5 Steps To Quality Essay Writing (With Examples)
Knowing how to write a good quality essay is a skill that will benefit you all your life not just in your college or university. Writing essays on different topics helps develop critical thinking and enhances your ability to observe and understand different perspectives and views. The ability to organize your ideas and thoughts can help you write not just essays but also research papers, blog post articles, business letters, company memos, and whatnot.
However, writing an essay is a strenuous and challenging task. It takes more than just your time to come up with a good-quality essay before the submission deadline. Even if you are a great writer you still need to learn a few things before you start the writing process for your essay. So, if you want to learn how to write a perfect essay in 5 easy steps then this guide is for you.
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THESE ARE 5 EASY STEPS TO WRITE A PERFECT ESSAY
- Determine the title and research your audience
- Brainstorm ideas and make an outline
- Identify your thesis statement and organize your thoughts
- Start the writing process (introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion)
- Edit and proofread
Step 1: Determine the Title and Research Your Audience
The first step to writing a good essay is to come up with a good essay title. If the title is pre-assigned then you can skip this step. If you are free to choose a title then you should only choose the one that interests you the most. Choose any topic you find yourself arguing for or against or any topic you have a passion for. It is not necessary that you know everything about the topic of your interest before you start writing. If you have an interest in that topic then you can easily do research about that topic without feeling any burden. If you want to write an argumentative essay then it’s best to present arguments in favor of your thesis statement rather than against it.
Before choosing a topic you should also research your target audience and their intent on the topic. Knowing about what interests your audience and fulfilling their intent will surely help you come up with a better essay.
For example, if you are writing an essay about nature for your school assignment then you should use easy to understand words and should never add complex scientific calculations in your essay. However, if you are presenting your essay in front of Ph.D. doctors then you must add proof of your findings through references. For them, you can also use all kinds of complex calculations to support your argument.
Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas and Make an Outline
The second step is to make an outline by brainstorming about the main idea and all the supporting arguments. The best practice to organize thoughts is through mind mapping and noting down your ideas. Making an outline is simple, you just have to think about your main idea, identify key supporting ideas and start making a structure of your essay.
Many students don’t make the outline as they are eager to focus on the writing process but we never recommend it. Outlines are a great way to organize and detail your essay in a logical way to make a flow of information. An essay with a good outline will never bore your reader that will guarantee a good grade in your academic assignment.
For instance, if you don’t have relevant information about a topic sentence then you can gather random information from different sources. Find supporting ideas, research papers, relevant quotations, and statistics about your topic sentence and note them down in your own words. Use all this information to form an outline and to develop your thesis statement.
Step 3: Identify Your Thesis Statement and Organize Your Thoughts
The third step is the most important step towards writing a perfect essay. This is to identify your main idea and then put it into a single sentence. Remember that a good thesis statement is not too long but still contains all the necessary information about what you are going to talk about in your essay.
The thesis statement is usually added at the end of the introductory paragraph. This thesis statement signals to the readers about what they should expect from your essay, so it’s important that you be very clear about your main idea. This will also help you organize your thoughts about what supporting arguments you should add in the body paragraph to support your main argument.
A trick to refine your thesis statement is to read your thesis statement to a friend or relative and ask them what your essay or research paper is about. If they don’t give the expected answer then you need to refine your thesis statement.
Step 4: Start the Writing Process
Step 4 is where you actually start writing your essay and bring your ideas to life. You might think that it’s so late in the process to actually start writing but the fact is that all the above steps have made it easier for you to start writing. Now you just need to see the outline that you earlier made and the guidelines from your instructor to begin writing. Following the basic essay pattern that includes the introduction, body, and conclusion to convince the reader about your argument.
1. Introduction
Your introductory paragraph should start with the introduction and meaning of the topic in the first 2-3 lines. Then you should provide some background information about the topic and some context about why are you writing the essay. Remember that this is the next best chance to hook your reader after your title, so wisely use this space. In the last two lines, you should add your thesis statement.
2. Body paragraphs
The body of your essay is where you present supporting arguments to support your main point. In the body section, you should use your good writing skills to elaborate on all the key points that you highlighted while making the outline. While writing papers you should be careful about the sentence structure.
3. Conclusion
In the conclusion paragraph, you should sum up all your ideas and arguments. The conclusion must tie back to the introduction of your essay. This means that you should summarize how your body has provided evidence in favor of your thesis statement that was listed in the introduction. Remember to never add new information in the conclusion as this part is only used to summarize your essay.
Step 5: Edit and Proofread
Once you are done writing the first draft it’s time to edit and proofread the written words. The first thing that you should do is to look for spelling and grammatical mistakes. Secondly, you should read the text out loud and make that the essay is owing smoothly and you are always relevant to your main subject.
Some writers have difficulty pointing out their own mistakes. If you are still unsure about how your text sounds then it’s best to take a second opinion. Ask a friend to read your essay and then ask them if your arguments support your thesis statement or not. They can also point out mistakes and improve your essay structure. Once the draft is complete you can submit it to your instructor.
These tips are very useful for writing essays. Many people can benefit from these in many ways. I look forward to reading more of this kind of instructional writing.