For some, writing an essay comes quite naturally. However, for many, essay writing is a daunting task. Understanding how to answer an essay question to score high marks is a skill that can be practised and improved over time. There are generic planning and writing techniques that can be applied to most pieces of academic writing.
Like most goals, we can break essay writing down into smaller steps to help the task feel more doable. These ten steps to writing an essay are a great place to start for improving your essay writing.
Take time to understand the essay question or topic:
Read and re-read the essay question to know how to formulate an answer. Highlight keywords and use a dictionary if there are any unfamiliar words.
Identify the task words that indicate the aim of the essay, e.g., ‘discuss’, ‘explain’, ‘compare’. For example, is the essay asking you to discuss two sides of an argument, or perhaps it is asking you to explain a theory.
This leads to the importance of research.
Do relevant research:
Writing may seem like the central cusp of the task, but reading is equally essential for your writing success. It will also help you understand the topic and will increase your confidence in brainstorming and planning.
Learning how to read through vast amounts of resources online is a skill. Start by conducting broad searches around the topic, then the more you read. You will start to pinpoint avenues of interest for your essay. Google Scholar is great for this.
Quoting, paraphrasing and plagiarism:
This tip is significant for academic writing, as this essay level requires a careful balance between your own opinion and reference to opinions formed by others. Doing your research and reading will show you’ve made yourself familiar with what’s already been published and discussed on the topic. When researching your essay, it is essential to note all the resources you have used and reference them correctly throughout your essay. Properly citing the sources you use will also ensure you’re not accused of plagiarism, a severe offence in academia. You can use a plagiarism detector to check over your work.
Brainstorm your response
Once you have done your more extensive reading, you can brainstorm your approach to the essay in question. This will become useful when refining your essay plan for focusing your writing.
Focus on your interest in the topic:
Sometimes when we are writing an essay, we can feel uninspired and demotivated. Especially when it’s an extended essay or a topic we aren’t hugely interested in. A good tip would be to focus on what interests or surprises you about the subject. When conducting research and reading, look out for interesting facts or pieces of surprising information. These can make for great topic sentences, and you can use them to outline your essay or build upon paragraphs.
Plan your essay structure:
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” – Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote couldn’t be more accurate for essay writing.
Once you have done all the relevant research, reading and now have a solid idea of how you will approach the essay, it’s time to plan the essay structure.
Take time to arrange your ideas and research into a logical sequence, ensuring every point is relevant to the question. A plan should help you create a fluid essay that flows and lets you feel clear on where the essay writing is going.
Main body:
For the main body of the text, ensure each point is given a paragraph, which follows from the previous and flows into the next. It’s also important to provide supporting evidence for specific topics you make, especially for evidence-based arguments. Remember always to emphasise how the question is being addressed.
Introduction:
An introduction aims to summarise the entire essay in one or two concise paragraphs. For this reason, it can be pretty hard to write them first. Instead, write your introduction last as you will have written the main body of the essay already, giving you time to figure out the main point of your answer.
Conclusion:
Finally, use the conclusion to concisely summarise the main ideas formed in the essay, demonstrating how you’ve answered the question. You could help your essay stand out by ending on a thought-provoking but relevant comment or opinion.
Time to edit and get critical to producing the final piece:
Once you have written your essay, spend time reading through it. You might even want to leave it for a day before reading through it with fresh eyes, as this can help you scan for punctuation and spelling errors. There may also be other ways you think you could arrange some content. Your essay may go through a couple of drafts before you reach a final copy you’re happy with.
Writing an essay doesn’t need to be so daunting or scary. Once we break the goal of writing an essay into smaller steps like this, it can help us feel more confident to approach it. Use this step-by-step guide to help you along the way and find out what process works for you.
