During your college, every student is expected to write essays. Many find it a difficult task as it requires a substantial amount of work such as intense research; critical assessment of the acquired knowledge; organizing the structure coherently; constructing the argument and a lot more.
But it is also an opportunity for the students to develop and demonstrate their advanced cognitive skills. Your essay writing skills will define your personality and talent you have that will set you apart from other talented students.
Some simple steps are formulated to help you get a knack for writing great essays in no time.
1. Check the essay title and instructions
Analysing the essay question properly is very important because too many essays are marked down because the questions provided were not specifically answered by the students. Read the essay title and break it down into the following parts:
- What the title demands you to write and how to write.
- Recognize the key word or phrases such as ‘discuss,’ ‘critically analyse.’
2. Create ideas and plan your essay
After all the preparatory reading of the essay title and instructions, it’s time for you to generate ideas related to the essay title. So here you need to go for the mind mapping technique.
- Mind mapping: is a simple technique that helps you to think critically and enhances your planning and problem-solving skills. Mind mapping enables you to generate more ideas quickly and how to link those ideas coherently.
- Outline: After using the technique of mind mapping and having some key areas identified, you now need to draft an outline. i.e., a structural plan for your essay.
Make sure that you assign one key topic for each paragraph. You can also use services like write my essay for me for this part.
3. Research for the essay topic
You need to do a considerable amount of reading for research. Avoid reading things that are not relevant to the topic. Start with your research and readings, i.e.you will now be engaged in active research that targets the requirements of your essay.
The best way to undertake your critical reading is to do some analysing, evaluation, contrasting and commenting using the literature. Do not forget to keep notes of the references along the way in order to write the bibliography at the end.
4. Structure
The structure of the essay comprises of:
- Introduction
- Body
- Conclusion
The introduction is very important as it sets the tone for what your essay is about. It must include some highlights about the topic; some background information; objectives of the essay and about your approach.
The body is divided into paragraphs with headings and subheadings. Within these paragraphs you build your arguments and line of reasoning based on the evidence you provide. Each paragraph consists of a key statement; supportive statements and a concluding statement.
The simplest yet the most important part is the conclusion. Here you need to round up all the arguments you presented with the evidence. It includes:
- Summary of the key themes
- General conclusion
- Specific answer to the question provided in the instructions.
- Recommendations and suggestions about your conclusion.