If you do not know how to write a good essay, this blog will be your ultimate guide. If you want to write a good high school essay for an assignment, you should follow the three simple stages further explained in this blog. They are the key to ace an academic essay.
You should also be able to evaluate your essay to know if there are any improvements required. We have also provided a checklist that can help you assess your essay.
Another aid for understanding essay writing service is reading essay samples. After you become familiar with the essay writing process, you can go through the attached samples at the end of this blog.
Contents
How to Write an Essay - Easy Steps and Stages
The Prewriting Stage
The Writing Stage
The Post-Writing Stage
Checklist for a Good Essay
How to Write an Essay - Easy Steps and Stages
For writing a good essay, it is significant first to understand the essay writing process. This process can be categorized into three basic stages, pre-writing, writing, and post-writing. You can read these stages and follow the steps mentioned in each stage to write a good essay.
The Pre-Writing Stage
Many people think that an essay just has to be written. This is wrong. There is a whole process of research and brainstorming that has to be done before writing the actual draft of the essay. The pre-writing stage comprises the following steps.
Understanding the Requirements of the Question
You are writing an essay, most likely because your instructor has given you an assignment. You should read the assignment question given to you. If there is a topic given, then understand the topic and its dimensions. There could be other instructions regarding the structure or type of the essay also.
Choose the Type of Essay that You Want to Write
If your instructor has not mentioned any specific type of essay, you should try to figure it out. Following are the major types of essays that you can write according to various topics:
Argumentative Essay: Its topic will most likely be a question that requires you to take an affirmative or negative stance on the topic.
Descriptive Essay: A descriptive essay topic asks you to describe a thing, person, place, or a particular event.
Narrative Essay: Narrative essay topics are usually biographies or autobiographies. They require you to narrate someone’s or your own life experiences.
Abstract Essays: If you have been given a topic that is a quotation or a literary saying, then you should write an abstract essay.
You could also write anexpository essay, a compare and contrast essay, a persuasive essay, or other types of essays based on the topic you select.
Brainstorm Your Topic
If a particular topic has not been assigned to you, then you should find it out yourself. For this purpose, you should spend some time thinking about ideas. You should think about your areas of interest or topic that you would want to write about.
Conduct Preliminary Research
You can also search for topics that you could write about. You can find about the current issues or trends. There are also lists of topics available on the internet from which you can pick the one you like.
Preliminary research also includes brief research about the topic to understand what the topic is about and what its requirements are.
Select a Topic
When you have understood the requirements of the question given by your instructor, did the brainstorming and researching, you can finally select a topic. This topic should be the one that you can write about and that you have understood completely.
By this time, you should have a rough outline in your mind about what should be written in the essay according to the topic.
Writing a Thesis Statement
How to write a thesis statement?
The thesis statement states a brief explanation of the topic or your stance on the topic. It will tell the reader what they will be reading further in the essay. An ideal thesis statement should have two to three sentences only.
Conducting Research
Reading and writing go hand in hand. It is important to read from authentic sources to produce a good essay. So, the last step in the pre-writing stage is researching according to your essay topic and thesis statement.
In this step, you will collect all relevant data, facts, or other information you will write in the essay. For this purpose, you can read various websites, research papers, books, etc. It is the stage where you gather the essay material.
The Writing Stage
By now, you should be well-prepared to write the essay. You should have a clear understanding of the topic. You would have gathered all the necessary evidence for your essay also. Now is the time to start writing the initial draft of your essay.
Drafting an Outline
The first step in the writing stage is to create an outline for your essay. An essay outline is a point-wise description of your essay. The points you will explain in each paragraph will first be written in your outline. Keep in mind that the order of the points will be similar to their order in the essay.
For example, your first paragraph in the essay is the introduction, so your first point in the outline will also be the introduction. To understand how to write an essay outline, you can check this sample:
Writing the Introduction of the Essay
After you have developed an outline for your essay, you will start the essay. The first paragraph of every essay is the introduction paragraph. This paragraph is supposed to describe the topic and its key terms.
If you are wondering about how to write an essay introduction to create a good starting, then you can consider the following tips:
Start with an Attention Grabber: An attention grabber is also called the hook of the essay. This is because it hooks your reader to your essay and creates their interest.
How to write a hook for an essay?
An attention grabber can be a famous quotation or a saying. It can also be a startling fact. You could also give an anecdotal start to your essay. If you are thinking about how to start an essay, then attention-grabbers should be your first choice.
Write the Background of the Topic: It is recommended that the brief history or background information of the topic be included in the introduction of the essay. For example, if you are writing an essay on the topic “The Tragedies of Pearl Harbour, “ you can include a brief background of World War I.
