what the assignment is about. Every essay responds to a question, and yours is no different. So, you need to analyze the question by watching out for the following elements.
A big part of learning how to write an essay is having the correct information at your fingertips. After analyzing the questions, you must gather enough information about the topic by conducting research. Every academic paper or essay must be supported by credible evidence. If this is not a new topic, you already have some ideas; however, you must have a deeper understanding of the topic to support your claims. Proper research will also help dispel any misconceptions about the topic. So, head to the library or online to gather up-to-date sources for credible information for your essay. Use credible sources like, google scholar and journals such as JSTOR when searching for information online.
Critically evaluate your sources to ensure you are only gathering credible information. Even reputable sources can sometimes have some errors and outdated information.
Note-taking is necessary when conducting research for an essay. Write down all the relevant information or questions you may need to explore further. Note-taking will also help you decide the angle to take for the paper.
Also, write down all the sources for your bibliographic information to make your work easier when citing sources in the body paragraph and adding them at the end of the essay.
A thesis statement is the central argument of your essay. It tells readers what your essay is going to talk about. As you research, you must state your essay's conclusion. To develop a thesis statement, choose one aspect of the topic to focus on. Focusing on multiple aspects of the topic means your arguments will not be convincing and will fail to fulfill the assignment's goal. Your thesis statement should be narrow, specific, and original so readers can quickly identify it.
While this sounds like extra work, it is not. An outline is necessary for your essay because it makes it easier for readers to follow your writing. Additionally, it organizes all the ideas of the topic, thus keeping you on track as you write.
Once you know what to write in your paper, it is time to get down to it.
This is the first paragraph of your essay, so it should grab the reader's attention right from the beginning. An introduction is about 10% of your word count and should set the tone for the rest of the text. Generally, an introduction does the following:
Tip: You could write your introduction after writing the rest of the essay.
This is where the majority of your essay content is situated. You should present, analyze and interpret your information and data to support your thesis statement. The length of the body will depend on the overall essay word count. But generally, the body will be between 6080% of the paper.
It's crucial to organize the body with different paragraphs, each explaining ideas supporting your thesis statement. As a rule, each body paragraph should present one main idea supported by relevant arguments. Some ideas should be presented logically, meaning that the first idea leads to the second one, which leads to the third. Present your body paragraphs such that they display evidence, reasoning, and scholarship.
By evidence, we mean you should provide factual information to support your claim. Some evidence you could use includes examples, facts, statistics, and illustrations. Reasoning entails connecting the evidence to the argument by evaluating the evidence and showing how it supports your arguments. Finally, display scholarship by showing how your argument relates to what authors and researchers have written about the topic, achieved via in-text citations. You can intertwine scholarship as part of your evidence and reasoning to support your argument.
Start by introducing a topic sentence that should lean on the previous sentence and introduce the idea for that paragraph. Use transition words to connect the concept with relevant arguments.
Next, present your evidence, including quotes and examples, to support your idea. They interpret it in a way that readers can understand. Make sure you explain how it can support your main argument.
The final part should be a concluding sentence that restates your main points and acts as a transition to the next paragraph. In other words, the structure looks like this;
The final part of your essay is the conclusion that summarizes the central idea of your paper and shows why your paper matters. The last sentence should leave readers with something to think about. It should also tell readers:
The structure of your conclusion should look like this:
Your conclusion should not offer any new information. Every idea and argument should have been made clear in the body paragraphs.
After writing your essay, you must take time to revise thoroughly and ensure it's up to the required standard. First, give yourself a break so you can come back and look at it with fresh eyes. The amount of time you take away from your essay will depend on the deadline given by your instructor. Taking time away will provide for a more objective evaluation.
When you are ready, start reading it to identify any major problems.
Check the focus of your essay-Is it too narrow? Has it followed the assignment prompt? Make sure your essay has addressed the problem it set to do. Check whether each paragraph advances its argument.
