Tips for writing an excellent essay

• October 16, 2020
• Author: James Collins

Outstanding writing is all about being creative. Great essay writing comes when the writer communicates ideas in the clearest way possible and ignites both the reader’s knowledge and imagination. If you want to find ways to improve your essay writing and learn how to a great essay, then there are some techniques that can help with that. Read more about them below:
 

1. Consider your reader

As with any kind of writing, when you start writing your essay you should first think about your reader. You need to understand well whom you’re writing for to keep their interest. Take a moment and think about the kind of person you’re writing for and what you should do to write specifically for them.

For instance, teachers expect to get answers to their questions, so you should do that effectively. You can try to surprise them with an original explanation, unusual approach, or uncommon structure. But keep your writing style easy to read and succinct because teachers are limited in time for reading numerous essays.

 

2. Work on structure

Knowing how to answer an essay question in a way that will score high marks is something that you can teach yourself, although it may take practice.

There is an approach called three act structure that is commonly used in modern writing, especially for TV dramas. It includes the following elements: set up, confrontation, and resolution. You can adapt them for writing your essays or articles and get great results. So here is how it could look:

Set-up could be your introduction. In this part, you should present the evidence that denies a common theory or highlight a controversy in how something is interpreted.

Confrontation involves the discussion of different issues surrounding the topic you’re writing about. In this section, you should develop the argument using some evidence and move towards an overall conclusion.

Resolution corresponds to the conclusion. Here you need to summarise the argument and provide your own opinion. You can also offer an alternative explanation for some evidence in the conclusion.

If you stick to this structure, you’ll avoid waffling and will keep focused on the central point. This way, everything you write is working towards resolving your main argument.
 

3. Pay attention to editing
 

Once you’ve finished your first draft, read through it carefully, and think whether it makes sense in general. Consider if the order of your points is optimal and what can be improved.
It is important to gauge the balance between a novel argument and drawing on arguments presented by others. What makes a great essay is being able to offer your own opinion while relevantly critiquing another argument.
 
There is also nothing wrong with asking someone else for help while writing and proofreading your essays or articles. You can ask your friends or other students to check grammar or spelling and edit your text. But sometimes peers cannot give you writing tips due to different reasons. And it’s not really a problem because an article service provided by Edubirdie can help you out. This is a service where professional writers who know the best practices in writing will review your article and correct all the mistakes. Editing is a necessary stage of any creative process that will make your work absolutely excellent.
 

4. Add more interesting details
 

You will be able to keep your reader interested if you bring your writing to life with creative details. If you focus on academic problems alone, your essay will probably become quite dry. That’s why peppering it with details could be a great idea, especially when it comes to humanities subjects, like English literature, history, or archaeology. If you are wondering how to write a great essay, then you could consider common phrases found in essay questions. Look at what makes a good essay and what makes a bad essay – is there anything obvious that you should be including or avoiding? Moreover, you can use details not only to raise the reader’s interest but to build your argument as well.   
 

5. Understand the question
 

One of the best ways to write a great essay is to ensure that you understand the question and understand the wording of the essay question. If you trying to work out how to understand an essay question, then first decide which section the essay would come under: critical evaluation essay, compare and contrast essay, analyse an essay or evaluate the essay.

When you are writing essay then firstly you need to the best way to start an essay, and this begins with knowing how to understand the essay question. Perhaps your essay is asking you to critically evaluate something, in which case you might want to discuss the question and common alternatives and approaches to it. Highlighting strengths and weaknesses in an essay is also a great way to critically evaluate.

Alternatively, you might be writing an evaluation essay. In this case, you should consider alternative approaches but mainly focus on the concept and key part of the essay. For example, is the topic in question useful? Has the discussion point been used in any theories and what was the outcome of this? What does application of this theory reveal?

Finding out how to answer different types of essay questions can be difficult but with practice you will learn how to structure your essay to answer the question. Once you know where the focus of your essay should lie, it will become easier to research and write it.
 

6. Always note your ideas

Those who want to get better at writing should have a notebook with them at all times, so they are always ready to jot down great ideas that suddenly spring to their mind. You never know when the inspiration might strike, so even when you are out, there is a chance you can get an insight on your essay topic. For sure, adopting this approach will boost the quality of your articles or essays.
 

As you see, there are many ways to master your writing skills. The techniques offered in this article are only a few of the possible methods to make your essays exceptional. You can also create your own techniques that would be helpful for successful writing.  
 

• October 16, 2020
• Author: James Collins