I hate writing essays. Seriously, I would choose to write a test over writing an essay any day! However, in the world of university you will most likely have to write an essay at some point or another. Luckily, over my past 3 years at university I have figured out a pretty solid essay writing process and I think it can help you out too! Below I have outlined some of my best tips, so if you want to hear them then keep reading!
STEP ONE
Be able to explain your main point in one to three sentences. This will help you stay clear about what your argument is and will help the essay flow. You should be able to do this without too much struggle. If you find it challenging to summarize your main point in a few sentences then chances are you aren’t clear about your idea. The quickest and easiest essay writing happens when you have a clear idea in mind. I mean, think about when you are asked to write about a topic you know a lot about, it is super simple, right? If you were asked to write about your favourite hobby, you would be able to write and write and write about that topic extremely easily. That is because you are clear about that topic.
STEP TWO
Your Topic. If you have a choice in the matter, choose a topic that interests you. Writing about something you are interested in will be far easier than writing about something you do not care about at all. Many times in academic writing you will be given a topic to write about. When this is the case you will likely have to do some research on the topic, what it is, and most importantly.. why it is IMPORTANT.
STEP THREE
Familiarize. This is the research phase. After you have chosen a topic it is time to familiarize yourself with the text, article, or whatever the piece was. Sometimes this will include re-reading or skimming over an assigned reading. Or, sometimes this will mean doing a few google searches to learn a little bit more about the topic. Familiarizing yourself with the topic before writing anything down will make your essay writing process go by much much much smoother.
STEP FOUR
Themes. The most compelling essays are those that have well thought out and clearly organized themes. I like to start by writing down some themes that come to mind right away. Then, I go through my text to look for additional themes or look to see if there are more important themes that I should focus on. I categorize all of the important information into these themes.
STEP FIVE
Expand. After getting all of the key ideas down I start to write down everything important about each. This could be interesting ideas, facts, quotations from the text, really, this is anything that elaborates upon each individual theme. The key here is to keep the themes separate and focus on elaborating on one theme at a time to avoid overwhelm. I like to make sure I include one quotation, paraphrase, or specific idea about each theme. This helps to backup your objective and will make a strong essay.
STEP SIX
Organize. So you have all of your main ideas, examples to go with each, and a rough idea of some themes. Let’s organize! Sometimes I find I can group a few themes together or even cut some themes out. When I am organizing my ideas I am making sure I only include the information that is really related to my topic and more specifically, related to my thesis.
STEP SEVEN
Structure your paragraphs accordingly:
Introduction sentence: A sentence describing the main idea of the paragraph.
Elaboration on idea: This is easy because you already have done this in a previous step! That’s right, COPY & PASTE your thoughts into this section. Easy Peasy!
Examples and explanation of example: Further explain each example in the paragraph in roughly 2-3 sentences.
Concluding sentence: Your concluding sentence should related back to your topic sentence to make a well-rounded paragraph.
Transition Sentence: The transition sentence will tie two paragraphs together and will help the essay flow.
STEP EIGHT
Structure Essay. Now that we have all the tough stuff explained let’s talk about essay structure. Essay structure is taught to us all from a very young age but really, the actual structure of the essay is one of the easiest steps in the essay writing process. Even in academic writing the traditional essay structure is used. That includes an introduction. The introduction will introduce the topic and explain to your reader what your essay will be about. The number of body paragraphs you include will depend on the required length of your essay and the type of themes you want to include. Typically, the longer the essay, the more body paragraphs you will need to include. Then, finally, sum up all of your main ideas and restate your thesis statement in the conclusion.
STEP NINE
Revision. At this point your essay should be done, well.. pretty much done. But, you want an amazing mark! Potentially an A I think, am’i right? Then, it is time to start revising your essay. I see a lot of students skip this part and move right into proofreading; checking their spelling and grammar. Revision is basically taking a step back and looking at the essay as a whole. It can seem a little daunting but I have a few questions I ask myself to help steer my thinking (at least this is what I do).
Is there a clear structure to your essay? (introduction, body, conclusion)
Is your thesis clear?
Is your thesis statement backed up in each paragraph?
Does each paragraph have a STRONG introduction, concluding, and transition sentence?
Are your ideas backed up by evidence from the text or other resources you used?
If you used sources: are they reliable, credible, and has rigorous research/thought been conducted in each?
Is there anything that doesn’t add value to your essay? – take it out if there is!
Look for areas to improve and fix them up.
Don’t be afraid to move sentences around, add sentences, or remove sentences.
STEP TEN
Proofreading.
Onto the spelling and grammar — my least favourite part. I will be the first to admit I am not the best at this part, but I find when I print off and read my paper aloud I catch far more mistakes than I would if I were to just read it on my laptop. So a quick and easy tip to improve your writing is to read your work aloud. Proofreading happens at the level of the sentence. This means, I look at each sentence individually and look for mistakes. It sounds like a long process but trust me, with practice you get better and faster! Finally, I make sure my page numbers, titles, font, citation page, and size meet all of the professors requirements.
TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY FAST
Yeah, I know, I know, it is always our plan to start our essay early. But, how often does that really happen? For me, it rarely happens but, luckily, I have figured out how to write an essay super efficiently. It is actually way more simple than you probably think. Let me break it down for you.
After all of your decision making, planning, and organizing is done it is time to write! Let’s say for example each paragraph has to be roughly 10 sentences. If it takes you one minute to write a sentence (which is a pretty fair assumption) that means it will take 10 minutes to write one paragraph. If there are 5 paragraphs in the essay that is only 50 minutes and you will have a solid rough draft of an essay.
Now I know that is maybe easier said than done. However, the point I am trying to make is that if you focus on writing one sentence at a time and relating each sentence to the next, you will avoid getting overwhelmed; and writing your essay should be relatively easy.
I highly recommend giving yourself a few days to revise your essay. Having a few days to proofread will be extremely beneficial and giving yourself enough time to have a friend read it over or take it to your university writing centre/professor will make a huge difference!
Hope you found this helpful! Happy essay writing!
