An essay is a piece of writing comprising statements, realities, opinions, interpretations, and descriptions. One of the best ways to express your ideas and opinions in academia is through essays. You need Essay writing tips for an effective essay.
Since the beginning of your education , you must have come across different types of essays on various topics. As you progress through your school and college, the nature of essays shifts from simple to complex. And a time comes when your teachers ask you to write essays on your own.
Most of the students find it problematic to write essays. It is because nobody has given them essay writing tips. They are unaware of the format and the basic steps to follow while writing an essay. Writing an essay is an interesting yet tricky job. It is exciting for some who love to write, while a boring task for others.
However, once you know the fundamentals of essay writing, the work becomes easier for you. A student must know the basic structure of an essay that consists of three major sections i.e., an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
The length of essays depends on the nature of the subject, and it ranges from three paragraphs to multiple pages. Below are some essay writing tips that you must follow before writing an effective essay on your own.
Sometimes your teacher does not assign the topic to write an essay and you have to select the topic on your own. You must be careful while selecting the essay writing topics and must keep a few things in mind .
Try to choose a topic that goes with your area of interest. If you want to base your essay on a general overview, you should go for a general topic, otherwise, you can opt for a specific topic if the purpose is to do a detailed analysis.
Furthermore, one must also be clear about the type of essay s/he is going to write. There are different types of essay writing. You can choose among expository essays, descriptive essays, argumentative essays, narrative essays, and compare and contrast essays.
Once you are confirmed about the subject of your essay then you can decide on an interesting title for it. The title should be clear enough to make the reader understand what the essay is all about. It should reflect the theme of the essay.
You can use idioms, phrases, and quotations as the title, but try to keep it concise. Moreover, it is not necessary to decide the title in the beginning. You can also entitle your essay after it is completed.
An important step before starting an essay is the brainstorming technique. After you are sure about the topic of your essay, all you need to do is to think about all the ideas, opinions, and arguments that come into your mind and are relevant to the subject.
After this, jot down these ideas and try to create a link among them. Exclude those ideas that are tricky to handle and focus on those that are per your interest. You can also use the mind mapping technique for getting more ideas and thoughts and building a connection among them.
There are many students who give a direct start to their essays without making an outline and get stuck later. Essay writing becomes simpler when you make an outline of the essay before writing it. It keeps you on track and tells you about the organization of your ideas in the essay.
You can make an outline of your essay and follow it while writing. Write all the important ideas at the beginning of the outline in the form of headings. These are the points that you are supposed to cover in the initial section of your essay. You can also create sub-ideas out of these main ideas.
After the main ideas, write the less important ideas that need to be covered in the later section of the essay. You can make changes to your outline while writing the essay. You can add new points that pop up in your mind while writing. You can also delete those ideas that you find difficult to write.
Developing a thesis statement is important because it tells about the purpose of the essay. It keeps the writer focused and does not let him deviate from the subject.
Your thesis statement should be in the introduction (mostly at the end of the introduction) and must have two things, the topic and the aim of the essay.
After constructing the thesis statement, the essay writing needs to be started. The first section of the essay is its introduction in which you are supposed to introduce the topic. Try to grab the attention of the reader in this section by making it thought-provoking.
The introduction should clarify the subject of your essay and its purpose to the audience. Also, it should have the thesis statement ???? at the end.
Once you are done with the introduction, the next step is to fill in the information in the body of the essay. The body of the essay contains all the points that you aim to discuss in your essay. Depending on the type of your essay, you either narrate, explain, describe, argue, or compare and contract in this section.
The body may contain multiple headings depending on the quantity of information. The main points must be covered in main headings. Each main heading may contain subheadings.
While writing the body, one must develop cohesion and coherence in it. The last line of a preceding paragraph must have a link with the first line of the succeeding paragraph. Furthermore, you can also insert linking words and phrases in your writing to maintain coherence and cohesion.
After jotting down all the necessary details, it is time to conclude your essay. You should revise your thesis statement in the conclusion section, but in a different way to avoid repetition.
The conclusion should summarize all the views expressed in the body of the essay. Also, the final part of the conclusion should address that the purpose of the essay, being mentioned in the thesis statement, is fulfilled by the writer.
Essay writing is not as difficult as most of us think. If you follow the aforementioned steps while writing your essay, you can write effective essays on your own without taking help from others.
