Writing academic essays
Being able to write a strong academic essay is a critical skill for college and university students. It is also a skill that will continue to serve you if you plan to go into an academic career, or any field that involves persuasive or analytical writing. In order to write a successful essay, start by following any assigned instructions carefully. Before you start writing, research your topic using good, reputable sources. Organize your essay clearly, and support your arguments with strong examples and evidence.
Essays for sale: the booming online industry in writing academic work to order
I t takes about three minutes to order a final dissertation for an English literature degree at the UK Essays website. I pick my country, subject and required grade. It would come with a series of promises.
All of this would be totally legal and, the owners of UK Essays insist, ethical, too — because what its customers are definitely not supposed to do is submit the work as their own. UK Essays says it sold 16, assignments last year, up from 10, five years earlier, written by a network of 3, researchers.
The growth of these sites, which are known as essay mills, is now troubling the higher levels of government. New guidelines, to be published in time for the next academic year, are expected to recommend a new sector-wide policy, and the government has not ruled out beefing up the law. The intervention follows a report published last summer by the Quality Assurance Agency QAA , which maintains standards in higher education.
It also suggested a ban on advertising, and explored the role of search engines, which present hundreds of results to students looking for essays. Previous estimates suggest that more than 20, students a year in the UK are paying for essays to get degrees. The true figure may be much higher. On some sites you can even enter your course code and the name of your lecturer and the writer will tailor an essay to that. Universities are equipped to detect old-fashioned, cut-and-paste plagiarism.
But it cannot detect an original essay written by someone else. Even when lecturers suspect foul play, it can be hard to know how to act. Many students have reported being ripped off with shoddy work, or none at all. But there is also concern that contract plagiarism, while obviously wrong, is a symptom of what critics describe as the commodification of higher education.
Universities depend on foreign students with deep pockets, which is why they are fighting government plans to bring numbers down. Dave Tomar, a former mill writer in the US, says this means universities too often sell places to ill-equipped students, many of whom arrive with limited written English or awareness of British academic norms. In 10 years, Tomar, 37, says he wrote about 4, assignments for customers, including hundreds in Britain. While studying a language at Cambridge University, Claire not her real name wrote essays during her first year, and also understood that most of her customers were not British.
Newton accepts that, in some places, students arrive without sufficient skills to complete good written work. But he says students know when they are crossing a line, and that penalties for plagiarism are generally tough already cheats at Swansea are expelled.
What has changed, he adds, is the increasing accessibility and slick presentation of many of the sites, which appeal to students who might not otherwise resort to cheating. Not all essay mills, which began to proliferate over a decade ago, do much to put off would-be cheats.
OK Essay, which last year removed adverts from London Underground stations near universities after complaints, claims on its homepage to have more than 10, customers. Nowhere does it explicitly advise against it. Posing as a struggling history student, I call the customer support line for clarification. The company says it is based in Sheffield, but there is no address on the website, which also hides its domain registration details.
The terms and conditions say the site is owned by Elabama Inc, a company registered in Panama. Claire wrote for Oxbridge Essays, a prominent site with offices in London.
I was 19 and that was a lot of money. Philip Malamatinas, who launched the site in , declines to answer questions. Mills are not the only people making a case for model answers. If you made them accessible then the demand for essay mills goes out the window [see footnote]. Newton believes part of the solution must be a requirement for more face-to-face and practical assessment. Claire agrees. She gave up when the demands of her own studies left her too busy to write for other students.
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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. Writing an academic essay can be intimidating if you've never written one before or haven't written one in a long time. By following the five steps listed below.
I t takes about three minutes to order a final dissertation for an English literature degree at the UK Essays website. I pick my country, subject and required grade. It would come with a series of promises.
A large portion of university and high school education is based on writing academic essays.
Writing an academic essay means fashioning a coherent set of ideas into an argument. Because essays are essentially linear—they offer one idea at a time—they must present their ideas in the order that makes most sense to a reader.
How to write an academic essay
When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use. This resource begins with a general description of essay writing and moves to a discussion of common essay genres students may encounter across the curriculum. The four genres of essays description, narration, exposition, and argumentation are common paper assignments you may encounter in your writing classes.
How to Write an Academic Essay
Academic essay writing is a style that anyone can learn to produce, once they know the basics of writing an essay. An academic essay should provide a solid, debatable thesis that is then supported by relevant evidence—whether that be from other sources or from one's own research. Most research follows a standard set of guidelines. Remembering some basic principles for academic essay writing will allow you to create valuable, persuasive papers, even if you're under a time crunch. Before you even start writing an essay, it is important to know what you want to say. The easiest way to narrow down a thesis and create a proper argument is to make a basic outline before you begin writing your essay. The basic structure of an academic essay includes the following elements: an introduction that includes the thesis; the body of the essay, which should include separate paragraphs discussing evidence that supports the thesis; and a conclusion that ties everything together and connects it to the thesis. When it comes to how much evidence should be included in an academic essay, a good guideline is to include at least three solid points that directly support your thesis. Grammar, style, and punctuation are incredibly important if you want your research to be understood and taken seriously. Before writing an essay, make sure you have a solid understanding of basic grammar.
When you are given an assignment to write an academic essay, your instructor may give you a specific topic or ask you to write about a specific thesis statement.
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5 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Academic Essay Writing Skills
There are many types of essays and papers you can write as a student. The content and length of an essay varies depending on your level, subject of study, and specific course requirements. However, most academic essays share the same goal. They aim to persuade readers of a position or perspective through informed arguments, which are based on evidence, analysis and interpretation. Furthermore, every essay has an introduction , body and conclusion that always do more or less the same things. Table of contents Essay writing process Introduction of an essay Body of an essay Conclusion of an essay Checklist: How to write an essay. The essay writing process consists of three stages: preparation, writing and revision. These stages apply to every essay or paper. However, the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay , for example a personal statement , statement of purpose , high school essay or graduate school essay. The first sentence of the introduction should pique the interest of your reader. This sentence is sometimes called the hook.
How to write an 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.
