How to Write an Essay
An essay is a common writing assignment for high school levels and above. It expounds on a particular topic to serve a particular purpose. Some reasons for writing essays are to analyze, to critique, to persuade, or to inform. Generally, the length of an essay depends on the level you are writing for and the teacher's instructions. Most essays have three parts, the introduction, body, and conclusion. The organization of ideas in these parts depends on the type of essay or personal choice.
Steps to Writing an Essay
If you are wondering how to write a good essay, the steps below will be invaluable to you.
Understand Essay Assignment
This is the first step to take. Without an understanding of the task, you stand to make some grave mistakes like writing the wrong type of essay or missing the essay's point altogether. For example, you could end up analyzing all the characters in a book instead of just one or end up explaining the ideas in a movie instead of critiquing the techniques used.
Choose Essay Type
The instructions may state the type of essay needed, or you may have to read between the lines. The different kinds of essays fulfill different purposes. Here are some types of essays you could write:
- Expository essay – This type aims to investigate a particular topic in a logical, straightforward way using evidence.
- Analytical essay – The goal is to analyze the arguments for a specific creation like a book or a film to understand why the creator created them in that way, and if the techniques they used were effective.
- Critical essay – Here, the author will analyze and evaluate a text citing the ideas in it and the evidence supporting these ideas.
- Narrative essay – This essay highlights an author's experiences on a particular topic. It is written in story form.
- Argumentative essay – This type of paper requires the writer to take a stand on a topic then offer evidence supporting their perspective.
There are many more types of essays you can write.
Choose Formatting
As was mentioned, most essays have a similar format with an intro, a body, and a conclusion. However, each essay has different things in each section, depending on the type. The introduction contains any necessary background information, a thesis, and a hook for most of them. The conclusion sums up the essay's ideas, reiterates the thesis, and explains how the arguments in the body tie to the claim. Some essays will conclude by relating the concepts to real-life situations, others by suggesting areas for further reading, and others by stating the author's opinion.
The body of the essays is the largest part of any essay. The ideas can be presented in different orders, which will be discussed later in this guide. Depending on the essay, the body can contain parts of a story or discuss different arguments, counterarguments, and ideas. Highschool essays typically have a 5 paragraph format with three body paragraphs and one paragraph for the introduction and conclusion. Longer essays may need to divide the different ideas with subheadings as the body may be several pages long.
Brainstorm
Brainstorming means consolidating all the information that you already have and organizing it. This will guide the rest of the steps as you will figure out what you do know and what you need to research. You can start the brainstorming process by doing a brain dump of the information that you already have. Next, organize this information into groups and how they flow. One of the best ways to do this is to use a mind map. Finally, look for themes and related ideas and formulate questions about any information you don't have.
Choose Topic
Using your mind map, you can easily see what ideas go together and are related to each other and what ideas build on one another. Identify a pattern in these ideas and decide which related ideas you would like to write about. These ideas will clue you in on what your topic will be. With a topic in mind, you will be better placed to know what you don't know. Craft them in the form of questions and add them to the questions you got while brainstorming.
Research
The questions you come up with during your brainstorming session and when choosing a topic are the basis of your research. For example, if you are analyzing a book, part of your research will be to read the book and note the essential ideas and answers. Look for other sources in your library or online that may answer your questions so that you answer all the questions you have.
Be sure to use credible online sources with up-to-date information. You will find some resources like Google Scholar and JSTOR to be very helpful. Whatever resources you use, note down useful information like the author, publication date, and weblink for referencing purposes and so you can find them quickly the next time.
In case you need help with your research, leave us a "do my research paper" request and we will help you!
Come Up with a Thesis Statement
The thesis is the claim you are making in the essay. This is what you will be supporting in your writing. For example, if it is a rhetorical analysis essay, your thesis could be that the author was effective or ineffective in persuading the readers to their point of view. The body will then contain information that supports this thesis. Without a thesis, your essay becomes a jumble of ideas with no purpose. When learning how to write an essay, you need to understand that a thesis is a critical part of the essay.
Outline
The outline is to your essay what a blueprint is to a house. You may be able to construct the house without it, but you are better off having one. There are two types of writers, generally, pantsers and planners. A planner does what the name implies; they plan out their work before writing. A pantser, on the other hand, flies off the seat of their pants. While a pantser may thrive in creative writing, in other organized types of writing like an essay, their results are hit or miss.
As a planner, you have the added advantage of seeing your ideas before you write them. It means you will be able to judge their effectiveness before you start writing. You will know which ideas have enough supporting evidence. More importantly, you will be able to organize your thoughts so that they flow, and you are sure that they fit in with the topic and thesis.
As a pantser, you could potentially waste your time in the editing process because that is when you realize which ideas don't work, aren't flowing, or don't have sufficient evidence.
Your outline shouldn't have a lot of information. Summarize each section's ideas and paragraphs using a few words or phrases that you will use as prompts to write an essay later.
Draft/Write an Essay
Your draft is the first version of your essay. Your first draft will allow you to see if your ideas are flowing together and if you have enough supporting evidence. Don't aim for perfection at this stage. Just get it done. One thing many writers struggle with is wanting perfect work. They want something 'great' when that comes from editing and correcting an initial draft. When writing, don't bother so much with grammatical errors and spellings. Focus on getting your ideas on paper. Editing will come later.
Check Your Essay
How do you write a really good essay? You do so by editing your work until an imperfect draft becomes a perfect completed piece. Check and edit any grammatical and spelling errors. Try to read the essay out loud. Your ears will most likely pick up on mistakes you can't see. To get the best results out of the editing process, leave your work for a few hours or days after writing an essay. This time apart from the work will help give you a clearer perspective.
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