Essays make a significant part of your academic career. Teachers and professors ask students to compose essay papers of different kinds all the time. This article shows the basics of essay writing and editing. You can use it as a guideline for general paper types, like expository, narrative, or persuasive essays.

Start with a research

• Get to know your topic. If you can visit a library – perfect. Ask a librarian to help you find reference and materials on the topic. If not, use online library and there is a great number of them online. However, make sure to refer to reliable and academic sources only.
• Know what sources your professor expects you to include. Be aware of the quantity of sources your professor asks you to use. Do not use Wikipedia as a source but as a starting point only. Most teachers do not allow students to refer to this. However, you can read it to understand the concept and find some other sources.
• Take notes. Don’t forget to write down the most important facts during your reading. You shouldn’t rely on your memory because you’ll have to look back again and again when writing. It’s better to have the notes in front of your eyes. This is a good practice, and it saves your precious time.
• When you meet some ideas and facts that disprove your main idea – do not act like anything happens. A good writer includes contradictory evidence and proves why he/she doesn’t accept it.
• Make sure to include your original ideas. It is okay to use arguments of other authors to support your ideas. However, make sure to express them! You don’t have to write an essay in a form of explanations of the quotations you use. Instead, you should write your essay illustrating your ideas with quotations.

The writing process begins

• Come up with a thesis statement. Look at the notes you have made while research and pick the strongest ones. This will be your thesis statement. It should summarize the core ideas of the essay you are going to write. Moreover, formulate a thesis the way you can support with evidence from your further writing. Make sure that your thesis has a narrow focus unless it would be difficult to cover it completely.
• Make an outline. Gather your main ideas and write topic sentences for them. Assemble these points into an outline and make bullet points for every main point. This helps you keep the course and include everything you need to include. When you are writing an essay, planning is everything.

The writing process goes on

• If you don’t know where to start – try freewriting, let your thoughts flow. But control yourself! Do not write five pages if your teacher asks you to write five paragraphs.
• Avoid common generalizations. Do not write something like “Racism is the most important problem of the modern world.” This doesn’t show any of your personal positions.
• Do not use “I”, “we”, “you”, “my”, etc. Personal pronouns are unacceptable in academic writing. This makes your writing not authoritative enough.

Summarize your writing

• To write a proper conclusion, sum up your previous points and suggest how your investigation can be used for the future research. Think about the questions without answers and offer them as a theme of the next research.
• Your reader should recollect all the facts and ideas you have expressed before reading your conclusion. This will make your summary natural and logical.
• Try to make your last sentence memorable. This will make a good impression on your audience.

Revise, revise, revise

• Wait for a while and then revise. If you have enough time before submission, reread your paper a little bit later. This will save your time for a double check and ensure that your paper is polished.
• Consult a grammar book and check all errors related to sentence structure, spelling, and punctuation.
• Make sure whether formatting is done correctly. Some professors never put high marks to those who ignore the MLA or APA guidelines.
• Remove the repetitive and unknown words. Use the thesaurus to make your language rich and use a dictionary to make sure that you use the concepts and words correctly. If you are not sure about the meaning of a certain word, remove it.

Use professional help

If essay writing is still a mystery and an impossible mission for you – try using professional writing services. There you will find academic writers ready to compose a paper for you in accordance with your instructions.

Hopefully, these tips will make your essay writing easier and more enjoyable!