Essay Writing Guide: Tried and Tested
Part 2 of the Tried and Tested Series
This here is just a handy list of tips and guidelines on quick and accurate essay writing. I picked up most of this advice from my English teachers, debate mentors, personal experience, and of course, hours and hours of obsessive searching on the Internet, all summed up into one little guide: hope you all enjoy~~
In any paper, it's important to start strong; after all, good content is useless if no one actually reads it, right? That's why most good essays begin with a hook or attention grabber sentence. Depending on the nature of your paper, this can be a rhetorical question, a quote, a base statistic, or even a joke. Although some claim the hook to be optional, I'd argue that it helps the reader not only feel more interested, but also allowing them to build expectations about the overall theme and tone of the essay.
If you're writing a heavy informative type essay, it's essential that you provide background information on the topic. Shed light on the current situation surrounding your topic. Explain your keywords in layman's terms. Try to consider those people who may not have the same background knowledge as you do, and how to possibly make your writing more understandable for them.
Finally, I usually put my thesis statement near the end of the paragraph, which is a nice little spot to segue into the meat of your paper. In one simple sentence, explain what your entire essay is about-- while that does sound pretty daunting when you have a 10 page long paper, it does helps you put into perspective the most important aspects of the topic that you should be focusing on and prevents you from going too off-topic.
In my opinion, a well structured essay resembles a very wordy flowchart. The body is divided into paragraphs; each paragraph holds one main idea that is linked to the thesis statement. This idea is often called a topic sentence.
The sentences after the main idea usually answer the following questions:
What is currently known about the main idea?
What are some examples about or concerning the main idea?
How can you further describe or explain the main idea?
How is the idea related to the thesis statement?
Why is this idea important or worth mentioning?
Before going to the next paragraph, make sure there are transition words or phrases to make the sentences flow more smoothly. You should also make sure to use the appropriate transition words, because no one appreciates you reusing therefore and moreover 5 million times. When in doubt, there are plenty handy lists of transition words floating around the internet.
When organizing paragraphs, it's worth considering what kind of structure you plan to use.A more narrative based essay would favor a chronological arrangement compared to a persuasive article, which ranks ideas by order of importance.
The main purpose of the conclusion is to briefly summarize the contents of the entire essay. This includes restating all your main ideas and other important pieces of information. After all, this is where most readers look first when they do their research; help them out a bit by letting them know what they can find in your paper
The second and sometimes overlooked purpose of the conclusion is to show the relevance of value of the essay. Just like in a book or movie, it is important that the readers feel a significant impact at the end of a paper. If the essay is informative, they should feel knowledgeable; if it was persuasive, they should feel inspired. The ability to grab a reader's interest or attention from start to finish is often what separates a good paper from a mediocre one.
One of my favorite pieces of writing advice is to "go full circle". This means tying your conclusion back to your introduction. There are a million ways to do this, from simply restating your opening line to constructing elaborate analogies or answering your own rhetorical question. This prompts the reader to mentally go back to the beginning and recall what they've read. It also makes the entire piece feel well planned and thought out, and that's why I believe it is a very powerful tool.
Tips for the Writing Process
Outline. Outline. Outline. Believe me, I used to be one of those people who thought outlines were next to useless. I used to be so confident in writing whatever was on my mind right onto the paper and believing that whatever came out would be of good quality; that was until I met an English teacher in Senior High with much higher standards on organization, and my once-high English grades plummeted due to "wordiness" and "poor organization". As a hobbyist writer, my pride really took a blow, and I was determined to fix whatever criticisms my teacher had. That's when I got into outlining, which probably should be a topic in itself, but basically is just the process of brain dumping ideas, rearranging them in bullet form, and creating a hierarchy of ideas without using proper sentence structure. After using this system, I found out that outlining not only improved organization (I realized how much I used to go off topic) but helped conquer writer's block, which makes sense since drafting out base ideas is way easier than spending 5 minutes trying to write the PERFECT opening line got a paragraph. So yea, don't be lazy and just outline. You won't regret it.
Write out of Order!! Just because the introduction comes first on the paper doesn't mean that you have to write it first. In fact, some of my friends write the introduction last because they find it the most daunting. Instead, write whatever feels intuitively easiest for you, and you'll find that the bulk of your paper will be finished faster than you'd expect.
Get a second opinion if you can. Ask a friend to read through your paper, get their (honest) opinions. Be open to criticism, because only the truest of friends are willing to steer you towards improvement. Who knows, they might even catch a typo you missed. In return, offer to check their work. Try to identify what aspects of their writing style you like, and how you could possibly incorporate that into your future essays.
