Professors assign essays to students to assess their critical thinking skills and their ability to write. Essays are quite common in high school and college. An essay is a piece of writing that allows you to express your thoughts and opinions. Every student has a unique approach to writing essays. However, there are a few important steps that anyone can follow to write a good essay and get good grades. The most important tip to writing a good essay is effective time management. Don’t be one of those students who rush in the eleventh hour to complete their assignments or revise for exams. Let’s learn how to write good essays.
- Go through the question and guidelines
Most students start working immediately on their essays before going through the question and guidelines. And this is a recipe for failure. You need to start by looking at the question that your professor has prepared for you. This is one of the Best Essay Tips to focus on. What are the objectives? How will you achieve these objectives?
You can easily know what your professor is looking for by analyzing important components such as limiting terms, content terms, and directive terms. Figure out which format your professor has requested you to use. Failure to read the question and guidelines can lead to a wastage of time and energy in the long run.
- Create a plan
You might think that coming up with a good plan is time-consuming. However, this exercise can save you a lot of time especially when you are writing an essay. It will help you know where you are headed and keep you on track in the long run.
A writing schedule has various components such as activities, dates, and deadlines. After coming up with a plan, always follow it to the letter. Even if you are not a good planner, it’s important to sketch a brief one. As the popular saying goes failing to plan is planning to fail. Effective time management and planning are at the heart of a good essay.
- Brainstorm
It’s impossible to write an essay without a clear idea of what you’ll write about. Brainstorming involves coming up with a topic for your essay. All you have to do is sit with a pen and paper and write down your ideas. You can write down all the ideas that come to mind and narrow them down later or you can use mind maps or clustering to come up with new ideas.
Brainstorming is one of the best ways to develop topics and create links between different aspects of your topic. Always go for a topic that interests you. You don’t feel like a tired horse every time you start working on your essay. Also, choose a topic that is not too broad or narrow. A very broad topic will make it harder for you to capture all the important details. On the other hand, choosing a narrow one will make it difficult for you to find relevant information.
- Research
After brainstorming and choosing your topic, you need to conduct extensive research. You’ll need to visit the library to find books, articles, journals, and magazines that cover your topic. Thanks to the rapid technological advancements, you can search for relevant information online or watch videos created by experts on the subject that you are writing about. As you write down relevant information, remember to keep things organized to have an easy time when making references.
- Come up with a thesis statement
The main point of an essay is the thesis statement. It’s usually made up of one sentence. And it says what your essay is about. Your thesis statement should be broad enough to capture all the important factors in your essay. However, it shouldn’t be too broad. There are a lot of thesis statement examples that you can read online to have a clue of how yours should be.
- Create an outline
An outline is a tool that guides you throughout the essay writing process. It is a basic structure of how your paper will look like. Creating an outline will ensure that your paper is organized and logical. As you create your outline, avoid putting too many ideas in a single paragraph. And always include supporting information from your research in every paragraph.
- Write your essay
Now, it’s time to write! Use your outline and research information to create a clear and cohesive essay. As you work on the first draft, don’t focus on perfection. There will be enough time in the future to correct the mistakes in your essay.
- Proofread
After writing your essay, you need to go through what you’ve written and correct the mistakes and typos. If you cannot revise your work, you can hire someone to do the work for you. Never submit your first draft.
Conclusion
As you have seen, getting good grades in school is easy as long as you manage your time effectively. You also need to plan and follow your plan to achieve your goals.
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