The best tips that you should follow each time you write an essay to ensure that you get the best results and get your message through to the audience.
To some students, writing good essays comes naturally whereas to others, they have to practice more often for them to master the art of good writing. Mastering the art of responding to the requirements of an essay in a proficient way is something that has to be learned as well as practised regularly. The good thing about learning how to write a great essay is that the same skills can be applied in writing any form of academic writing; whether it is a research, dissertation, or a reflective essay. One of the reasons why individuals encounter challenges in writing good essays is because they do it for the sake of external rewards such as scoring good grades or impressing the examiner. The problem is that when an individual pays too much focus on external rewards, it makes writing less fun and more difficult. When you focus too much on the external rewards, your subconscious, which is the source of your creativity, will shut down. It is also essential to understand some critical elements, such as the structure of a good essay. This essay will provide the most useful tips on how to write a good essay.
The primary thing that students forget when coming up with their essays is the fact that they need to communicate with their audience in a way that makes sense. They also need to ensure that they answer all the questions or prompts that may be provided in the instructions while remaining relevant to the topic. They also need to conduct proper research and use good references that show their readers that they actually took time to investigate the topic. When all this is done, the writer needs to find a way to write the essay and also a way to guide the audience by coming up with a good thesis statement for their work. This can be extremely challenging, especially to individuals that do not have experience. Another challenge is how to structure an essay properly based on the required format. Let us discuss some of the steps that you can follow when attempting to write a good essay.
Understand the requirements of the question
Although this may sound like a piece of general advice, the fact of the matter is that failure to have a good understanding of the question may result in disappointing grades. It is essential that you understand whether you are required to critically analyse, compare and contrast, or write about the importance of a given topic. When it comes to writing an essay, there are a given set of expectations, which are based on typical phrases found in the essay questions. When you are asked to provide the usefulness of something, you do not necessarily have to go so much deeper into the topic. Although you may comment on the weaknesses and the strengths, most of the essay should be devoted to the mentioning the usefulness.
Write a powerful thesis statement
As a student, it is important to conduct your research on how to come up with a good thesis statement or hypothesis from your essays. Not only does this powerful statement direct your writing, but it also helps the readers understand your main arguments early on in the paper, therefore, preparing them for what to expect in your writing. After you have a great thesis statement, it becomes easier to write your essay since you will work towards defending that thesis and showing your audience why your point of view is relevant. Always ensure that you can easily defend your position using research whenever you choose your hypothesis. Ensure that you write it our using proper language and write it at the beginning parts of your paper (opening paragraph). The reader should have an idea of what you want to show and hence the importance of doing it early.
Plan and schedule
The first step of writing a good essay is developing a good understanding of what the essay entails. The second important thing is making good use of the available time. It is unfortunate that most students underestimate the amount of time that is required to write a good essay. As a result, such students result in either spending late nights in the library or scoring disappointing marks. If you want to write a good essay, you should begin planning for the essay from the time you receive the instructions. Through developing deadlines, you will be determined to abide by them hence ensuring that most of the tasks are completed in time.
Read widely
Although writing is the main task, reading widely is also essential. You should ensure that you read different sources of information before you start writing your essay. One of the most important academic skills is learning to sift through a large volume of information. One of the tools that can be used to perform such activity is Google scholar since it can be used to search for information using keywords. Rather than spending too much time reading an entire article, one can simply go through the abstract. If the abstract is not providing sufficient information, one can go through the conclusion as it contains the summary of the article. A student would not want to spend too much of their time going through an endless number of articles only to find out they are not relevant.
Learn how to reference properly
When you are writing, you are most likely going to borrow ideas from other people or even use some of their work to defend your main arguments. Although time-consuming, it is imperative to learn the different styles of referencing academic articles, books, texts, websites, and other important sources. There are many styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard, to mention but a few. All these styles using different arrangements of information, and it is always expected that you will use the demanded technique. When you are able to reference your work well, you show your audience that you actually conducted good research and allow them the opportunity to verify your information. This is very important in all good essays, and you should ensure that you properly structure and reference all your essays for good results. Always try and look up the various structures and formats for each style each time you attempt to write an academic essay to avoid errors and inconsistency as you reference
Think critically
It isn’t easy to come across an article or theories that are perfectly written. Most of the theories, concepts, and articles have flaws. Although it is okay to be descriptive, it is important to show that you are able to make logical and critical reasoning when writing academic content. Your essay will be unique because of critical reasoning. It will show the examiner that you are not reiterating what has already been published but using the ideas presented academically. You can learn how to be critical by reading other published literature reviews where you will find that instead of the authors summarising the previous studies, they presented a critique to identify the gap, which they would fill.
Plagiarism and paraphrasing
Every time you use borrowed information, it is important that you give credit to the authors through citing where the information was retrieved. Students need to understand the difference between paraphrasing and quoting. The general rule of thumb when it comes to academic writing is to paraphrase whenever it is possible and using quotes only when an individual is clarifying the point they are making. Most students have difficulties in paraphrasing the words of the author without losing the intended meaning. Proper citation of sources will not only aid in proving the legitimacy of your content but will also assist in ensuring that you are not accused of cases of plagiarism. It is important to note that most learning institutions do not tolerate incidents of academic dishonesty. Therefore, to come up with a good essay, you must paraphrase well and evade from incidents of plagiarism.
Always edit and proofread your work
After you have conducted all your research, written the paper and ensured that you had included the proper references, you will most likely be very excited and want to submit your work as fast as possible. This is a wrong approach that has led to many students scoring lower grades than they expected. We are all human and human is to error. You will most likely make some mistakes that you will not easily notice in your paper unless you proofread and edit your paper. Ensure that you take your time to read the paper again and look out for any mistakes that you may have unintentionally made in your work and correct them as well as possible. Also, try and get the opinion of an independent individual by letting them read over your work. Once you have their comments, ensure that you go through your work again and perform all relevant edits. Remember to use great online tools like plagiarism and grammar checkers before you finally submit your essays to the relevant parties.
The life of a student can be challenging since an individual has to balance between working and school. The fact that an individual has tones of essays, which they are supposed to hand in, within a limited timeframe makes the student’s life more difficult. Most scholars who have enough time claim that they do not have enough skills to come up with high-quality essays. Some of them even add on by stating that writing essays are boring and that they do not have a clue of where to start. However, with the above tips, it is easier for students to write good essays. Writing a top-notch essay should not so difficult for a student.
