How to Create a Strong Essay
Once you step across the threshold of a college, you will be showered with dozens of writing assignments requiring your immediate attention. And as you realize that your annual grade depends on how good and fast you can crank out essays, you will be torn between two options – to find some cheap writing service and delegate your headache to someone else or to master the gift of the gab and put it on paper. Unless your choice falls on the first option, it wouldn’t be odd to learn producing strong essays.
Let’s define the term “an essay” first. It is a prose writing work that serves to prove a certain idea or statement through study, analysis and exegesis of the facts. As a college student, you may need to produce different kinds of essays. Their style, length and voice will largely depend on the topic, course requirements and your individual level.
The creative process can be divided into three stages: knowing the drill, writing and editing. As these three steps will come in handy to any paper you may be writing, the sooner you acquire the skill the easier it will be in the future. The time and amount of work required at every step vary for every specific type, and they greatly depend on the length of an essay and your awareness of the topic. As a science student, for instance, you may know little about Shakespeare’s works, so most of your time you will devote to research. However, the situation can be absolutely the opposite with the topic you are well-versed at.
Whatever the case is, make sure that you expressly know what point you want to make and in what words you want to wrap it up. These several crucial steps will make your preparation more organized:
Clarify all the unclarities. Carefully read the task and ask yourself if you understand its purpose and fundamental requirements. If necessary, ask your professor to explain the details once again or give you a hand with surmounting the hurdles you struggle with.
Determine the topic. If you are allowed to pick your own topic, it is better to focus on something familiar, especially if you are limited in time. To make it more interesting for yourself, however, you can consider and reveal the problem from a bit different perspective.
Strengthen your point with facts. By reinforcing your arguments with credible evidence, you’ll make your essay sound more persuasive and trustworthy. Use tables, worksheets, commentaries, whatnot only from the sources you are confident in. Make notes and jot down the sources you take the information from. Having these things put down, it will be easier to check their reliability afterward or use them for your assignment.
Develop a core idea. The main idea is a key point of your argument and it should be running like a golden thread through the text. Keep it in mind when writing – this will help you to stay on message.
Map up a plan. Write down a short plan that would demonstrate the heart of your essay. It will help you to arrange your thoughts and stay on track when writing.
As soon as you get a clear vision of what problem you want to raise and how to back your arguments with proof, you can get down to writing.
Start with devising a good introduction that would catch your reader’s eye. Normally, this part takes 10-20% of the writing space and informs the reader about what they should expect further as the text goes.
You may start it with a deep philosophic question, a staggering statistics or an inspiring quote. Whatever it will be, it should awake interest and highlight the importance of the topic.
When you finally have the attention, briefly outline your angle. At this stage, you may provide some background data, give a summary of important research and explain the main terms. Yet don’t go overboard with details – you’ll delve into them later. In a couple of sentences, finish the introduction by formulating the gist of the essay.
The largest part of your writing work is called the body and it covers up to 75% of the whole essay. Here, you should give a detailed explanation of your position and support it with facts. The goal is to bring forward, process and explain the materials you collected to prove your point of view.
To enhance readability and reach your reader, it is crucial to break the text into paragraphs. In each new paragraph a focus should be given only to one single statement. Starting a new paragraph with a topic sentence will help you to achieve a smooth switch-over from the previous thought and push the reader to the next one. In their turn, transition words will create a natural link between sentences.
Once you’re done with that, provide the ins and outs of your research, some examples or relevant quotes that could prove your point. Make sure that the given information reinforces your position and the reasons don’t seem vague to the reader.
The final one or two paragraphs are usually allotted to the conclusion. Keep in mind that the overused conclusion phrases will not add any value to your essay, but only hurt the ears and irritate the eyes. The goal of the final part is to highlight how previously made statements are connected, sum up what you realized from the research and stress upon the importance of your findings. Therefore, don’t lead your reader away by bringing in new statements or facts. Be confident in defending where you stand and don’t undermine your position with saying that your opinion is only one side of the coin. Make sure that the final sentence of your writing piece sticks in mind and leaves a strong final impression.
Remember, to write an outstanding essay you need to follow a well-defined plan, be clear and consistent in your arguments and fine-tune it with a bit of eloquence.
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