Steps to Write an Essay
An essay is one of the main types of work in college. Your academic rating directly depends on the quality of writing essays. Therefore, you need to know several rules for creating a good text. The structure of the essay is very important and it cannot be violated.
The main peculiarity of an essay is that it is a non-fictitious type of writing regarding some particular topic. This assignment is one of the most frequent at school or university, so we are sure that you’ve already been given such a task several times. Actually, there are many forms of essays. The main feature of a narrative essay is that it tells a certain story, while a persuasive essay is that it makes an argument. Pursuing an idea is the basic focus of an exploratory essay. It doesn’t matter what kind of essay you need to write because there are some principles that are really helpful in connecting with your audience. Here are a few tips to help you write your work correctly.
How to Write an Essay
- Create a clear plan
Before you write your work, think carefully about its topic. Write down all the thoughts that come to your mind, try not to miss any of them because at first glance some ideas may seem not entirely appropriate, but after analyzing all the information, it turns out that it is very necessary.
Make a scheme of your ideas, combine similar thoughts. Then select the most important topics and make them the main points of your plan and other ideas will become its subheads. You can draw up your plan in any convenient you way, using numbers, letters, numbers together with letters, etc. The correctly written plan determines the quality of the whole work. It helps to follow the structure of an essay clearly, to present the information consistently, and not to lose any important facts.
- The introduction and the body of an essay
Describe the topic of your work and put the main problematic issues to which you need to find the answer in the introduction that should be short enough.
Each completed thought of your work should be allocated in a separate paragraph. It helps to perceive the text easier. Use various connecting phrases to make your work consistent. Outline only those facts that relate to your work, do not depart from the topic. Use different sources of information, specify it in the text. The use of quotations is encouraged, however, remember that your essay should not just be a collection of facts and dates. First of all, it should be a story, do not be afraid to express your opinion on the topics studied in your work. Do not break the chronology of the events but try to write as competently as possible avoiding grammatical and punctuation mistakes. Be careful with terms, make sure that you know the correct meaning of the notions to be able to add it to the text of your work.
- Make conclusions
Sum up all the results of your research in the conclusions of your work. This part of your work should be clear and concise. Re-read the finished work several times, correct mechanical errors, if it is necessary, redo paragraphs that, in your opinion, do not really fit the overall concept of your work.
Top Writing Tips
- Make sure you know what your purpose is
If you have to complete an essay as a response to a task, check whether your understanding of the assignment is correct and you know exactly what you need to talk about in your essay. Even if you write because of some other reasons, you should be aware of your goals.
- Take your audience into consideration
It is very significant to pay attention to your readers. The more material or facts you have about them in your head, the better. Probably your audience are experts on the topic, which you’ve chosen for your essay, therefore they already have some general knowledge concerning the subject. If you have a little amount of information about your readers, then you will need to explain and define some terms and provide context for the examples you mention.
- Find material for your topic
Brainstorming regarding your topic will undoubtedly help you to write an ideal essay and get a high grade. I recommend making lists, drawing diagrams, maps, etc. Just jot down a lot of ideas that come to your mind so that you can begin with the writing process.
- Formulate a thesis
Before putting down your thesis on the paper, look at your notes with the ideas and see what you would like to say. The next step is turning the idea into a whole sentence.
- Support your thesis with the necessary evidence
In this case, researching statistics and quotations will be really effective. In addition, think of your personal stories or other unique examples.
Let’s see the writing principles, which will improve your future essay writing:
- Organize the structure
Put all facts and figures in the defined order. Make your essay a well-thought-out masterpiece. - Create the transitions
Help the readers to move through your essay. Keep the main idea clear and interesting. Use the ‘transitions’: moreover, nevertheless, then, etc. - Concrete the words
You should use clearly defined words, so the reader could understand what you mean. - Create a loud title
Catch your reader’s attention with a good title. Make him/her want to read your writing. Use some phrases or questions. - Make your essay perfect
Edit and reread the work. Check the mistakes solely and ask someone to do this one more time.
Every one of us has an assignment to write the perfect essay in school or university. We all know how hard this process could be. Hope that thanks to these tips, all of your future essays will be very easy to write. Have great essay writing!