HOW TO WRITE AN ESSAY

 

Writing involves multitude of forms like essays, articles, blogs etc. ‘Essay writing’ in particular is a loose term used for writing that stresses on author’s views on any topic, be it academic, editorial or even hilarious.

Essay can be construed as a ‘discussion’ like narrating a story to someone, giving your views on certain topic or just trying to convince someone with certain view of yours. Based on the topic of discussion, there are basic categories in essay writing like narrative essay (narrating a story), persuasive essay (persuade the reader), analytical essay and descriptive essay (describing a topic in detail).

Before writing an essay, if you are given the topic, you need to choose the type of essay which will provide a structure to your essay. If the topic is not given, then you need to choose a topic which interests you or you feel passionate about because it will help you to organise your thoughts in a more creative and constructive way. Once the topic is clear in your mind, try to do a detailed research on the concerned topic and put your ideas in one statement which will form a ‘thesis statement’ for your essay.

The second step involves giving a strong title to your essay which includes a ‘verb’. The title should never be obvious and should be ‘eye catching’ enough to grab the attention of the readers. Once the title is finalised, you need to start prep work for your ‘introduction’ because after title, this will surely provide a next big prospect to hook your readers. It should be both interesting and informative.

Next, based on the research work you have done, you need to outline your thoughts. Put all your ideas concerning the topic on a piece of paper and highlight the main arguments which will support your point of view in the essay. Now, start writing your first draft. Don’t panic, it’s your first draft not your final draft so feel free to give wings to your thoughts.

While framing your introduction, keep the following things in your mind:

1.     Use catchy vocabulary and try to make it precise and informative.

2.     Give little background information about your topic.

3.     Mention briefly the objective of your essay.

4.     Give an overview of the whole essay.

Once the introduction has been framed, it’s time to give structure to the main body of the essay. The body of essay illustrates your topic. Each idea that you have mentioned in the outline will form a separate paragraph of your essay. Each paragraph should be consistent with one another. Use transitions to introduce a new paragraphs like “firstly, secondly, lastly, finally, however, moreover, furthermore, in addition” etc. These transition words give a beautiful and impressive structure to your essay.

The main purpose of the body of essay is to provide support to the ‘thesis statement’ of your essay with the help of evidences, facts, figures, data, examples, quotes and other suitable evidences. In short, keep the following are the tips to write a body paragraph:

1.     Keep in mind the thesis statement.

2.     Give solid evidences to support your argument.

3.     Provide relevant examples and facts to make your point strong.

4.     Make sure paragraphs are consistent with one another.

5.     Use transition between the paragraphs.

6.     Conclude each paragraph.

Lastly, you need to ‘conclude’ your essay which is as important as the introduction of the essay. The conclusion sums up the overall thoughts and provides the readers a final perspective on the topic.  To make your conclusion effective try to give a futuristic overview and make such persuasive statements in the conclusion that they should agree with your point of view.

Keep the following tips in mind while framing your conclusion:

1.     Your arguments should be connected and don’t add any new ideas at this stage.

2.     Focus on outcomes.

3.     Put emphasis on the relevance of the thesis statement.

4.     Show the wider implication of the topic.

 

Lastly, critically review your essay as many times as you can. Edit, edit and edit your essay focusing mainly on the grammar, spelling mistakes, punctuation, format etc. If you are still worried, you can even take the help of essay writing and editing services to help you in writing and publishing your essays without much trouble.

 

Dr. Ranbir Kaur

15^th March, 2022