Essay writing seems to be a different task for some students; no matter whether the essay is for college competition, a class, or a scholarship, many students find it shattering. However, essay writing is a time-consuming project, but following a few tips can help you to make the job easier. For some students writing an essay comes naturally but for others knowing how to write a good essay that will make them score better is something they need to learn. Once you learn how to write a good essay, you can apply the same technique in any academic writing, whether a standard essay, reflective essay, thesis or any other course assignment. This writing will discuss some of the successful tips that can assist you in writing a good essay. 

Steps To Write An Effective Essay

Follow the below steps to write a well-written essay-

Understand the topic-

This is the most common reason you must fail to score good grades in essay writing. When you cannot understand the topic or the question asked in the essay, you will not be able to answer it wisely and ultimately fail to impress the reader. Do you need to understand the purpose of the topic and whether they are asking you to evaluate something? Or are they asking for a comparison? Is the topic asking to analyze a specific circumstance? 

These are some common phrases that are usually asked in essay topics, and each phrase specifies a different set of expectations. Suppose you are asked to evaluate a theoretical approach. You need to learn not only theory but also some other common approaches. Highlight each theory’s pros and cons so you can come up with a confident conclusion. 

On the other hand, if you have been asked to evaluate something, you don’t need to go into much depth about the topic. However, you can still point out the topic’s strengths and weaknesses, but your focus should be on explaining its practical usefulness. Here the best approach would be to find certain case studies that have been used previously. In short, the wordings of the essay topic tell you how the essay should be written, and it will highlight where the focus of your essay should be.

Develop a plan and schedule-

Understanding the essay topic is the primary thing you need to focus on, but it is equally important to make efficient use of the given time. Some students underrate the time required to write a good essay, which usually results in disappointing grades and spending late nights in the library. So if you want to achieve good grades in essay writing, you should start planning to write an essay as soon as you receive the topic. Moreover, set a deadline and commit yourself to stick to your routine so you can finish it before the submission date. However, it is also critical that you leave some days between finishing and proofreading.

Read broadly-

Although writing is the base part, reading is equally important. So before starting writing, you must conduct thorough research for relevant topics. You can gather information through various sources like the internet, reference books, previous essays, and other sources. Whatever source you choose, you need to keep in mind that you need to read it carefully so that you can highlight the related segment. 

Once you have found that source that contains a detailed summary of your topic, you don’t need to waste time searching for other sources. Suppose you have found some related articles on google; go through their bibliographies and note down who they are citing. 

Be expressive-

It would help if you were descriptive for an excellently written essay; however, perfect theories and approaches are rarely mentioned. But for higher grades, you must show that you can influence critical reasoning in your essay. Critical thinking will make your essay different from others, making the reader think that you are not just repeating things but also providing reasoning in your academic writing. However, the best way to practice critical thinking is to read the literature reviews in articles already published carefully.

Follow a structure-

Every essay writing follows a logical structure that includes summarizing the core introduction, explaining the main body and ending with a conclusion. A clear and focused structure will ensure that your essay stays focused and doesn’t move away from the questions being answered. Moreover, each word, sentence and paragraph of your essay should add value to the topic. Sometimes students consider an essay a list of arguments and present it one after another; however, they forget they can fit together, leading to lower grades. 

Proofreading-

Once you have completed writing your essay, the next step to follow is proofreading. Proofreading academic writing is necessary to check for minor grammatical and common language errors. Moreover, it is also essential to check whether your essay is plagiarism free or not. Sometimes while sourcing, you add some points, facts or figures from that source that show your content is copied. This can make your grades. The best way to deal with it is to cite or refer to the sources from which you have included the facts, figures, theory or any argument. There are different tools available through which you can check for grammatical and other errors and can also check whether your essay is plagiarism free or not.

Final Thoughts:

Essay writing can be as challenging as writing an assignment, but with the tips mentioned above, you can make this job more manageable. Similar to assignment writing, where you take guidance from an assignment helper, in the case of essay writing, you can take help from your classmates and professors who can guide you properly. However, the detailed tips can help you a lot when you want to write a good essay and score good grades.