Essays are
common in elementary, middle, high school and college, and you may even need to
write essays in the business world (although they are usually called
"reports" at that point). An essay is
defined as "a short piece of writing that expresses information as well as
the writer's opinion."
Writing
For some,
writing an essay is as simple as sitting down at their computer and beginning
to type, but a lot more planning goes into writing an essay successfully. If
you have never written an essay before, or if you struggle with writing and
want to improve your skills, it is a good idea to go through several steps in
the essay writing process.
For example, to
write an essay, you should generally:
·
Decide what kind of essay to write. Brainstorm your topic. Do
research. Develop a thesis. Outline your essay. Write your essay. Edit your
writing to check spelling and grammar.
While this
sounds like a lot of steps to write a simple essay, if you follow them you will
be able to write more successful, clear and cohesive essays.
Kinds of Essays
The first step
to writing an essay is to decide what kind of essay to write. There are several
main structures into which essays can be grouped:
·
Narrative Essays: Tell a story or impart
information about your subject in a straightforward, orderly manner. Descriptive
Essays: Focus on the details of what is going on. For example, if you want to
write a descriptive essay about your trip to the park, you would give great
detail about what you experienced: how the grass felt beneath your feet, what
the park benches looked like, and anything else the reader would need to feel
as if he were there. Persuasive Essay: Convince the reader of
some point of view. Comparative Essay: Compare two or more different things. Expository Essay: Explain to the reader
how to do a given process. You could, for example, write an expository essay
with step-by-step instructions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich.
Knowing what
kind of essay you are trying to write can help you decide on a topic and
structure your essay in the best way possible.
Brainstorming
You cannot
write an essay unless you have an idea of what to write about. Brainstorming is
the process in which you come up with the essay topic. You need to simply sit
and think of ideas during this phase.
·
Write down everything that comes to mind as you can always
narrow those topics down later. You could also use clustering or mind mapping
to brainstorm and come up with an essay idea. This involves writing your topic
or idea in the center of the paper and creating bubbles (clouds or clusters) of
related ideas around it. This can be a great way to develop a topic more deeply
and to recognize connections between various facets of your topic.
Once you have a
list of possible topics, it's time to choose the best one that will answer the
question posed for your essay. You want to choose a topic that is neither too
broad nor too narrow.
·
If you are given an assignment to write a one page essay, it
would be far too much to write about "the history of the US" since
that could fill entire books. Instead, you could write about a very specific
event within the history of the United States: perhaps signing the Declaration
of Independence or when Columbus discovered the U.S.
Choose the best
topic from among them and begin moving forward on writing your essay.
Research
Once you have
done your brainstorming and chosen your topic, you may need to do some research
to write a good essay. Go to the library or look on the Internet for
information about your topic. Interview people who might be experts in the
subject. Keep your research organized so it will be easy for you to refer back
to, and easy for you to cite your sources when writing your final
essay.
Developing a Thesis
Your thesis is
the main point of your essay. It is essentially one sentence that says what the
essay is about. For example, your thesis might be "Dogs are descended from
wolves." You can then use this as the basic premise to write your entire
essay, and all of the different points throughout need to lead back to this one
main thesis. The thesis will usually be used in your introductory paragraph.
The thesis
should be broad enough that you have enough to say about it, but not so broad
that you can't be thorough.
Outlining Your Essay
The next step
is to outline what you are going to write about. This means you want to
essentially draw the skeleton of your paper. Writing an outline can help to
ensure your paper is logical, well organized and flows properly.
Start by
writing the thesis at the top and then write a topic sentence for each
paragraph below. This means you should know exactly what each of your
paragraphs are going to be about before you write them.
·
Don't jumble too many ideas in each paragraph or the reader may
become confused.You also want to ensure you have transitions between paragraphs
so the reader understands how the paper flows from one idea to the next. Fill
in facts from your research under each paragraph which you want to write about
when you write the essay. Make sure each paragraph ties back in to your thesis
and creates a cohesive, understandable essay.
Write and Edit
Once you have
an outline, its time to start writing. Write from the outline itself, fleshing
out your basic skeleton to create a whole, cohesive and clear essay.
You will want
to edit and re-read your essay, checking to make sure it sounds exactly the way
you want it to. You want to:
·
Revise for clarity, consistency and structure. Make sure
everything flows together. Support your thesis adequately with the information
in your paragraphs. Make sure you have a strong introduction and conclusion so
the reader comes away knowing exactly what your paper was about. Revise for
technical errors. Check for grammar problems, punctuation and spelling errors.
You cannot always count on spell check to recognize every spelling error as
sometimes you can spell a word incorrectly but your misspelling will also be a
word, such as spelling from as form.
A lot goes in
to writing a successful essay; fortunately, these tips for writing essays can
help you along the way and get you on the path to a well-written essay.
