Essays are many students’ worst nightmare. Academic writing requires a lot of skill and practice – it’s usually not something you can automatically get good at.
However, improving your writing skills just in time for the next semester is not impossible.
As long as you put in some effort and learn how to write quickly and effectively, you’ll be acing all of your exams before you even know it!
In this article, we’ll provide you with some quick tips and tricks to make this process as painless as possible.
So without any further ado, let’s get right to the bottom of it!
1. Understand the essay question
Now, yes, this might seem like an obvious thing to do, but hear us out. Truly understanding the essay question entails more than just skimming over it. You’ll need to go back to the course materials, do some base research, and only then you’ll be able to truly start conceptualizing your essay.
A good approach is to underline the keywords you find in the question itself, so you’re better able to draft a concept at the beginning of your writing journey. It sounds quite simple (because it is), but it’s more helpful than you’d ever imagine.
Now, of course, reaching out to your professor for any doubts you might have about the essay topic as early as possible is key to fulfilling their requirements. We suggest you do this as soon as you get the question, or otherwise you might find yourself feeling lost right before the deadline.
2. A good outline is half the job done
As you probably already know, drafting an outline is the first step towards writing a good essay. In fact, writing a „starting“ table of contents may help you finish it even more quickly. The essay should always consist of 3 main parts: introduction, body, and conclusion.
The introduction part should explain the main idea behind your essay to the reader. If you have a hypothesis you’re trying to prove (or disprove), it’s where it should be discussed.
Besides, the reader should decide whether to read the rest of the essay by examining your introduction. It’s why it is considered to be the most difficult part of writing an academic article.
The body is where most of your work should be. It’s where you’ll discuss the details of your essay, so this part requires extensive research and argumentation.
Finally, the conclusion wraps it all up by providing the main points and arguments you’ve raised in your essay. It’s where you’ll showcase the findings of your research and decide whether the hypothesis you’ve set is proven or disproven.
Either way, make sure you have an outline before you’ve started writing. You can always change it as you find out new facts during your research, but nonetheless, it should be there to guide you right from the start.
3. You’ll need factual evidence to support your arguments
Accumulating potential sources and references even before you’ve started writing your essay could make it all much easier to write. Now, of course, if you’ve procrastinated until now, and you only have a couple of days before the deadline, you’ll need to accelerate this process as much as possible. We advise you to check the recommended literature your professor might have provided at the beginning of the semester. If you can, find the textbook in its pdf form (libgen is an excellent place to start looking), and start CTRL+F-ing the keywords you’ve found right at the start. It will help you find the arguments to support your entire thesis, which will simplify the entire process in a major way.
Of course, don’t forget to cite all of your sources and references properly. Plagiarism is the last thing you’d want on your academic record, so be extremely careful. You can try out online plagiarism checkers for free – even if they’re not always accurate, they can still help you find potential plagiarism in your work.
4. Ask for help
Now, we’re not saying you should cheat and have your essay written by someone else, but sometimes you’ll need extra help understanding the topic – which is perfectly fine by itself. Places like homeworkhelpglobal.com can help you write and proofread your essay extremely quickly, which is incredibly important when you’re running short on time.
In fact, sometimes you simply won’t have the time to write a good essay on your own.
Life tends to get in the way, so there’s nothing wrong with asking for help! As long as you understand the topic in question well enough, there shouldn’t be any issues with your professor.
5. Editing and revision come last
It might be tempting to revise every sentence you’ve written as you’re writing your essay, but it’s simply not a very good idea. You probably have a deadline you wouldn’t like to miss. Spending too much time on every paragraph in your essay could leave you with no options but rush the final chapters of the entire paper. This is much worse than leaving a grammatical error or two. Besides, noticing any irregularities in your argumentation or the writing itself is much easier when the entire essay is finished.
So, yes, make sure you leave editing and proofreading for later, especially if you’re particularly short on time. Your professor will appreciate a well-argued essay far more than a typo-free one. You could even leave the proofreading to the professionals, if you’re unsure you could do it all in time for the deadline.
The conclusion
Overall, writing the perfect essay is not an easy task – especially if you’re new to the academic writing style. It’s something that comes with a lot of practice, so don’t get discouraged if the first essay you’ve ever written doesn’t give you the results you’ve wanted. As long as you follow the tips in this article, you’ll be able to improve over time, so keep on writing until you get it all right!
We hope our article helped you start writing better papers and we wish you the best of luck in your entire academic future.