Do you want to learn how to write a mouth-watering essay? If so then this essay writing quick guide is for you. Of all the academic writing tasks you do in high school and university, essay writing is the common type of work you will be doing regularly.
This is because essays help students to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject and exhibit their skills to gather and present information in the right way.
But how to write perfect academic essays isn’t an easy task. That’s why in this article, you’re going to learn how to write an essay like a pro even if it’s your first time.
So whether you’re asked to write a narrative essay, descriptive essay, expository essay, or persuasive essay, these tips can help you:
Understand the Instructions
You’re going to get everything wrong if you ignore the essay prompt or question.
First, to write good essays, always read over the instructions carefully.
Typically, different types of essays will have different types of writing, outline, and focus. The last mistake you want to make is to write a persuasive essay when your teacher wants you to write a descriptive essay.
And all this mess can happen when you don’t understand the assignment.
When you read over the instructions, you will know whether the professor wants you to write an argumentative, compare and contrast, critical, narrative, or informative essay.
Understand the Specific Formatting and Style Requirements
Different types of essays have specific formatting and style requirements. When learning how to write great essays, you should read the assignment carefully to know the exact word count, citation style to use, and any other formatting requirements.
Brainstorm a Topic
Your professor may or may not give you a topic to write about. If you have a topic chosen for you that’ll be great. But even if you’re asked to choose a specific topic, do some brainstorming work.
In this case, you need to come up with a written list of topic ideas. Just write down everything that comes up in your mind and narrow down the topic later. You can use mind mapping or clustering to brainstorm potential topic ideas here.
Remember to make your topic as specific as possible and interesting to you and your readers as well.
Seek Clarification
Or even seek the help of a professional essay writing service provider. If you’ve read over the instructions and understood the formatting and style requirements for the essay but you still can’t figure out how to choose a good topic or the structure of the essay seems confusing, feel free to seek clarification from your professor.
Apart from clarifying issues, your instructor can also give you essay samples that can give you guidance on how to write your essay.
Research Thoroughly
A perfect essay is supported with evidence gathered from reputable sources. You can only achieve this when you research rigorously. The first place to start your research is in the library. But don’t stop there. You also need to dust off the internet to find recent sources with relevant, accurate, and verifiable information about the essay topic.
- Make use of academic books and journals as well as scholarly databases like Google Scholar and others. You can also interview experts on the topic you’re writing about or watch interviews on YouTube.
Even though Wikipedia is a good source for academic writing, it should inform your research process. In other words, you should use Wikipedia as the starting point for your research.
Write Down Notes
As you research, write down detailed notes about ideas, questions, and any other relevant information you find helpful for your essay. Remember to keep track of every source of information so that you can use them in the citation to avoid facing plagiarism issues.
Create a Compelling Thesis Statement
The thesis statement contains the central theme or main area of focus of the essay. Using the notes you have written down, figure out the major points or arguments you want to make then summarize your main point to one or two sentences long.
Create a Basic Outline
Depending on the type of essay you’re writing, you will need to create an outline that will the flow of the essay and the organization of the arguments. Your outline doesn’t have to be detailed. You just need to list down the major points or arguments and then include sub-points providing the evidence or examples to support each argument.
Start and End Your Essay Strong
Once you have created the outline, the next step is to write a convincing introduction. Since you have written the thesis statement, writing the introduction will be simple.
Generally, the introduction provides a brief overview of the essay topic. The thesis statement comes at the end of the last paragraph of the introduction.
You can also write the introduction last after writing the whole essay.
Once the introduction is ready, present your arguments in detail in the body paragraphs. Remember to use appropriate transition sentences between paragraphs then cite your sources once done writing.
Lastly, wrap up with a conclusion that leaves a lasting impression on the reader then give your essay some time before you come back to proofread and edit where necessary.