While taking English courses in high school and college, you'll
likely be assigned to write essays. While writing an essay for an
English class may seem overwhelming, it does not have to be. If you give
yourself plenty of time to plan out and develop your essay, then you
will not have to stress about it.
Sit down and write. While it's important to prepare to write, when it comes down to it, you just have to start putting content on the page. Remember that you can always go back and make improvements later, and that revisions are part of the writing process when you want to get a paper of the highest essay quality.
Draft a tentative thesis. Your thesis is one of the most important elements of your essay. A thesis statement summarizes the main argument or position of your essay in one sentence. It lets readers know what the essay will attempt to show or prove. Everything in your essay should be connected to your thesis in a straightforward way.
Develop your introduction. Once you have a compelling thesis statement, craft the rest of your introduction around it. You can also save this step for after you've drafted the body of your essay if you feel intimidated by the introduction. The best introductions "grab" the reader's attention and make them want to keep reading. Some effective strategies for creating an introduction include:
Develop your ideas as much as possible. Make sure that you include as many details as possible throughout your essay. Remember that padding (filling in with meaningless text or using extra wordy sentences) is not an effective strategy for writing essays because instructors can see right through it. Your instructor has probably read hundreds of student essays over their career, so they'll know when an essay has been padded. Fill your essays with details that make your essay useful and insightful instead.
Work towards a conclusion. The general structure of an essay usually goes from broad to specific. You could visualize this tendency as an upside-down pyramid or as a funnel. By the time you get to your conclusion, it should feel as though the information in your conclusion is inevitable. It's essentially a recap of everything you've spent your whole essay trying to prove. However, there is also potential to use your conclusion for other purposes. You may find that you want to use your conclusion to:
Set aside time to write. You cannot write a quality
essay in 10 minutes. It's best to give yourself ample time to write and
revise the essay. Try to factor in some time for breaks between drafts
as well. If you're approaching a deadline, however, you may need to make
the best use of the time you have.
Sit down and write. While it's important to prepare to write, when it comes down to it, you just have to start putting content on the page. Remember that you can always go back and make improvements later, and that revisions are part of the writing process when you want to get a paper of the highest essay quality.
Draft a tentative thesis. Your thesis is one of the most important elements of your essay. A thesis statement summarizes the main argument or position of your essay in one sentence. It lets readers know what the essay will attempt to show or prove. Everything in your essay should be connected to your thesis in a straightforward way.
Develop your introduction. Once you have a compelling thesis statement, craft the rest of your introduction around it. You can also save this step for after you've drafted the body of your essay if you feel intimidated by the introduction. The best introductions "grab" the reader's attention and make them want to keep reading. Some effective strategies for creating an introduction include:
- Telling a personal anecdote
- Citing a surprising fact or statistic
- Overturning a common misconception
- Challenging the reader to examine her own preconceptions
Include topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph.
Topic sentences signal to readers what a paragraph will discuss. Start
each of your paragraphs with a topic sentence so that your instructor
will be able to see that your ideas progress in a clear, direct manner.
- Think of the topic sentence as a way to tell readers what you will talk about in the rest of the paragraph. You don’t need to summarize the whole paragraph in the topic sentence, just provide readers with a taste.
- For example, in a paragraph that describes Okonkwo’s rise and fall in Things Fall Apart, you might begin with something like: “Okonkwo starts out as a poor young man, but then rises to a position of wealth and status.”
Develop your ideas as much as possible. Make sure that you include as many details as possible throughout your essay. Remember that padding (filling in with meaningless text or using extra wordy sentences) is not an effective strategy for writing essays because instructors can see right through it. Your instructor has probably read hundreds of student essays over their career, so they'll know when an essay has been padded. Fill your essays with details that make your essay useful and insightful instead.
Work towards a conclusion. The general structure of an essay usually goes from broad to specific. You could visualize this tendency as an upside-down pyramid or as a funnel. By the time you get to your conclusion, it should feel as though the information in your conclusion is inevitable. It's essentially a recap of everything you've spent your whole essay trying to prove. However, there is also potential to use your conclusion for other purposes. You may find that you want to use your conclusion to:
- Qualify or complicate the information in your essay
- Suggest a need for further research
- Speculate on how the future will change the current situation.
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