Include Your Thesis Statement: Remember the thesis statement that you wrote in the pre-writing stage. You will write that thesis statement at the end of your introduction paragraph.
Writing the Body of the Essay
The body is the part of the essay that comprises the most volume of the essay. Depending upon the requirement of your topic or question, the number of body paragraphs can vary. To create a well-written body for your essay, you can follow these tips:
Paragraph Structure: Every paragraph of the essay must have a topic sentence, supporting details, evidence, and a concluding sentence. The topic sentence tells the reader what is going to be discussed in the paragraph. The supporting details explain the topic sentence.
You should present evidence to prove the topic sentence. You searched this evidence in the pre-writing stage. The concluding sentence joins the paragraph to the topic of the essay. Each paragraph should support your thesis statement.
Linking the Paragraphs: To create cohesion in your essay, it is necessary to link the essay’s paragraphs. This can be done by using linking words like in addition to, furthermore, moreover, etc. The paragraph can also be linked by mentioning the idea of the next paragraph in the concluding sentence of the previous paragraph.
Writing the Citations: The information or evidence you have collected from the internet belongs to an author who originally started it. The ethical way to use that information in your writing is to cite that information.
Citations mean that you refer to the name of the author to whom the information originally belongs. Your instructor will mention the citation style. If not, then you can choose one yourself and cite your sources accordingly.
You can structure the body of the essay based on the type of essay that you choose. Their structures are further explained below:
Argumentative Essay Body: In an argumentative essay, the body could have two sections. One is the thesis; that is your stance. The second is the antithesis that is the opposite stance.
You can also structure the body to have one paragraph of the thesis and the second paragraph of antithesis, then the third paragraph of thesis and fourth of antithesis, and so on.
Descriptive Essay Body: The descriptive essay’s body may be structured according to the descriptive sections. For example, if you describe an ideal holiday destination, your first section can be the cuisines of the place, second can be the tourist spots, third can be cultural heritage, and so on.
Narrative and Abstract Essay Body: The body structure of narrative and abstract essay is almost the same. You will simply order the narration according to the series of events that happened. Similarly, in the abstract essay, you will explain the topic through different dimensions, one after the other.
Writing the Conclusion of the Essay
How to write a conclusion for an essay?
The conclusion of the essay is supposed to summarize your whole essay in a single paragraph. It reiterates your stance about the topic or the description that you write in the whole essay. A conclusion is a very significant part of your essay. Following are some dos and don’ts of writing an essay’s conclusion:
Dos of writing an essay conclusion
Summarize the whole essay, not parts of it.
Rephrase your thesis statement and add it in your conclusion paragraph.
Always end the conclusion paragraph on a hopeful or a happy note.
Don’ts of writing an essay conclusion
Do not include any new information in conclusion.
Do not provide additional evidence to prove your stance.
Do not use the previously written lines as-it-is in conclusion.
Do not exceed the conclusion to two or more paragraphs.
The Post-Writing Stage
Your job does not finish when you are done with writing the essay. Rather you have to follow the steps of the post-writing stage also.
Getting your Essay Proofread
You should always proofread the initial draft of your essay. A subject or a language expert can do this. Proofreading ensures that your essay does not have any contextual, structural, or grammatical mistakes.
Making the Necessary Revisions in Your Essay
Most probably, your proofreader will recommend some additions or changes in the essay. They could also point out some mistakes. You will be making the necessary changes to create the final draft of your essay.
Checklist for a Good Essay
You have written an essay by following some or all of the steps mentioned above. You should evaluate your essay yourself before you submit it to your instructor.
How to write an essay fast?
If you want to write your essay in less time, make sure that you check your essay based on the following points:
The structure of your essay must be correct. It should have an introduction, body, and conclusion.
The introduction and conclusion should be only one paragraph each.
All the dimensions of the topic should be addressed.
Recheck your essay to have all the requirements mentioned in the question given by your teacher.
There should be no grammatical errors in the essay.
Your thesis statement should be concise and clear.
Your introduction should have a hook.
Each paragraph only explains one point.
You haven’t mentioned any wrong or fake facts or evidence.
The citations are genuine.
The conclusion does not include any new information.
If you follow the three stages mentioned in this blog, your writing process will become more smooth and structured. We know that reading a set of instructions on essay writing might not be adequate for creating the best piece of writing.
After reading this blog, you will most likely search “how to write an essay example.” Well! We have already done that for you. Following are some examples of good essays that you can learn from.
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