Often enough, students seem to dread the task of writing an essay. However, regardless of whether you’re writing for a contest, a class, or even a scholarship — there are ways of making the task at hand less overwhelming.
At the end of the day, essay writing is a project like any other — and that means you can either look for an essay writing service and outsource it or learn how to do it properly. With that in mind, we’ll take you through a simple six-step process for writing an effective, well-graded essay.
Choose Your Topic
Depending on the purpose of the essay, you may already have a topic assigned to you. In that case, you should start considering the kind of essay you’d like to produce. Are you going to do a general subject overview, or narrow the focus to a specific kind of analysis? Think of this early on to avoid having to redo large swaths of the essay down the road.
On the other hand, if you’re supposed to choose your topic yourself, there’s a bit more work to be done. But think of it this way — you also get the chance to pick a subject you find especially relevant or interesting.
If you’re picking your topic yourself, the first question you need to consider is the essay’s purpose — do you want to persuade or inform the reader? When you’ve decided on one, you can start thinking about the specific topic you want to explore.
In this part of the process, it’s always best to play to your strengths. In other words, if you’ve decided to persuade, pick a topic that you’re particularly passionate about, ensuring the essay will come off as genuine. And if you decide that educating is the goal of your essay, it’s always easier to go with a topic you’ve already studied.
Work On An Outline
If your essay is to be successful, you’ll need to organize your thoughts properly. And make no mistake — creating an outline, or even a diagram, of your essay ideas isn’t extra work; it will actually make the essay writing process quicker and easier.
By jotting down an outline before you start writing, you’ll have a better overview of the ideas in your head — allowing you to see the links and connections between them more clearly. Even the simplest structure you create beforehand will ultimately serve as your essay’s foundation.
Writing an outline is quite simple — just write your essay prompt at the top of a page. Then, start listing the primary ideas on the topic that come to mind, but leave some space under all of them. You’ll use this space to list the rest of the smaller ideas related to every “main” idea.
Write A Thesis Statement
So, you’ve picked your essay topic and organized your ideas into several easily digestible categories. Now it’s time to jot down a thesis statement for your essay. It will spell out the whole point of the essay to your readers, and remind you of that point while you write.
Generally, a thesis statement consists of two parts. During the first part, you’ll state your topic — and in the second, you’ll emphasize the precise goal of the essay.
So, if you’re writing about the Watergate scandal and its influence on American politics, your thesis statement could be something like, “The Watergate scandal has influenced the future of the American political process for the next half-century.”
Work On The Essay Body
The “meat” of your essay is the so-called body — in other words, the body of text that explains, argues, or describes the essay’s topic. Remember those ideas you wrote down while you were working on your diagram? Well, the body is where you’ll turn each of them into a distinct section of text and elaborate on them.
Every paragraph here has the same rudimentary structure. You start with an introductory sentence describing the section’s main idea. Then, you introduce its supporting ideas in individual sentences. It’s also a good idea to leave a few lines between these points, so you can return and provide detailed examples that further cement your point of view.
Write Your Introduction
Now that you’ve created the body of your essay, it’s time to write your introduction. Try to use this shorter section to grab your readers’ attention and highlight the topic of the essay.
If relevant, use a quote, a story, a piece of shocking information, or simply a summary of the topic. Whatever you end up using, just make sure that it neatly ties into the thesis statement — you’ll use that as the final sentence of the introduction.
Finish The Conclusion
When all the other parts of the essay are done, you’re ready to bring your topic to a logical conclusion — use this part to sum up all of your ideas and provide one final perspective on the essay’s topic.
Don’t make it too long — the conclusion should have up to five punchy, strong sentences that will reinforce your point of view and repeat your main points.
