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8 Tips for writing an excellent essay
The writer of the academic essay aims to persuade readers of an idea based on evidence. The beginning of the essay is a crucial first step in this process. In order to engage readers and establish your authority, the beginning of your essay has to accomplish certain business. Your beginning should introduce the essay, focus it, and orient readers.
Introduce the Essay. For instance, in an essay about the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, the context may be a particular legal theory about the speech right; it may be historical information concerning the writing of the amendment; it may be a contemporary dispute over flag burning; or it may be a question raised by the text itself. The point here is that, in establishing the essay's context, you are also limiting your topic. That is, you are framing an approach to your topic that necessarily eliminates other approaches.
Thus, when you determine your context, you simultaneously narrow your topic and take a big step toward focusing your essay. Here's an example. The paragraph goes on. But as you can see, Chopin's novel the topic is introduced in the context of the critical and moral controversy its publication engendered. Focus the Essay. Beyond introducing your topic, your beginning must also let readers know what the central issue is.
What question or problem will you be thinking about? You can pose a question that will lead to your idea in which case, your idea will be the answer to your question , or you can make a thesis statement.
Or you can do both: you can ask a question and immediately suggest the answer that your essay will argue. Here's an example from an essay about Memorial Hall. The fullness of your idea will not emerge until your conclusion, but your beginning must clearly indicate the direction your idea will take, must set your essay on that road. Orient Readers. Orienting readers, locating them in your discussion, means providing information and explanations wherever necessary for your readers' understanding.
Orienting is important throughout your essay, but it is crucial in the beginning. Readers who don't have the information they need to follow your discussion will get lost and quit reading. Your teachers, of course, will trudge on. Supplying the necessary information to orient your readers may be as simple as answering the journalist's questions of who, what, where, when, how, and why.
It may mean providing a brief overview of events or a summary of the text you'll be analyzing. If the source text is brief, such as the First Amendment, you might just quote it.
If the text is well known, your summary, for most audiences, won't need to be more than an identifying phrase or two:. Often, however, you will want to summarize your source more fully so that readers can follow your analysis of it. Questions of Length and Order. How long should the beginning be? The length should be proportionate to the length and complexity of the whole essay.
For instance, if you're writing a five-page essay analyzing a single text, your beginning should be brief, no more than one or two paragraphs. On the other hand, it may take a couple of pages to set up a ten-page essay. Does the business of the beginning have to be addressed in a particular order? No, but the order should be logical. Usually, for instance, the question or statement that focuses the essay comes at the end of the beginning, where it serves as the jumping-off point for the middle, or main body, of the essay.
Topic and context are often intertwined, but the context may be established before the particular topic is introduced. In other words, the order in which you accomplish the business of the beginning is flexible and should be determined by your purpose. Opening Strategies. There is still the further question of how to start.
What makes a good opening? You can start with specific facts and information, a keynote quotation, a question, an anecdote, or an image.
But whatever sort of opening you choose, it should be directly related to your focus. A snappy quotation that doesn't help establish the context for your essay or that later plays no part in your thinking will only mislead readers and blur your focus. Be as direct and specific as you can be. This means you should avoid two types of openings:. After working your way through the whole draft, testing your thinking against the evidence, perhaps changing direction or modifying the idea you started with, go back to your beginning and make sure it still provides a clear focus for the essay.
Then clarify and sharpen your focus as needed. Clear, direct beginnings rarely present themselves ready-made; they must be written, and rewritten, into the sort of sharp-eyed clarity that engages readers and establishes your authority. Schedule an Appointment. Drop-In Hours. English Grammar and Language Tutor.
Departmental Writing Fellows. Writing Resources. Harvard Guide to Using Sources. Skip to main content. Main Menu Utility Menu Search. Further analysis of Memorial Hall, and of the archival sources that describe the process of building it, suggests that the past may not be the central subject of the hall but only a medium.
What message, then, does the building convey, and why are the fallen soldiers of such importance to the alumni who built it? Part of the answer, it seems, is that Memorial Hall is an educational tool, an attempt by the Harvard community of the s to influence the future by shaping our memory of their times. The commemoration of those students and graduates who died for the Union during the Civil War is one aspect of this alumni message to the future, but it may not be the central idea.
