During your university or school life, the most common and yet the most challenging task that you would have to do is to write an essay. This is something that most students struggle with so if you don’t know how to write an essay, it’s okay because most people your age are struggling as well. However, writing an essay is not an impossible task, it can even become easy if you follow this guide. Here I will be explaining how exactly you can write an essay, the steps you must take, and a few extra tips to make the job easier.
The Basics: Essay Topics and KeyWords
The first thing to do when writing an essay is to read the topic carefully. This seems easy to do, doesn’t it? Yet, this is the biggest obstacle for many students, that is because this seems so obvious and so easy that most students don’t regard this step with the importance that it earns. That is why it deserves to be said that you must read the topic of your essay very carefully when you are writing an essay. Consider each word of the topic and pick out the keywords because they will guide you in writing your essay. For example, you may be asked to analyze a piece of poetry, or the topic may be about presenting an argument for or against a certain issue; these are all keywords that are indicators for the student on what the instructor is asking to be written in the essay.
Here is a list of the most common keywords and their meanings:
- Analyse: separately examine the parts and see how they relate, such as by looking at elements of a book—setting, characters, symbols, etc—and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the work of literature.
- Argue: Take a position on an issue—are you for or against—and give reasons with evidence and reasoning as support.
- Compare and Contrast: These words often appear together. Compare means to list similarities and differences. Contrasts refer to only mentioning differences.
- Discuss: Write in detail. Give examples and reasons.
- Describe: Write in detail about something so that the reader has a clear image of it, such as an object or a person.
- Summarise: List the main ideas while leaving out any specific details.
Let’s Get Started: Making an Outline
Now that you have a clear idea of the topic, you must brainstorm for the content of the essay. Take a moment and research the topic at hand or reference your knowledge and note down your points without consideration of any kind of order. Give yourself a time limit, for example, ten to thirty minutes, and when you are finished, re-read your ideas. Now, you must edit your ideas. Exclude anything which seems irrelevant or take out any points which you cannot support with evidence and reasoning. The ideas which have remained must now be put in an outline. This is an important step; creating an outline is basically creating the skeleton of your essay, it allows for a clearer image of your essay to develop. While making an outline, you must put your points in a structure.
Now The Framework: The Structure of the Essay
Having structure in an essay is important. At its core, the structural framework of an essay is as such; an introduction, followed by the body, and lastly the conclusion. Within this framework, information can be organized in a variety of ways; you must consider your topic and the type of information you have in order to decide on the structure which is the most well-suited to your essay. There are largely four ways to structure information in an essay; first, you have the chronological structure in which the reader is guided through a series of events in chronological order. The second is the compare-and-contrast structure wherein you first list down the similarities and then the differences. Thirdly, there is the problem-and-solution structure wherein you state the problem and give solutions, and similar to this is the argumentative structure where you list down arguments after explaining the issue.
The Final Step: The Writing Starts
Now that you have an outline and all the information in front of you, the actual writing can begin; you can now start your essay. While writing your essay, make sure that your content is relevant to the topic, you can do so by comparing each paragraph to the topic, seeing if it matches the keywords that you have identified. In addition, you have to make sure that every point you make is supported by either logical reasoning or by an example; you want to be elaborate in an essay, don’t just tell the reader about your topic but show it to them as well. You have to make sure that your points are logically structured and coherent as well and you can do so by making sure that the paragraphs flow together. However, it is important to note that this piece of writing will be your first draft: it is meant to be polished by editing.
The Last Touches: Editing and Refining
Once you have written your first draft; you can now start the last step of the essay writing process which is editing the draft and creating a refined final version of your essay. The very first thing you should do during this step is to rest, set aside your first draft, and don’t look at it for an entire day, instead busy yourself with other tasks. By doing so, when you look at your first draft again, you will be doing so with “fresh eyes” which will allow you to catch any mistakes you had made easily. During the editing process, there are two things to be aware of; whether your language and grammar are correct and whether your content is coherent and cohesive. Once you have made sure that these two elements are present in your essay and once you have made all of your corrections, you can create a final draft. This will be the essay you have created after completing all of these steps.
Moving On . . .
Now that you have learned how to write an essay, we should move on to learning how to write an introduction and a conclusion as these are the most crucial element of an essay. This is why you must gain a thorough understanding of how introductions and conclusions function and how you must write them.
How to Write an Introduction
This is where it all starts—the introduction is the paragraph where you “introduce” your topic to the reader, thus it needs to perform several functions at once. An introduction needs to be engaging and yet it needs to be informative as well; you need to capture the reader’s attention and make sure that they are informed about the topic and do so both at the same time. It sounds hard, right? But that isn’t really the case if you remember these few things. Firstly, an introduction is made of three components:
- The Hook: This is the first sentence in an introduction, this is the sentence that engages the audience. Often a relevant quote or a shocking statistic is used as the hook because they can be attention-grabbing.
- Introduction to the Topic: Here you will give a brief summary of your topic, perhaps a definition or a brief explanation of the issue.
- Thesis Statement: This is the most important part of the introduction, here you will take a clear stance and put forward the point you are trying to make in the form of a statement.
Below are some examples of thesis statements:
- Human beings are social creatures and to build friendly relations and improve one’s behaviour, three abilities must be practised; firstly, to listen; secondly to sympathize; thirdly, to share.
- While nature can determine a person’s biological traits, their identity is determined by their family by providing them with role models and developing the mental and emotional aptitude of children through familial bonds.
- College is seen as a compulsory part of education, however, instead of arbitrarily going to college, individuals should make the decision based on their personal reasons, their definition of success, as well as their particular skill-sets.
If you include all of these elements in your introduction—especially a good thesis statement—then you have succeeded in writing a good introduction. You would have written an introduction that gives the readers a brief orientation of the topic and shows them your stance i.e., what you plan on writing in your essay.
How to Write a Conclusion
Once you have written the introduction, the hard part is already done and in comparison, writing a conclusion is an easy task. So don’t worry and just remember these few tips; in your conclusion, you will summarise your essay and restate your thesis statement. In addition, you will end your conclusion with a broad statement such as your opinion or a final bit of analysis, something to qualify the conclusion. As you are not introducing any new information and just paraphrasing and summarising the information that has been introduced and that is familiar to the reader, you can be blunter in your conclusion. Thus, your conclusion should be fairly similar to your introduction, and it should end the essay satisfactorily for the reader, providing a direct and conclusive statement for the reader to round off the essay.
Now, You Can Get Started
For a lot of students, knowing how to start is often the hardest part of writing an essay but with this guide, the task of writing would be made simple because it takes you past that insurmountable obstacle. Now, you have a framework that you can use to develop your essay, so with the first step vanquished, you are on your way to writing a first-rate essay.
Before you rush off, here are some last, few tips:
- Start writing early—don’t write at the last minute, ideally, you would need three days; one for writing the outline, the second for the first draft, and the last for editing and creating the final draft.
- You don’t necessarily have to write the essay from beginning to end. If it is difficult for you to write the introduction, then start with the body paragraphs first and write the introduction later. You can work paragraph by paragraph.
- Make sure to include evidence and reasoning and integrate them carefully.
- Revise, Revise, Revise—I can’t say this enough, revise your first draft to create a refined final draft.
And now, the only thing left to say is . . . good luck!
Disclaimer: This post is all about how to write an essay.