Writing an Essay: Useful Tips

Writing an Essay: Useful Tips
Table of Contents
  1. Writing an Essay: Useful Tips
  2. Basic Rules of Writing an Essay
  3. The Process of Writing an Essay

Writing is a skill you will need throughout your academic and business life. Well, unless you will work as a free laborer or engineer, you will have to fill out various forms and prepare documents. In any case, every citizen should be literate. It is the image of the country. That is why high school teachers and university professors both care about the level of reading and writing. That is why they assign various writing tasks as homework. It is not done to lower student’s grades. Vice versa, homework tasks are assigned to improve student’s knowledge and skills in such areas as:

  1. Reading
  2. Research
  3. Writing
  4. Analysis
Right, the best thing about writing assignments is that they develop at least four areas in every human. In the age of modern technology, there is no need to write in hand. From one side, it is not that good as far as scientist proved that we learn better when we do something manually. However, it makes the situation better from the aspect of saved time and automation. Computers make it possible to print information faster. In addition, the special software helps students to check their papers for:
  • Grammar mistakes
  • Spelling errors
  • Punctuation gaps
  • English (or any other language) vocabulary usage
  • Plagiarism
There are also many professional online writing services that can do homework for you. Thus, it allows for getting better grades and test scores. Through writing the same words many times, students will sooner or later memorize all rules. 
 

Basic Rules of Writing an Essay


The most difficult part about essay writing is formatting. There are several widely used writing styles:
  1. MLA
  2. APA (you can view the sample here)
  3. Chicago/Turabian
  4. Harvard
  5. Oxford
  6. Vancouver
It is not that easy to learn every paper format by heart. They are too different, so sometimes students get confused. These writing styles mostly deal with the margins, font, intervals, space, etc. The only common thing is that almost all academic essays and research papers have to be double-spaced. The basic difference can be felt when it comes to referencing sources. In-text citations appear in different shapes in MLA and APA styles. While some styles require students to include the full name of the sources only at the end of the paper on the special page called Works Cited or Bibliography, other styles demand each source to be referred at the end of each paper in the footnotes. Headings also appear to be different. It is almost impossible to keep all those nuances in mind. That is why we recommend using any great essay example or template from the Internet to easy the writing process.

Another obstacle is a structure. Each essay has a single structure which looks this way:
  1. Introduction (first paragraph with the thesis)
  2. Body (3-5 paragraphs each describing particular idea as an argument)
  3. Conclusion (the last paragraph restating thesis statement)
In addition, some papers should include abstract, outline, table of contents, discussion, and appendix. Often, a cover/title page is a must. However, it’s your last problem to worry about especially when you have experts at your fingertips. Say 'someone do my homework' and we will assign a pro in your field to write a custom essay.
 

The Process of Writing an Essay

 
  1. Choosing essay topic
Focus on what you have to cover or what you know best of all. In case your tutor did not assign you any specific topic, you should think carefully about the recent social problems that are related to the course you take. People like discussing common community problems, especially in sociology research topics.
Your topic may sound as a question or as a claim. When writing an introduction, first think about your thesis statement. Is there any good reason to come up with the thesis like that? If you feel that this issue matters nowadays, continue writing the draft.
 
  1. Research
Of course, before you start working on your first essay draft, it is crucial to gather all important information. After doing so, the student will have to act as a professional researcher by picking only the most crucial parts of the texts he used to find. Usually, the essay is limited by the number of pages or words, so you can’t include just all information you find.
Read every sources sentence by sentence to highlight only the most relevant parts. The primary sources used to write an essay involve:
  • Textbooks
  • Fiction and non-fiction books
  • Documentaries
  • Academic and scientific journals
  • Separate articles
  • Official reports
  • Magazines and newspapers
  • Movies
There are secondary sources as well, but you need to use them only when your research paper has to be as complete as possible. You need secondary sources for a huge work which should cover all aspects of the specific problem. Then, be ready to conduct in-depth research based on the:
  1. Interviews
  2. Polls
  3. Questionnaires
  4. Surveys
If you’re a college student, you may find support for your writing in the face of your peers, professors, and other people living on campus. You can use your college population as a sample size for your work.
 
  1. Introduction
As we have stated above, writing an introduction is about developing your thesis statement and explaining your purposes. A thesis should sound both strong and simple so that every reader understands your goals from the first look. Beginning an admissions essay with a personal life story is a good idea. Scientific essays should begin with the facts or famous quotes. Don’t forget to cite them properly!
 
  1. Body paragraphs
Each body paragraph should contain evidence to support your main idea. Apply any source which is not older than 5 years to support your arguments. Put down only those thoughts that relate to the first sentence of each paragraph. This way you will stick to the topic. Provide your audience with a fact to prove that you have really studied the entire material before writing your piece. At least every first sentence must capture reader’s interest.
 
  1. Conclusion
This is the simplest part where you have to restate your thesis statement. Also, mention all arguments that support it.
 
  1. Revise and edit
The last step is to change every part of your essay which seems senseless or wordy. Make it short and clear. Get rid of all mistakes and plagiarized parts (if any). Rewrite them or replace by original thoughts. Avoid repeating words – use synonyms instead.  Thus, you should have at least two different copies of your essay. Make sure your final draft follows all writing standards and particular writing style.

To make sure you did not miss a thing while writing, ask for professional online writing and editing help from websites like this one. Then you’ll be ready to submit your excellent essay on any topic.