Academic writing is an essential part of the university education and therefore is to be mastered by students. However, to master essay writing one has to put some effort and time. Why? Because as anything in life success has to be worked for.
Even if you do not aim to become an A-level student, you still do want to pass these core subjects without taking the courses for a second or third time. Here we will try to advise on how to better organize an essay as well as the whole writing process.
Organizing Essay Writing Process
When organizing your writing process the first thing to figure out is whether you actually do have time to write it on your own. Let us be honest, studies are not the only thing we have in life, and even if we dedicate a lot of time to it, sometimes requirements are too high. Therefore, many students recourse to a usage of academic writing or advisory services https://edubirdie.com/ to leave some time for personal or professional development.
For those desiring to perform the assignments on their own it would be beneficial to consider these tips:
- plan in advance: we all are masters of procrastination and rarely does it end up with a positive result. So do not procrastinate, start working on your essay as early as possible. Simply reading a couple of pages on the topic will significantly help later;
- give yourself an adequate amount of time: when planning, people tend to overestimate their abilities and underestimate the difficulty of the task to be performed. Therefore, set your own deadline a few days before an actual one;
- go to the library: online research is cool and convenient, but at the dormitory or at home people face numerous distractions. These small and insignificant things will constantly distract you from being focused on one thing;
- find inspiration: especially if you hate writing or are not that good at this type of work, try to fall in love with your topic. You may watch some interesting Ted Talks on subject or writing in general;
- stop planning and start doing: sometimes we tend to plan every second of our life and it takes more time than actually do something. In writing try to plan only the most essential steps like researching, drafting, editing, and proofreading, do not micromanage.
Structuring Your Essay
In academic writing, the structure makes all the difference. Since scholarly works are heavily used by researchers and academics, they should be readable and easy to understand. A clear structure is the main prerequisite for this. Core essay parts include an introduction with a strong and concise thesis statement, a few paragraphs with a thesis statement each, and finally conclusion comprising all the main ideas and recommendations. Reference list and appendices are also to be provided.
Introduction and thesis statement. Upon all the initial stages of researching and drafting an essay, one should start writing an introduction. Being the very first thing one is to read in your essay, try to make introduction capturing and interesting. Present the problem and how you tried to solve it. In the final part of the introduction, including the thesis statement. All the other paragraphs in your essay will revolve around this one central idea.
Main Paragraphs. The body of your essay argues, explains or describes your topic. Each main idea that you wrote in your diagram or outline will become a separate section within the body of your essay. Begin by writing one of your main ideas as the introductory sentence. Next, write each of your supporting ideas in sentence format, but leave three or four lines in between each point to come back and give detailed examples to back up your position.
Conclusion. The conclusion brings closure of the topic and sums up your overall ideas while providing a final perspective on your topic. Your conclusion should consist of three to five strong sentences. Simply review your main points and provide reinforcement of your thesis. You may also include some recommendations for future researches and outline the limitations of the conducted study.
Finalization. When finished with an essay draft, there are still a few steps to be performed. Firstly, leave it for a few days and return to the essay to read it once again. Then edit all the issues you may have found. Never omit proofreading. If you simply cannot proofread the essay because you are tired of it, ask your friends to do it for you. Review the instructions one more time and check whether you have answered the question or properly dwelled on the subject.
