Virtual Village
How to Write an Essay Quickly and EasilyTuesday, May 25, 2010 By Barbara Blake
During your academic life, you have probably had many assignments in which you had to write. Sometimes you may be asked to write a short story, a descriptive paragraph, or a essay based on research. However, the one type of writing every student fears seems to remain the same: the dreaded essay. Many students find writing difficult, and even those who are skilled at the writing process find essays to be more than a challenge. Some students do not know where to begin or how to even start writing their ideas. This confusion leads to stress, and can inevitability lead to a poor essay. As a student myself, I have often found writing to be very a very tricky, pain-staking task, most of all being essay writing. However, through practice and experimentation, I have found a series of useful steps that have made me become a very good (and fast) essay writer. If you simply follow these steps, then I am sure you will find essay writing to be faster and much easier, if not enjoyable. How to Write an Essay Step 1: Decide What Your Topic Is When your teacher gives you a basic topic idea, the first thing that you should do is decide what you will write about the topic and how you can make it interesting. A great way to ensure that your essay is interesting is to choose a point of the topic that you are passionate about. For instance, say your main topic is the rain forests in South America and you are an environmentalist. You could write an essay about the effects of deforestation on the wildlife. When you care about your topic, you are able to express your true feelings and portray them on paper. It helps the reader connect with what you are writing and makes it more interesting. Step 2: Know Your Topic Now that you have a topic for your essay, you must decide what you need to know. On a piece of paper, write out a few basic ideas or pieces of evidence that you would like to include in your essay. Then, decide what you need to know in order to include those ideas. There are many great resources to use when writing an essay, but you should be careful. Never choose a website that can be changed by anyone or does not have an experienced author. Opt for sites owned by colleges/universities, government supported sites, and so forth. If information is too confusing, then try looking up websites for children to get a basic idea. Remember to keep track of all of your sources. Step 3: Get Ideas Now that you have your information, take some time to think and come up with ideas for your essay. Do whatever you can that helps you think. Listen to music, pace back and forth, or take a break to jog your mind. Once an idea pops in your head, write it down on a piece of paper. Step 4: Outlines and Drafting Once you have all the ideas you want, you must organize them in an outline. Organize your ideas by their importance. You should always have your strongest argument come last in the body of your essay. When your outline is finished, you should briefly write a rough draft of your essay. Don’t pay attention to grammar or punctuation, but focus on the organization and flow of ideas. Step 5: Revision and Proofreading With the completion of your rough draft, take a break. Do not think of your essay and come back to it later. When you do, you can look at it with fresh eyes. This allows you to check your ideas and how they flow with each other. You should look at your paper and check your ideas and how they fit with your outline. You can change the positions of your ideas or delete and replace old ones. This stage in the writing process is called revision. When you are satisfied with your ideas, rewrite your essay. Pay more attention to grammar and punctuation as well as spelling. When you are finished with your revised draft, take another smaller break and then come back to proofread your work. Step 6: Final Tweaks and Additions In this step, you should fix any last minute additions to your essay. Make sure that there are no grammatical or spelling errors, and check to see if your outline flows with your essay. You should also list all of the resources you used when writing your essay and list them in MLA format in a bibliography. You should also gather all of your drafts and notes incase if your teacher asks for them. As I have said before, the writing process is very hard to do, especially when it comes to writing essays. However, if you follow the steps above, you should be able to find writing much easier and effective. For more on the MLA format and writing a bibliography, see the links below: http://www.aresearchguide.com/12biblio.html How to Write a Bibliography http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ MLA Formatting and Style Guide |