Essay writing is an integral part of academic assignments, regardless of the class or course, you’re in. Some students find it comprehensive, and by the time they reach higher education levels, they become a pro in essay writing. However, the process might not be very convincing for everyone.
Some students might need time to grasp the effective essay writing process. There’s no specific rule that can help students become better essay writers. But some standard essay writing tips can make the process easier for them.
This article will take you through some helpful ways to help you plan and create an engaging essay for your assignment or a competition.
What Does a Standard Essay Look Like?
Before we proceed with the tips to write an appealing essay, it’s essential to look at the basics of essay writing. What does a standard essay look like? A high school essay format is usually like this.
There’s no regular template for essay writing, but in schools and colleges, the following points to write an essay are usually followed.
Here’s a quick overview.
- Introduction: The introduction is your space to present your argument or thesis to your readers and let them know which side of the position you are taking.
- Body 1: In the first body paragraph, you put the most strong example and explain why this supports your thesis argument.
- Body 2: In this paragraph, you illustrate more on the given example and further use another supportive statement in context to your argument.
- Conclusion: Finally, the concluding passage of the essay ends with a further allusion to the opening paragraph, where you put forward your thoughts again in support of your argument.
Now that we have a general idea about the essay structure let’s talk about some helpful essay writing tips.
Essay Writing Tips for Students
In the section below, we have tried highlighting some standard essay tips for students that might be helpful while forming essays for assignments or even in a competitive exam.
Here are the do’s while writing an essay.
1. Your Essay Must be Easy To Read
One of the essential essay writing skills is to keep it to the point and topic friendly. Your essays must be comprehensive and easy to read. Teachers need to check a bunch of papers while grading the essays. They’ll skim through your write-up to have an understanding if you have a good idea about the topic.
Try to make your essay as concise as possible, adhere to the style guides, and eliminate redundancies.
2. Include the Central Idea of the Essay in the Introduction
You must put a thesis statement in the introduction, i.e., state your essay’s central idea in the opening paragraph. This way, your readers will be clear in the beginning about the topic, and their interest in reading further will be determined.
3. Use Transition Words in Between Paragraphs
One of the major essay writing tips is to keep your essay smooth and engaging, connecting one point to the other. The paragraphs must be connected and shouldn’t feel out of track.
Transition words are an excellent way to bridge the link between paragraphs. Some examples include:
- Talking about this
- Having said that
- Considering the last statement
- Despite the previous argument
4. Write Your Essay In Present Tense
Many students have the common question of how to write an effective essay. In writing essays, especially if you are working on a literary one, it is best to use the present tense. It renders the essay a more lively and realistic feel and creates a sense of belonging for the readers.
One example could go like this:
Rosalind and her cousin escape into the forest and find Orlando, Rosalind’s love. Like most other Shakespearean comedies, love is the main theme of As You Like It. The play depicts love in varied forms. The story highlights love at first sight.
5. Cite Examples
One of the significant essay writing rules is to cite examples irrespective of the source you use. Even if you’re using an indirect mention of something you have read, citing the source is always recommendable. This helps your writing to be more convincing and denotes a realistic touch.
6. Use Standard Vocabulary
Essay writing is not only about examining your knowledge of the assigned topic. It also puts your vocabulary to the test. It is an interesting way to understand your use of vocabulary and how concisely you’re playing with words and placing them correctly inside your writing.
Among the major essay writing tips include the use of standard vocabulary. Some examples might go like this:
- Instead of writing, it’s a great idea; you might use the idea as scintillating.
- Rather than writing this statement says; you might keep it as the statement denotes.
The main idea is to use the words with standard synonyms that perfectly depict the meaning of the line.
7. Write the Essay Using Simple Sentences
An effective way of writing an essay is creating it with simple sentences. The simpler tone you use, the better you convey the message. Many students believe that using complex sentences will reflect their descriptive writing style. But it doesn’t work that way.
Instead, complex sentences increase the risk of grammatical errors. Use simple sentences in your essay and make it crisp and precise. This won’t make your writing worse but more engaging.
