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Tips on Writing an Effective Essay

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Jeremy Newton
Tips on Writing an Effective Essay

Where to start writing an essay? How to do it?


The very first thing you need is to choose a topic.

Your topic may be assigned to you, or you may be given a freeboard to write a topic of your choice. Should it be a general review of the subject or a specific analysis? If you have not been assigned a topic, you have a little more work. However, this feature also gives you an edge in choosing the subject you are interested in. First determine your goal. Your essay to communicate or persuade? Once you have identified the goal, you will need to conduct research on topics that you find interesting. Think about your life. What are you interested in? Record these topics. Rate your options. If your goal is to learn, choose a subject that you have already studied. If your goal is to convince, choose the item that you are passionate about. Whatever the purpose of the essay, make sure you are interested in your topic.

Prepare an outline or diagram of your ideas

To write a successful essay, you must organize your thoughts. By taking what’s already in your head and putting it to paper, you are able to see connections and links between ideas more clearly. This structure serves as a foundation for your paper. Use either an outline or a diagram to jot down your ideas and organize them. To create a diagram, write your topic in the middle of your page. Draw three to five lines branching off from this topic and write down your main ideas at the ends of these lines. Draw more lines off these main ideas and include any thoughts you may have on these ideas. If there are no ideas, you can reduce your efforts and turn to specialists

Write the introduction

Now that you have developed your thesis and the overall body of your essay, you must write an introduction. The introduction should attract the reader’s attention and show the focus of your essay. Begin with an attention grabber. You can use shocking information, dialogue, a story, a quote, or a simple summary of your topic. Whichever angle you choose, make sure that it ties in with your thesis statement, which will be included as the last sentence of your introduction.

Add the finishing touches.

Check the order of your paragraphs. Your strongest points should be the first and last paragraphs within the body, with the others falling in the middle. Also, make sure that your paragraph order makes sense. If your essay is describing a process, such as how to make a great chocolate cake, make sure that your paragraphs fall in the correct order.

Review the instructions for your essay, if applicable. Many teachers and scholarship forms follow different formats, and you must double check instructions to ensure that your essay is in the desired format.

Finally, review what you have written. Reread your paper and check to see if it makes sense. Make sure that sentence flow is smooth and add phrases to help connect thoughts or ideas. Check your essay for grammar and spelling mistakes.

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