This means you should avoid two types of openings: The history-of-the-world or long-distance opening, which aims to establish a context for the essay by getting a long running start: "Ever since the dawn of civilized life, societies have struggled to reconcile the need for change with the need for order. Get to it. The funnel opening a variation on the same theme , which starts with something broad and general and "funnels" its way down to a specific topic.
If your essay is an argument about state-mandated prayer in public schools, don't start by generalizing about religion; start with the specific topic at hand.
When the paper on beriberi was submitted to the Medical Board, they were informed in a could not be avoided, but that, should the essay meet with the approbation of the Board, E R R A T A. Page I99, line l5,for ' whethter' read ' whether. 28 An E S S AT to the main of its Signification, wherever he afterwards shall was Quintus Curtius, which in his House I read over, so as to observe the Sense of.
White wrote in the foreword to his collected essays. In a magnificent letter from February of , found in The Letters of Robert Frost, Volume 1 public library , the beloved poet gave his daughter sage counsel on her particular predicament, emanating general wisdom on writing, the art of the essay, and even thinking itself. I pity you, having to write essays where the imagination has no chance, or next to no chance.
Below we offer an example of a thoughtful reflective essay that effectively and substantively captures the author's growth over time at CSUCI. We suggest that you write your own essay before reading either of these models-then, having completed your first draft, read these over to consider areas in your own background that you have not yet addressed and which may be relevant to your growth as a reader, writer, or thinker.
The process of writing an essay usually begins with the close reading of a text. Of course, the writer's personal experience may occasionally come into the essay, and all essays depend on the writer's own observations and knowledge. When you close read, you observe facts and details about the text.
Beginning the Academic Essay
One of the hardest things to do well in writing and revising an essay is to see what you have actually written. And the closer you are to the act of writing, the harder this is. This may sound strange, but it appears to be true for almost all writers. In small things and large, we seem not to be able to see what we have actually written. When you are reading your own essay you will simply miss many errors in spelling and usage that you would see easily if you were reading someone else's writing.
How to Do a Close Reading
Each teacher gives out homework, and at the end of the day, the students are overburdened. To lessen this burden order a paper from custom essay writing service and spend your time revising for your exams. Using professional essay writer can also save you from the unhealthy sleepless nights and embarrassing grades plus late submissions. For students who have enough time, they claim to lack necessary skills to come up with a top-notch essay. With this simple tips and tricks, you can successfully and confidently write your essay. Follow each step-by-step. Here are the tips:. This is the most crucial stage in essay writing.
This handout will help you understand and write for the appropriate audience when you write an academic essay.
The writer of the academic essay aims to persuade readers of an idea based on evidence. The beginning of the essay is a crucial first step in this process. In order to engage readers and establish your authority, the beginning of your essay has to accomplish certain business.
Paper Checker
The essay gives you an opportunity to show how effectively you can read and comprehend a passage and write an essay analyzing the passage. In your essay, you should demonstrate that you have read the passage carefully, present a clear and logical analysis, and use language precisely. Your essay must be written on the lines provided in your answer booklet; except for the planning page of the answer booklet, you will receive no other paper on which to write. You will have enough space if you write on every line, avoid wide margins, and keep your handwriting to a reasonable size. Remember that people who are not familiar with your handwriting will read what you write. Try to write or print so that what you are writing is legible to those readers. You have 50 minutes to read the passage and write an essay in response to the prompt provided inside this booklet. The student responses provided in the following set illustrate common score combinations earned on the redesigned SAT. Each response has received a separate score for each of the three domains assessed: Reading, Analysis, and Writing. The scores are presented in order by domain directly preceding each sample essay. Scores for the samples provided below were assigned on a scale according to the redesigned SAT Essay Scoring Rubric. It is important to note that although these are representative samples of student ability at each score point, the set itself does not exhaustively illustrate the range of skills in Reading, Analysis, and Writing associated with each score point. Although all of the sample essays were handwritten by students, they are shown typed here for ease of reading. The essays have been typed exactly as each student wrote his or her essay, without corrections to spelling, punctuation, or paragraph breaks.
