Five Steps to Successful Essay Writing

Five steps to essay writing success

Many students find essay writing a daunting prospect. But it doesn’t need to be if you follow these five simple steps.

1. Take your time

When that deadline is looming, you might be feeling up against it and want to get your essay out of the way as soon as possible. However, the truth is that essay writing is a process, not a task to be ticked off a list – it requires time for reading, thinking, planning, writing and re-writing.

So, first up, get to know the question and understand its context. What is it getting at? Why is it being asked? How does it relate to what you have been studying? Then give yourself plenty of time to find the books you need, read about the subject, carry out any primary research needed and analyse your findings.

Next allocate yourself some thinking time. You need to work through the ideas in your head before you start turning them into perfectly crafted text. At this stage you might want to do a mind map of all the different ideas or write different points on post-it notes or cards. Sometimes after this stage, you’ll want to go back and do some more reading to fill in any gaps.

2. Create a structure

For lots of people, a blank screen is the most daunting thing about essay writing. The trick is not to type anything up until you have sketched out a plan of what you want to say. Using your research from Step 1, start to assemble your ideas into the ‘points’ that you want to make. Then give each point a heading (nothing fancy, just something clear and concise). Once you have your list of headings, try to put them into a logical order. Imagine you are explaining it all to someone – in what order would you say each thing? Some headings might not be full sections in their own right, so you might want to make these into sub-headings within a section.

It’s now time to put something on the page. Type your title at the top and start fitting your headings into the following basic outline:

i. Introduction

This will include: defining what the question means, explaining how you will answer the question (methodology) and citing the sources that you will draw on in order to do this.

ii. Main Body (or Analysis)

This is where you go into detail and analyse the subject matter. This can contain primary evidence such as close reading of texts (literature, media studies) or analysis of statistics (sociology, geography). Alternatively it may focus on secondary evidence, for example comparing existing opinions, comment or analysis of a subject in order to draw your own conclusion. Most essays at university level combine both types, allowing you to do your own fresh analysis whilst also drawing on existing published works.

 iii. Conclusion

This is the part where you sum up all your main points and show the reader how our understanding has changed. The conclusion does not contain any new ideas or quotes. It is a way of showing how your main body analysis has led you to answer the question.

You now have the narrative outline that your essay will follow. If you stick to making one point for every sub-heading, it will keep you on track and prevent you from going off on a tangent. Each point should lead clearly on to the next. If something doesn’t seem to contribute to the narrative thread, then you should probably leave it out.

In some subjects (especially at degree level), you keep those headings and subheadings in the final essay. For A Level and for some university subjects (like English Literature) you may need take the headings out before you hand the essay in.

3. Use compelling language

Essay writing is partly about showing that you can research and analyse a subject, but it’s also about conveying an argument. The language you use is therefore very important (even if you’re not studying literature or language). In the same way that journalists and politicians attempt to persuade us with their words, an essay writer must win over the reader with compelling arguments.

The best way to learn the language of essay writing is to read existing published work in books and journals. You will notice certain useful words coming up again and again. For example, use words such as therefore and thus to show how you have arrived at a certain point. Use furthermore to bring in additional evidence. Use ultimately and in the final analysis towards the end of your essay to signal that you are drawing conclusions. There isn’t an exhaustive list of such words but over time you will work out how best to use them to set the tone of your essay.

4. Keep crafting

The first draft of your essay is exactly that: a first draft. Once you’ve written a draft, it’s time to read it over, scribble notes on it, change things around. Reward yourself by ticking points that you’re happy with but don’t be afraid to cross bits out too! For longer essays or dissertations you could even print it out, cut it into paragraphs and physically rearrange points. You might find you’re missing a crucial part of your explanation. If so, go back to your initital readings and notes and find that golden quote that will get your argument back on track. Don’t hesitate to repeat this process on several drafts. You might even have the opportunity to hand a draft into your teacher or tutor for comment. Remember, academics spend a long time crafting their papers and books. An essay is just a miniature version of that process so be your own editor and work on it until it’s right.

5. Everything in moderation

Remember you can’t know everything about everything. Essays are always just a small sample of the potentially endless discussion you could have about a subject. Essay writing is about how you arrive at the answer not about ‘getting it right’ or covering every smallest detail. The most important thing is to show your ability to get inside a question, read other people’s work and formulate an argument. Even if the other person disagrees with your opinion, they will still be able to see that you have worked through the process and crafted an interesting and persuasive essay!

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, essay writing is a process and it takes time to read, think, plan, write and where necessary to keep editing and rewriting until you have the perfect piece. We’ve seen how important it is to structure your essay from the start and to keep the narrative or argument flowing from one point to the next using compelling language . We’ve also seen that an essay needs to be reworked and crafted over several drafts before you arrive at the finished article. Finally we’ve seen that an essay can only ever cover a fraction of a subject’s full scope, but that if your argument is strong you can win over your reader and make the grade.