News Mar 20th 2018

Top 10 Secrets Of Writing A Good Essay


It would be fair to say that your years in education, from middle school to high school and on to college and university, are some of the most carefree and enjoyable of your life. It is a time when you become an adult, but also a time where you don't yet have to undertake all of the responsibilities that you will face after graduation. During these years, the most stressful your life will get is in trying to meet all of the deadlines for your various essays and assignments. For some people, good essays are things that come completely naturally, but for others, ideas like sentence structures, citations and conclusions can strike fear into their hearts. We are here to let you know that writing your essay doesn't have to be a traumatic experience, especially if you are armed with all of the best tips and tricks. Here are the top ten secrets for how to write a good essay.

1. Start With A Plan

Never start an essay completely cold. You should always have a rough outline of what you want your argument to be, because that will be something that you can keep referring back to to ensure that you don't go too far off topic. Even a list of bullet points is better than nothing.

2. Do Your Homework

Essays will always feel so much easier to write if you have actually done all of the class work leading up to that final test. It is so much easier to draw on previous knowledge for an essay rather than having to learn all of it afresh in order to put together something substandard.

3. Be Linear

Don't jump around too much in your essay, make it as linear as possible, always setting up in one paragraph that thing you are going to talk about in the next. Reading it back, it should make perfect sense even to somebody with no knowledge of the topic.

4. Keep Your Eye On The Ball

Don't only focus on the current paragraph that you are writing. You should be constantly rereading what your have already written in order to make sure that you are not just repeating yourself with every new paragraph. This is especially important to do if you like to write your essay in small interludes, going back and forth between different assignments.

5. Avoid The Basics

When you are writing an essay, you need to avoid turning it into the history of your topic by not recounting every single basic fact. Keep things streamlined, assume that the reader is already well versed in the basics, and write with the confidence and evidence that you are going to teach them or argue something more intricate and advanced.

6. Correct Layout

A percentage of marks given out for an essay are not for the content but for the layout. You need to make sure that your writing is appropriately paragraphed, indented, punctuated and with perfect grammar.

7. Reach Word Count

It is vital that you hit the word count as close as possible, and that includes going too long as well as too short. If you go too short, the marker will assume you have not researched properly, and if you too long, you will be marked down for failure to be succinct.

8. Number Your Pages

It might seem like a basic tip, but you would be surprised how hectic the life of a teacher or professor can get when they are marking hundreds of papers at a time. Do them a favour and number yours and they might be in a better frame of mind when giving you a grade.

9. Be Diplomatic

Even if your essay is arguing one specific viewpoint, it is important to show diplomacy and showcase arguments from the other side to make your writing more mature and academic.

10. Always Include Sources

You will not be able to achieve top essay marks if you never include secondary sources. Adding and responding to secondary sources is what makes an essay truly academic, so this is something that is impossible to overlook.

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