Essay writing is a crucial part of every student’s academic life. Writing a well-versed essay credits to good grades and explanation skills. It is a fundamental element of every student’s learning. Writing an excellent English essay demands certain fulfilments from the student.
But what happens if the essay is rejected or graded low despite the right research and effort? This results in a waste of time and valuable knowledge for the student.
To make sure that this does not happen, there are some tips that you can follow when you want to write an essay. In this post, we will be looking at some of those.
Table of Contents
5 Tips to Write Better Essays
Follow the Correct Writing Format
Different institutions approve one of the few known writing formats for their essays. Before starting your essay, it is greatly advised to check which format is followed by your academic institution.
Different types of writing formats that are followed globally are:
- Modern Language Association of America (MLA)
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago Style)
Once the format is understood, the student is advised to place the essay’s contents within that outline. Choosing the wrong format can change the placement of your essay’s content and make it ineffective.
To find out the format that is followed by your institution, you can simply ask your teachers or visit the official forum. You can also consult your seniors.
If you don’t follow the format, you could just end up having your essay rejected by the checkers.
Understanding The Topics Properly
Most students start writing essays and get confused about what to state and where. It would help if you did not start writing a single word without completely understanding the topic.
Having a thorough knowledge of the topic you’re writing an essay about matters the most. It defines the content you are writing. It also helps build strong arguments based on your opinion compared to the information.
Researching the topic also gives an insight into the context of the essay to be written. It helps save time wasted on pauses because of the mental outline of the topic created from the research. Therefore, understanding the topic directs the whole flow of your essay writing.
Here’s what you should do to properly understand the topic:
- Consult your teachers, seniors, or peers about the topic
- Search the topic on the internet and look it up on some reliable sources like Google Scholar and ResearchGate
- Gather different resources and collectively study them
Pay Attention to the Introductory Part
The first expression is the last impression. This holds true for a lot of things, including essays.
When writing an essay, you have to make sure that the starting parts are well written. If the introduction is written properly, your teacher will get a nice impression from the start, and this will induce them to look at the rest of the essay with a positive outlook.
Similarly, other than making an impression, a good introduction will also help you write better. For example, if you enumerate and list all the important elements of the essay in the introduction, you will be able to explain them properly in the correct order when writing the main body.
Since you will have mentioned all the points beforehand, they won’t look abrupt or out of context when you actually elaborate on them later on.
Here are some things that you can keep in mind to write a good introduction for your essay:
- Briefly mention all the points that you want to cover in your essay
- Mention the purpose or objective of writing the essay (explanation, description, etc.)
- Provide any necessary background information that is required by the reader for understanding the essay properly
Make your Essay Readable
Although academic writing is generally thought to be the place where you can freely use complex words and vocabulary, it’s never a good idea to go overboard. You have to make sure that your essay is readable while at the same time having enough sophistication to show your writing skill to your teacher.
For some people, writing simple content right from the get-go can be a little difficult. Either due to an involuntary habit or due to a mere lack of grasp on writing, their essays can come out a little clunky the first time around.
Luckily, this is where we can use paraphrasing tools. Although you should not generally use paraphrasing tools for your academic work, this case is an exception. The stigma attached to paraphrasing tools is on account of the potential unscrupulousness they can be used to perpetrate. But, if you are merely using them on your own content for getting some ideas on improving its quality, there’s nothing wrong with it.
Mind you, you should not just run the text through a paraphrasing tool and then use it for your essay. Rather, you should use the tool in an educational capacity. You can look at the changes it makes, and then apply them in your own way to the content you’ve written.
Here are some tips that you should keep in mind when using paraphrasing tools to make your essay more readable:
- Be sure to pick a good tool. Not all the paraphrasing tools available online are worth using so be sure to pick an AI paraphraser. You can try Rephrase.info, Paraphraseonline.io or SciSpace paraphrasing tool (the best AI paraphraser that helps you write unique content in 75+ languages and supports 22 custom tones), Rephrase.info, or Paraphraseonline.io since they are both free to use.
- Be sure to pick the right mode. Some tools offer multiple modes, each of which gives different results. Depending on what you’re trying to do, a particular mode could be more suited to your needs than another.
- Don’t use the paraphrased version right from the tool’s output section. There is always the chance of contextual errors.
Check the Plagiarism of your Essay
The last thing to approve your essay as a submittable is checking it for any traces of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a highly condemnable offense in academics.
On top of getting your essay rejected, it can lead to prosecution from the plagiarized content’s original owner and create legal trouble for a student. For scanning your essay to check its uniqueness, an online plagiarism checker can be a useful option. There are many options available online, but we personally recommend the following tools because of their accurate working:
- Plagiarism Checker by Copyscape
- Plagiarism Checker by Prepostseo
- Plagiarism Checker by Editpad.org
The good thing about these tools is that they also give you the source to which the plagiarized content is attributed. This can help you create citations and eliminate the risk of plagiarism.
Here is what this usually looks like:
Source: Prepostseo
Conclusion
Writing essays makes up a significant part of a student’s academic life. A student is expected to deliver the best performance in an essay to maintain their grades and technical skills.
By following the above tips, you can make your essays stand out and get a good grade from your teacher.