For those who have to hand in an essay submission soon, you’re saving your grades by checking this article out until the last word. We’ve compiled all the tips you will ever need to hone your essay-writing skills, and we’ve left out the big complicated words. Those are for the essays.
This is a step-by-step guide on how to hone your writing skills to execute a stellar paper. And on that note, if you have a paper to submit and you’re already at your wit’s end with any additional homework, you can order homework services and get your work done and written by a professional. Invest for less stress.
Moving on, here’s a structured guide on how to ace your next paper.
1. Draw Inspiration By Reading
Reading other essays, especially essays in the same genre in which you need to write, can set you up with a solid foundation of inspiration and knowledge. By making it a habit to read essays before writing one, you will be able to dive into essay writing in more detail by studying your resources.
Websites where you can read essays and academic papers:
- Google Scholar
- JSTOR
- Narratively
- Booksie
By accessing these sources, you can read multiple essays at any given point. Read, learn, integrate and repeat. Practice will make perfect for your papers. All you need to do is to start.
These sources can let you access thousands of different academic papers in essay format. By doing this, you can access high-level essay papers crafted to perfection. And by observing these types of papers, you can slowly integrate what you learn from reading them.
2. Meticulous Brainstorming
Check out Studyfy’s Essay Topics article to pick out some intriguing topics to develop for your paper. If you can’t decide or choose one idea, then let yourself freely list down as many ideas as possible. This is especially helpful if you didn’t obtain a specific prompt from your professor and can choose any topic for yourself.
Try to choose topics you already know of since it will be easier to develop and write about. Of course, if there’s a topic that seriously interests you, but you have no knowledge of it, you can choose that topic too.
The effort you will have to put in will be greater, but it is always better to choose something that genuinely interests you than to write about a subject that bores you. It will show in your writing. Take your time to narrow down your best options. Once you’ve found the main topic of your choice, then it’s time to make the next move.
3. Freewriting Helps
Freewriting is a way to expose all your thoughts on a given topic without too much thinking. The point is to jot everything down that comes up when thinking of the central topic and filter it out later. This will give you loads of ideas to choose from for paper, especially for your:
- Thesis statement
- Body Paragraphs
And, of course, don’t forget to remember the genre of essay you have to write; this will help you in your freewriting and keep it coherent to the prompts.
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4. Before Drafting, Set Your Intentions
Before you start writing, clarify why you’re writing in the first place. This is a surefire and simple way to refine your writing in the long run, and you can always refer back to your intentions when you get confused anytime while writing. To do this, write down the answers to these questions somewhere and keep them:
- Why are you writing this paper?
- Who is your target audience?
- How can you achieve your primary goal through your paper?
By knowing and setting your intentions, you will never be led astray by an incoherent thought or sentence. You can always look back to it and see if your writing is relevant to your main intentions. This is one way to hone your essay-writing skills, and we advise you to take advantage of this tip.
5. Make An Outline
Once you’ve completed the former steps, you can use an outline to organize all the thoughts and ideas you’ve generated. You should know the basic structure of an essay now, so use your knowledge to outline the following:
- Introductory Part
- Hook
- Background Information
- Thesis Claim
- Body Parts
- Topic Sentence
- Evidence To Back Your Claim
- Concluding Part
- Summary and Connection Of All Points
6. Evidence, Reasoning, Scholarship
Here’s an additional tip. You can make sure that your stance and claims are solid by checking if you have the following in your content:
Evidence:
Make sure your paper provides solid evidence that acts as the backbone of your claim, and make sure to provide your sources. Ensure your sources are credible and peer-reviewed. Evidence can come in the form of statistics, excerpts, examples, facts, and illustrations.
Reasoning:
Make sure you provide reasoning in your paper. Reasoning links the evidence to the argument at hand. You need to show your stance and your developed thought on the topic at hand, not only list evidence.
Scholarship:
Provide scholarship in your paper. Scholarship shows how your arguments relate to what has been written on the topic (existing evidence), like academic papers, reports, etc. You can use this to support your argument.
7. A 60/40 Approach To Your Sources
What this means is to find a balance between writing your reasoning and arguments and also including and writing evidence to back your claims. A good ratio for this is:
- 60% of the paper presents your developed analysis and arguments
- 40% of the paper presents quoted references from research
Find the balance by using this ratio. Don’t forget to give credit where it’s due when referring to your sources. In-text citations and the lot can help your paper’s credibility stay on track.
Final Thoughts
Writing an essay paper has its formula, and we hope that by reading our article, you will get to hone and master your essay writing skills for the period of your major and your minor degree.
We understand that it can be quite overwhelming to always be handing in essays, but with this guide, you can at least have a starting point. We’ve made it easy to grasp and follow for your sake. So, good luck.