How to Write an Essay

Essays can be found in every academic institution and at every academic level, all around the world. These are so frequently assigned that they make for half of the content our assignment writing service write. Since the essay can be on any topic and have different forms, it often poses a challenge for the students.

But, it doesn’t have to be that challenging, not when you can follow some simple steps – and not when you know all about this paper’s structure. To help you improve your skills, our UK essay writing service has created a simple, yet insightful guide on how to write an essay.

What Is an Essay?

Essays are relatively short pieces of writing, but they can carry tons of information and require a lot of research. The type of essay can determine your approach toward writing it, as well as its purpose. In most cases, essays need to develop arguments, analyze a topic, as well as provide evidence.

But, this depends on the type of essay. While argumentative and persuasive essays require different points of views and arguments, personal essays require less research and a more personalized approach.

The Essay Writing Process Explained

Regardless of what essay type you have been assigned, the stages of writing a great essay are always the same at our company. Here is what they are:

1. Essay preparation. At this point, you need to figure out what exactly is expected of you and find the means to deliver it. This stage includes checking the instructions by your professor, defining the topic, and performing the necessary research. You’ll also come up with the thesis statement in this part i.e. figure out the purpose of your writing. Another thing that we consider essential for the preparation part is the outline creation. Students often skip this because they believe it is irrelevant and time-consuming. However, when you have your information organized in an outline, it takes much shorter time to write the essay task.
2. Essay writing. Once you collect the data and have a good plan for the process, it will go more smoothly. At this point, you need to create your first draft i.e. come up with the introduction, body paragraphs, and the conclusion. These don’t necessarily have to be written in this order – many of our writers prefer to finish the remaining of the task before they tackle the introduction.
3. Revisions and edits. Writing the task is not the final step. Revising it must be last, and you shouldn’t skip this part if you want a good grade. Take your time to evaluate the structure, check if you met the format instructions, and make necessary proofreading and editing of your content.

The Typical Essay Structure

Every essay ,regardless of its size or topic, has the same structure. The number of body paragraphs can differ, but the structure remains the same. Here is how it goes:

1. Introduction: The introduction is the first part of any essay. This is a small paragraph that introduces the topic, provides some background information, engages the reader, and includes the thesis statement.
2. Body: After the introduction come the body paragraphs. These have to be at least 3, but they can be more depending on the essay nature and length. In the body paragraphs, you need to insert the arguments and findings, connect them, and create a good information flow.
3. Conclusion: The conclusion comes last. This is also a short paragraph in most cases, one that summarizes the main findings or points from the paper. It doesn’t introduce any new information.

How to Write an Essay Step by Step

Now that you are familiar with the structure and our main approach toward writing essays, let’s delve into details. Here is our list of steps that you should follow to create an amazing paper.

1. Learn about the Type of Essay

The type of essay is very important when you prepare to write it. Different types require different approaches, and there are many of them. The types that you’ll be assigned most often are:

• Argumentative essay. In this paper, you need to make arguments on a topic. You need to pick a side or a point, and argument it compared to other points.
• Persuasive essay. Similar to the argumentative paper, this assignment needs to convince the reader about your selected point of view.
• Narrative essay. In narrative essays, you need to tell a story.
• Expository essay. Expository papers explain a process into detail, provide step-by-step instructions, and describe the methods and strategies used to achieve the results.
• Descriptive essay. In descriptive papers, you need to focus on the details of your story. This assignment is based on feelings, impressions, etc.
• Problem and solution essay. As the name tells you, this assignment presents a problem, makes the reader interested about solving it, and proposes a solution.
• Compare and contrast essay. In this assignment, you need to compare and contrast different subjects under the same umbrella.

2. Brainstorm Different Topics

In many cases, you’ll already have a topic to write on. In others, you’ll have to choose your own. This is a very important step because it determines your research, the paper flow, and how engaging it will be to readers. Here are some tips for this part:

• Make a list of your topic ideas. You’ll eliminate them afterward.
• Use mind mapping or clustering to figure out which idea you like best.
• Do a bit of research on your favorite topics and pick the one you find most interesting.