Check for the organization- have you logically ordered the paragraphs and sections? If there are any irrelevant sections, consider cutting them out. Use the right transition words as necessary. Go through each paragraph and ensure you have the following:
Check that content is clear. It's not always about what you say but how you say it. Even if you have the best thesis in the world, it doesn't matter if your writing is incoherent, confusing, or full of grammatical mistakes. Go through each sentence to ensure you have expressed yourself clearly. At this point, you are more concerned with how you say the point you were trying to pass across. Therefore, ensure that you have simplified and clarified every sentence. Consider reading out loud to pick out the following:
If there are any short sentences, consider linking them with conjunctions or semicolons.
Ask for Feedback. Since you already know what you what trying to say, you may not be the best judge of quality. So, it's best to ask for help from someone close to you. Tell them your objectives for the paper so they can know what to look for. The feedback you get is important for you to enhance the quality and readability of the essay.
Review Your Sources- Check that the sources you have used are credible. You are only supposed to use reliable primary and secondary sources. Ensure you have also correctly cited all your sources and include them in the bibliography section at the end of the essay.
Do a Plagiarism Check- Plagiarism is a serious academic offense that will result in heavy penalties from your instructor or department. Your work will be considered unoriginal if you have not provided sources for borrowed information. Ensure your work is unique by using plagiarism-checking websites.
Wondering how to write an essay in a different format? All institutions will provide a format for you to follow when writing an essay; this could be any of the basic formats, such as MLA, the APA, and the Chicago formats. Check your essay prompt to ensure that you format your essay correctly, as formatting contributes to your grade.
MLA format provides a set of guidelines and instructions which you must follow when writing
Just like an MLA, the APA format follows specific guidelines and instructions. The format is the same and looks like this:
Font-12pt Times New Roman
Spacing- Double-spaced
Margins: One-Inch margins on the top, bottom, left, and right.
Page Numbers: Insert a header and page number at the top left of every page and a shortened title of your essay.
Title Page:
Headings: Bolded and in title case.
A Chicago-style format consists of the following guidelines:
Note that the formatting guidelines provided by your instructor will override the guidelines given by each style.
To ensure that your essay is clear and concise, there are things you must do and avoid when writing. These things are:
Dos
Don'ts
An essay aims to assess your critical thinking skills. If you are wondering how to write an essay like a pro, these tips will help.
The sooner you start working on your essay, the better, as it will give you enough time to write and revise it. Start by organizing your thoughts about the topic. Starting early also ensures you are not pressed for time and actually deliver a quality paper.
Good writing doesn't happen out of the blue. It takes a whole lot of practice to ensure you hone your skills. Practice writing essays on various topics at least three times a week. Even if they aren't masterpieces in the beginning, regular practice will change that.
Active voice is meant for sentences in which the subject is performing the action. For instance, I wrote an essay. Active voice is important in essay writing as it ensures the content is clear to the readers. It will also ensure readers are engaged in your work.
While spell checkers are a great way of proofreading your way and eliminating mistakes, they are not 100% effective. These programs sometimes miss many errors that you will notice if you take the time to check.
Use the right tone to engage the reader. Avoid figures of speech or redundant phrases that sway you away from the main idea. Also, ensure that your work flows nicely from the beginning to the end.
A top-grade essay will have a title page, introduction, body, concluding paragraphs, and references. In most cases, with a good essay plan or outline, you can write the introduction of an essay last after finishing the main body and the concluding paragraph. This way, you capture everything to the extent that your readers are tickled to read the essay from start to end. Here are some checklists to help you write a perfect essay.
The Introduction
The Body Paragraphs
The Conclusion Paragraph
Writing an impressive essay is not a walk in the park. So much goes into writing an essay, including guidance, consistency, and determination. You must also practice daily, as this will help you learn from your mistakes. As mentioned, the process of writing a great essay involves the following stages:
Remember that essays are all about communicating your ideas effectively to the reader. Therefore, ensure that every word or phrase has meaning and support and expounds on the central idea.
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