Essay writing is an extremely important skill for students these days. No matter what your choice of discipline, most students need to present their ideas in the form of an essay at some point crucial junctures in their lives.
Most students are daunted by the broad prospect of the essay itself while others are unable to reign themselves in and express their ideas coherently within this structure. While an essay can feel like a mammoth task, it is actually a great opportunity for students to express their artistic freedom and showcase their knowledge of the subject.
Here are some effective essay writing tips to help you complete your work:
- Understand the purpose of your Essay:
- There are different types of essays that students are expected to write in the course of their academic curriculum. There are essays in the form of answers in an examination, college essays that you have to submit at the end of each semester in the form of paper, dissertations and thesis’s, scholarship and college application essays; the list goes on.
- Tailor your approach to the essay depending upon its purpose. For instance, an examination essay needs to be quick and to the point, a dissertation must be well researched, while a scholarship or college application must portray your personality and achievements in a manner that makes you stand out and appear worthy of a position in their program.
- You must understand whether you will be marked on the basis of your language and clarity or the strength of your intellectual ideas. A high school, English language essay, will obviously be the world apart from a term paper on Abraham Lincoln.
- Focus on your Topic:
- If you have been assigned a topic beforehand, you must research it thoroughly. If it is assigned to you on the spot, then you must marshal your resources and present your arguments to the best of your abilities.
- However, if you have the liberty to pick a topic for yourself, you need to think about it carefully. Consider the purpose of your essay and come up with an essay topic that best fits your purpose.
- Choose a topic within the scope of your syllabus and choose an approach. You may be persuasive and write about personal experiences or things that you’re passionate about or you maybe informative and display your knowledge on the subject in the form of coherent and well-researched
- Think carefully if you need to come up with a statement of purpose, a thesis statement or a hypothesis. You must work your arguments around this. So ensure that your arguments serve to prove your hypothesis conclusively.
- This is a crucial point of consideration for application essays and dissertations so brainstorm with your ideas before choosing one after careful thought and consideration.
- Plan your Essay:
- It is never a good idea to jump straight into your essay without any planning, even if it is an examination essay where you have been assigned a topic on the spot.
- If you know, you will have to write an essay for the examination you must be prepared with certain thoughts and arguments relevant to your subject that you can present as an answer in the exam. Jot down your ideas in the form of a list after reading the question so that you know the order of your arguments.
- Give yourself enough time to research your topic.Draw up mind maps to fine tune your ideas;write multiple drafts to tweak your arguments for clarity and fact check them thoroughly before handing in your work.
- Ensure that each of your arguments connects and serves to illustrate your hypothesis.
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- Have a clear Structure:
- Conventional essay structures have three parts- an introduction, body and conclusion. However, this is not a situation where one format will serve every essay. Follow a format in keeping with your topic and the purpose of your essay.
- A thesis or dissertation must have a hypothesis, followed by primary and secondary resources that substantiate your main argument and finally a conclusion that summarizes all the arguments provides room for any exceptions and succinctly wraps up your essay by proving your hypothesis.
- An examination essay will perhaps be a simple five paragraph essay that directly addresses your question and assigns a paragraph each to an introduction and a conclusion and gives you three paragraphs to develop your arguments in the body of the essay. In the body, it is advisable to open with your strongest arguments and conclude with weaker points.
- For an application essay or a creative essay you have a lot of freedom and can choose to display a number of techniques by beginning in medias res, portraying a stream of consciousness technique or employing other techniques like montage and flashback to illustrate your ideas in an innovative way that hooks your readers.
- Don’t be afraid to experiment that keep an eye on the word limit. Don’t write too much on an examination essay or turn in too little for a thesis paper.
- Substantiate your Arguments:
- Elaborate on your thought process in a manner that helps the examiner understand the logic of your argument or substantiate it with the help of hard facts.
- For an examination essay, find ways to illustrate your arguments with textual reference from within your syllabus.
- Use anecdotes to substantiate an abstract theory. You may even use such anecdotes to enliven an otherwise dry dissertation. Sometimes it is easier to get your point across with an anecdote or an illustrative example rather than a theoretical explanation.
- With application essays, add credence to your qualities by substantiating them with specifics like certificates and letters of recommendation.
- Corroborate your hypotheses with critical arguments from prominent experts within your field. Quote scholars enough to validate your arguments but come up with original content that demonstrates critical reasoning instead of depending solely on quotes and citations.
- Include a detailed bibliography when you cite critical material in your essay. You do not want to be accused of plagiarism.
- Review your Work:
- Review, recheck and revise your work. Even the best-planned essays need to be proofread for typos and grammatical errors before submission.
- Review your work at every stage of your essay.At the planning stage, you must fact check your arguments.
- While composing your essay, write a paragraph, read it and then move on to writing the next paragraph. While this sounds time-consuming, it helps maintain the coherent flow of the essay and saves time later when you give it a once over for careless mistakes. If you are a quick reader, you can use this method to recheck your examination essays for clarity, coherence and careless errors.
- Write multiple drafts of your essay. This technique works especially well with dissertations as you can share your draft with professors or friends and get a second opinion. Write multiple drafts and keep tweaking the details until you are happy with it.
- Sharpen your Skills with Practice:
- Whether you intend to embark upon a career in literature or a career in any field as an academician, you will need your skills to write essays, present papers and submit dissertations and academic articles.
- Hone your skills by reading essays or papers on similar topics so that you are familiar with contemporary arguments and innovations on the subject. This will also give you an idea of the style and format that is expected of you. Reading other essays will develop your ability to think critically and present your arguments in an effective manner.
- You must also work on building your vocabulary so that you can express your ideas succinctly without being verbose.
With these ideas, you will have no trouble writing a great online essay.