8. Adhere to the Proper Format
The style and formatting might not be central to writing an essay. But they are the key ingredients to form a first impression for the reader. Maintaining a standard style guide and format is among the best essay writing tips.
Teachers would be interested to see the style chosen by the student based on the essay topic they are working on, like new research or an established topic. You should be super careful while selecting the format and adhere to it.
9. Use Standard Language
One of the most crucial essay writing tips is the right use of language that reflects your research and analyzing capacity. Use of standard language is essential to be precise with your pointers and be able to prove them in the right way.
Some examples in this regard are:
- Current stats on this topic indicates
- The argument can be suggestive of
- The most valid point in support of this statement
- There appears to precise reason to argue
The suggested phrases could be great inclusions to support your points.
10. Stick to the Given Word Count
One of the critical essay writing tips is to adhere to the assigned word count. A maximum or minimum deviation of 15-20 words might be considered.
Suppose, the given count is 2000. Then, your write-up must not be less than 1980 words and shouldn’t exceed 2020 words.
Delivering the idea and presenting it crisply within the assigned word limit reflects your precise and standard writing style.
11. Do Your Research Well
Another important essay tip is to be super strong with the topic research. Academic essay writing is an extensive process, and you can’t put up general writing.
Instead, your presentation must look appealing and should be an insightful one with an in-depth analysis of the chosen topic. When you have a decent idea of the topic you are illustrating, it upgrades the writing performance.
12. Do Your Revision Well
Once you’re done with the write-up and all set to submit it, ensure to check it to correct the potential mistakes if any.
Consider checking out the following pointers while thoroughly revising your essay.
- Spelling mistakes
- Sentence construction
- Flow of paragraphs
- Error in illustrations
- Wrong information
- Structuring of words and sentences
- Formatting of the entire write-up
Before the final submission, proofread the entire write-up and enhance your presentation.
Now that you have an idea about the major do’s in an essay, let’s talk about the big red flags that you should ignore while doing an academic essay assignment.
13. Don’t Fill Your Essay with Factual Data
Keeping your essay meaningful requires you to put important factual details and information. However, one major essay writing tip is not to fill your essay with information and facts.
It’s natural for you to feel tempted to use every piece of research in your writing. But you aim to analyze the topic and put forward the information simply and concisely.
Hence, avoid mentioning every little detail and add only the most critical pointers.
14. Do Not Copy or Spin the Content
You must get this rule inside your head. There is no room for plagiarising your essay or spinning it. This will adversely affect your grades and cast an ill effect on your reputation in school or college.
In this technology-driven world, plagiarism detection is no big thing. It is identifiable through different software available on the internet.
Put references for any source of your research to keep away the possibility of unintended plagiarism as well.
15. You Shouldn’t Address the Reader
The basics of essay writing don’t support addressing the readers. You must not talk to them directly, or the write-up should depict a conversational style.
An academic essay is all about highlighting your main point of argument, stating illustrations in support of it, and proving your argument.
16. The Essay Must Not Have an Informal Tone
One of the crucial essay writing tips is to not include an informal writing style in your essay. This doesn’t signify the paper needs to look like a scientific research paper.
However, the tone of your essay should be strictly formal. Any deviation from this would result in not considering the work as an essay.
17. You Shouldn’t Use Long Sentences in Your Essay
One of the mention-worthy essay writing tips for students is not to include long sentences in their work. Creating long sentences isn’t suggestive of an elaborative presentation. What counts is how precisely you’re able to deliver the thought through short sentences.
You might have the misconception that putting long, complicated sentences is a must to make the essay look good. But, it is not. The essay should be a perfect blend of thoughts presented simply and crisply.
18. Avoid Putting Negative Expressions in Your Essay
Another one on the list of important essay writing tips is to avoid using negative expressions or words in your writing. Putting negative words might create a negative impact on the reader’s mind.
By negative words, we mean words with negative suffixes or prefixes. Instead of using the word inexpensive, you can replace it with economical. Or, rather than using uncomplicated, you can use expressions like obvious or straightforward.
