College days are often remembered for new acquaintances, interesting subjects, useful information and sleepless nights because of the load of homework. Imagine now you are required to write an essay. You can spend a day on it or… just several hours if you follow the correct technique.
When the deadline is too short or when the task seems too difficult, some students start to panic and worry. Others, nevertheless, search for guidelines. Below, you will find some practical tips on how to write an excellent essay and how to avoid making some common mistakes that may easily ruin your work.
● Research Essay Topics Properly
There are various supplementary materials available online for you to write a college paper of any kind - guides, blog articles, samples, etc. It doesn’t mean that you will become a professional writer in an instant after reading a sample. But after some research on the Internet, you will be able to write an essay worth an A+. Know why? You’ll get familiar with all the aspects of essay writing and its formatting. You’ll plunge into the topic investigation and will be likely to find something valuable to point out in your essay, which is always highly appreciated. So start looking online for similar essays and then do a research for your own paper.
● Write your Essay simple and as Required
Essay writing requirements differ at each academic level, be it a page/word count or topic. The steady point is that you need to formulate the main idea in a thesis statement, define a goal and find some reliable sources of information. Your text must be cohesive and formatted according to an academic style. It is important to avoid complex grammar structures or too long sentences. Make your sentences simple and clear so they can get your message across more easily. Also, don’t think, “The more I write, the better grade I’ll get for my essay”. It doesn’t work that way. So you must follow the instructions they give you and make your language simple and clear.
● Grab the Attention of the Reader
Having a good beginning will be a key factor in your essay. It's right there where the reader determines whether it is worth to read an essay or put it aside. Taking into consideration that your instructor will have to read your essay to examine it, catch his/her attention in the beginning as well. You can choose one of these ways to start your essay.
- Standard implies answering six questions: who, what, when, where, why and how. The answers to all these questions allow the reader to understand what he/she is expected to find.
- Unexpected. When you start an essay with a surprising fact, some interesting information that is unknown or little known to the reader, so he/she will be intrigued and willing to read on.
- Persuasive. It offers the information in such a manner as to create an impression of the author's confidence in his/her personal opinion. Persuade then the reader that your opinion is right with the help of strong evidence.
- Informative. When all the significant information is written briefly in the introduction.
- Citatory is meant to use a well-chosen quotation to capture the attention of the reader in an instant, especially if it is formulated by well-known authoritative people like actors, political leaders, etc.
- Dialogical. The kind of beginning that stimulates the reader to participate in the dialogue on the topic. Instead of dialogues, you can use rhetorical questions to make the reader answer before starting to read your essay, or make a question the reader might be able to answer (correctly or not) so he/she might be interested in reading on if only to check if his/her answer was right.
● Select Strong Arguments
Proper argumentation is of the highest importance in an essay. You need to carefully select arguments to confirm your point of view. All these arguments should be convincing and reasonable. One way to do this, as we already mentioned, is to provide reliable data from the relevant resources - official archives, databases, etc. You can also make strong logical deductions explaining how you come to those ideas. Don’t simply jump to a conclusion, prove that it is the most reasonable conclusion, explain why it must be A and not B, so your ideas really make sense. But if your essay is not about something objective, that is, if you must talk to the heart and not to the head, then don’t spend too much time trying to sound logical (though often you also need to) and look for emotional arguments that can make the reader easily relate with those emotions, such as resorting to your own experience or, better still, to your readers’ experience, using inspiring analogies -this always works- assuming a very personal point of view -even if you must make things up- and trying to invoke or produce high ideals or emotions. But all these tips for emotional essays should for the same reason be carefully avoided when your essay is about reason and objectivity. So choose strong arguments which must be “objective and reasonable” or “emotional and apparently reasonable” depending on the situation.
5 Don’ts in Essay Writing
Usually, the essay writing tips consist of “do this” or “do that”, but writers should also be warned against some common mistakes that may, as we said, ruin all your work in spite of your efforts. Below, you will find what you should NEVER do with your essay writing if you want to avoid disaster:
- Don’t procrastinate to write an essay until the last minute;
- Don’t rush into essay writing without proper research on the issue;
- Don’t include information that does not directly support your essay topic;
- Don’t use quotes without referring to a source;
- Don’t hand in the work without double or triple checking it;
Writing an essay is not as scary as it seems to be at first sight. The main point is having an adequate preparation and then a good performance in writing. After you read this article, keep in mind the most important tip - don’t procrastinate and start writing as early as possible. And only then pick the fruit of your great job!
For a safe guideline on how to write a composition read our article: 8 Steps to Write a Good Composition, which may also give you an idea on how to organize your essay.
