CultusA lot of students who face the task of writing an essay, just sit and type related snippets until they reach the required word count. This type of attitude leads to poor content and lower marks. A quality piece of work requires a bit more effort and concentration. However, students who follow certain essay writing rules, can produce interesting and captivating content, which merits a good mark. Follow this essential guide to essay writing to get started with your essay.
PLANNING AND RESEARCH
The composition remains a key element of any good essay. To structure your thoughts and arguments, you should prepare a short plan of the content. See how to plan an essay for the complete schedule.
After researching the topic, list the arguments and examples related to your topic. Note down any useful quotes with references, definitions or descriptions and keywords which you think should appear in the text.
Consider the arguments. Look at the arguments and ask yourself “do some of these logically follow each other, or belong to specific categories?”. Number these chunks and play with their sequence. This helps when planning an overall structure of the work.
Finally, match specific points with related examples, quotes or definitions.
WRITING AND ANALYSIS
If your a student, who is having problems starting your essay you should concentrate on producing an initial draft which follows the plan. Having a draft text to edit, is much better than having the prefect essay in your head, but never starting.
The catchy introduction should introduce the thesis. Some people like to give an overview of the content, while others start with a question. In either case, the introduction must capture the attention of the reader. A short dynamic piece, works quite well here.
When discussing arguments, try to keep a logical structure. First mention a point, then analyze its influence on the thesis. Finally, follow with an example or quote. To make reading easier, separate the chunks into their own paragraphs. When specific arguments seem disconnected from each other, look at adding a word, or a sentence which introduces the next thought.
Remember that tutors like to see a lot of analysis and individual thought in their students’ work. On the other hand, descriptions fail to add a lot to the quality of the content and should be avoided if possible.
The conclusion of an essay needs to mention the thesis again, whilst summarizing arguments and their relation to the main thought. Try to keep it short and sweet.
Finally, write the reference list.
EDITING AND SPELL CHECKING
Print out the finished essay and read it aloud. When doing this you should be checking for errors and unclear sentence structures. Pay specific attention to the most popular grammar and spelling mistakes. Finally, remove superfluous words, especially adjectives, which weaken the work. Most authors and writers have a set of favourite words which tend to show up frequently in their writing. To avoid repeating them too often check this thesaurus website for alternatives, but make sure the word you are using is in context and
makes sense.
A carefully planned and researched essay, when written according to our essential guide which is checked and edited afterwards, captures the attention of your readers and merits a good mark. It is also a good idea to check a few quality to see how other students tackled their essays and when doing this you can compare and contrast theirs against yours.
Bio: Essay writing guides brought to you by Jacob Jennings.