19. Don’t Use the Phrase ‘In this/my essay
Another pointer comes in the essay writing tips. Get rid of the boring “in my essay, in this write-up” line. This is a redundant line and doesn’t create any special impression on the reader.
Try cutting down generic phrases and expressions from your write-up as much as possible and replace them with standard words. This will enhance your essay’s readability and performance.
20. Never Include Short Form In the Essay
The key points to writing an essay don’t support using short forms inside the write-up. Short forms are meant for informal writing styles and don’t fit the academic essay writing standard.
Keep the special focus on this part as using short forms might create an indecent impression on the reader. While revising, consider checking if you have added any short form to my mistake.
21. There Mustn’t be Typos in Your Writing
If you are typing the essay on your laptop, check for typos. A beautifully presented idea might be spoiled by typos in your work.
Instead of relying on online tools, check out for the mistakes yourself. This will result in more perfection as you submit the work.
Some Pro Tips to Write an Essay
Oswal Book on Essay is a standard essay book dedicated to helping students across various fields appear for competitive exams. The handbook contains 153 crucial essays on current topics and covers various issues across Technology, sociology, science, and economics.
With those tips, we hope we can clear your doubts about how to write a good essay. Now, as we near the end of this blog, here are some pro tips to consider before you start on your academic essay assignment.
Creating an appealing essay comes with 6 easy steps. Here’s how:
1: Read and Understand the Topic
Read and analyze the prompt before jumping straight into the topic. Evaluate what the assignment demands you to do and what exactly they are asking.
2: Plan and Organise Your Ideas
One major essay writing tip is to plan and organize your thoughts before proceeding with the work. Before you move ahead with the writing part, plan your ideas and gather your thoughts in the sample place to make it work easier for you.
3: Cite Sources
Be super detailed with your research and cite any relevant sources that you take the references from. Stay away from plagiarism at all costs.
4: Prepare a Draft
With all the ideas inside your head, it’s time to prepare the draft. Create an outline of the write-up stating the major points you will cover with supportive statements and illustrations. One of the best essay writing tips is to filter out the information in your final work and add only the most important ones.
5: Make a Strong Argument
Do you know the most important ingredient of an essay? The thesis. The central argument of the topic is the main part of the essay. Focus on making it as strong as you can.
6: Proofread
Once you’re done working on the prompt, give it a thorough revision to see if you have missed out on anything.
Quick Hacks to Keep the Essay Engaging
So far, we have discussed the major essay writing tips and rules to present a brilliant piece of work. Let’s get a quick look at how to keep each section of the essay engaging.
- Introduction: The opening paragraph must begin with an attention-grabbing hook. It presents the central idea of the argument, where the reader decides if they want to keep reading it.
Once the hook catches their attention, you have passed the first test. Put your thesis forward in the next line with the simplest explanation.
- Body: The body paragraphs come with strong supporting statements for your thesis. Keep the paragraphs logically sequenced to each other. Focus on explaining how the sentences stand in favour of your thesis. Convey your message in the easiest yet standard terms.
- Conclusion: The essay should conclude on an optimistic note with an overall supportive statement of the central idea of your argument.
We hope these standard essay writing tips will come in handy when you start with one.
Wrapping Up
Here’s a quick recall of what we saw in the article. Effective essay writing tips for students include:
1. Use Shorter and Simple Sentences:
Create your essay using short and simple sentences that convey the extensive idea most crisply.
2. Don’t Burden Your Essay with Facts and Figures:
Include the most important details and information in your essay instead of filling it up with every little factual data.
3. Never Plagiarise:
Cite the references to any information you use to keep away the possibilities of content spinning.
4. Use Illustrations to Support Your Statements:
When using a statement to support your argument, ensure putting examples and illustrations to add a more realistic touch to your work.
5. Revise:
Before hitting the final submission button, review the entire write-up well, check for potential mistakes and present the best work.
As long as schools and colleges exist, essay writing will be an integral part of the curriculum. Once you get a hold of the basic tips and tricks to frame a standard essay, you’ll see yourself creating stellar pieces.
Are you going to incorporate the tips in your upcoming essay assignment?