3. Perform the Research

Now that you have a topic as well as an essay type, it’s time to jump into the research part. Search online, borrow some books and journals, or go to the library. If this is applicable in your case, you can also do interviews, send out surveys, etc.

4. Decide on the Writing Format

Most of the time, professors dictate the format of your essay. The most common ones used these days are:

• APA – mostly used on psychology and social science essays and research papers
• MLA – mostly used in language arts and humanities essays
• Chicago Manual of Style – mostly used by college and university students and professionals

5. Develop the Thesis Statement

The thesis statement belongs to your paper's introduction. It’s a single sentence, but one with tremendous importance. Write it before you start crafting the assignment. This way, you’ll know in which direction to take it, and you’ll have a part of the introduction ready.

6. Make an Outline

This next step is maybe the most important one for your paper writing. It can help you organize your data better, create a great essay flow, and prevent you from making errors. Think of it as your essay’s skeleton. It doesn’t have to be well-written or look amazing. After all, you are not submitting this part with your assignment. Here are some tips for your outline:

• Write your topic at the top, followed by the thesis statement.
• Create a topic sentence or some hints for each of the body paragraphs.
• Decide on which piece of data belongs in which paragraph.
• Brainstorm transitions between paragraphs.

7. Write the Essay

Here comes the part where you actually get to write. This will be much easier with the outline – you’ll need to fill in the gaps and connect the dots you created in the previous steps. When writing your first draft, don’t stop to fix the errors. That’s what the next part is all about.

8. Revise the Essay

Finally, you need to dedicate some time to make the essay look and sound good. Here is what you should do:

• Read your draft several times and make the necessary changes
• Edit first and proofread later, since you can make more mistakes while editing the content
• Ensure that there are transitions between different facts, points and ideas
• Check the required formatting and make sure that you followed it

How to Write an Essay Plan

Before you write the essay, you need to have a solid plan in place. What will you say in it? How will you phrase it and connect your thoughts? Here are some tips on essay planning:

• Make sure that you understand what is asked of you. Learn about the goal of your essay i.e. its type. Make sure that you know details such as the deadline and the length. If you have questions, ask your professor before you begin.
• Pick the topic. If one is not given to you, brainstorm to select a great topic.
• Research before you start writing. Never research and write simultaneously. Collect all the data you’ll need and take notes, you will handle the writing afterward.
• Create your outline and thesis statement. When you have these two, you are ready to work on the three parts of your paper: the introduction, body and conclusion.

How to Write an Introduction for an Essay

The introduction is the first thing that the reader will see. As such, it needs to be impressive and engaging. Your reader should get three things from this part:

• The topic of your assignment
• The purpose of the essay
• Your thesis statement

You can choose to write this part first and introduce the rest of your paragraphs. Or, if you find it hard to get started, you can write the remaining parts and leave it for last. Some find it much simpler to introduce a paper they are familiar with.

When writing the essay, make sure to come up with some information that will pique the curiosity or interest in the reader. Provide some background information for them to easily understand the topic, and introduce your thesis statement.

How to Write a Conclusion for an Essay

Your body paragraphs introduce the data you found during the research process and make your points. When you’re done, it’s time to write the conclusion. This part is challenging for most because in it, you need to repeat the most important information, but without making it annoying. You also cannot introduce any new information.

As a general rule of thumb, the conclusion is a single paragraph that takes up to around 10% of the entire essay. In it, you need to summarize the main points and tell the reader why your assignment matters.

Tips for Effective Writing of Essays

We have taken you through our steps for creating an amazing essay. In the end, we’d also like to introduce the following tips:

• Keep the most interesting piece of data for the introduction
• Use topic sentences in each paragraph
• Figure out the transitions between your ideas before you start writing
• Don’t pick essay topics that you don’t find interesting
• Make sure that your essay topic has enough research data for you to use
• If you cannot do this on your own or fear that you won’t meet the deadline, ask for help