Writing essays becomes second nature to students after a while because they write so many papers. The average college student produces as many as three essays a week each semester, and this creates a great deal of anxiety as students struggle to complete the large volume of papers they must master each week. This is especially true for students who have faced challenges with their writing or who came to college without a thorough background in academic writing. There are, however, some effective ways to improve your essay writing efforts. In this article, we’ll take a look at ten tips that can help to make the difference between average academic writing and great academic writing.
Read plenty of essays
To help develop great writing, you should first become a great reader. When you consume high-quality writing, you’ll learn the approaches, style, and rhythm that will help to make your writing shine. Every year, publishers put out collections of the year’s best essays from magazines, books, and other professional outlets, and these can be great ways to explore high-quality essays about your field of interest.
Build your vocabulary and mechanics
Strong writing requires a strong foundation in the fundamentals. One of the best ways to do so is to improve your vocabulary and your grammar and other mechanics. Many colleges offer tutorials, self-guided programs, or courses that can help you to develop these skills, and taking advantage of them can be a big help.
Read the assignment
The first tip might seem obvious, but one of the most effective ways to improve your essay is to read the assignment and make sure that you have a thorough understanding of each part of the assignment. You want to make sure that you address each part of the assignment, so if you have any questions about requirements, be sure to ask your instructor before you start writing.
Review the rubric
The rubric provided with most essay assignments is basically a roadmap telling you what you need to do in order to address the assignment and maximize the points you earn. Be extra careful as you review the rubric to make sure you catch all of the ways your instructor will evaluate you to make sure you get all the points you possibly can.
Develop a research question
Before you start writing, develop a few key questions about the assignment that you want to learn more about. By developing these questions, you can help to shape and guide your research, and this will help you to put your approach to your essay into sharper focus. Research questions can be simple or complex, but the sharper and more insightful the question is, the more help it will be in filtering your research for the most important and useful sources, saving you time overall.
Make friends with your library
Research is the heart of the essay writing process, so be sure that you are familiar with the databases and services that your college library offers. Your college library offers proprietary databases that are full of high-quality academic research sources that are not available on the open web. When you make use of these sources, you can develop stronger papers with a better grounding in academic research.
Select your evidence and research before you write
As you read the research that you collected, select quotations and evidence that you plan to use in your paper and collect it in a file. Develop your citations and your reference list before you start writing so you won’t have to go back and gather additional evidence or stop to create citations while you write. This will save you time and avoid breaking your concentration.
Outline your paper before you write
Writing your paper can be difficult, but outlining will make it easier. Take time before you write to organize your thoughts and sketch how you plan to put together the main arguments of your paper. Even a simple outline of the major ideas can be beneficial, but the more time and effort you put into developing a thorough outline, the faster you will be able to write the final draft and the stronger your final paper will likely be.
Always leave time for revision and proofreading
While it might feel like your paper is done once you’ve finished your first draft, it’s always a good idea to plan ahead to save some time for revision and proofreading. By reviewing the work you’ve done and making changes to improve it and to correct occasional errors, you will not only make your paper stronger but will ensure that mistakes don’t distract or annoy your instructor. Two passes through—one for revision and one for error correction—is usually the best strategy.
Consider using essay writing services online
Contacting professional writers from an academic essay writing service like SmartWritingService can be a great way to learn the right way to approach any topic. Professional academic writers can help with custom papers designed to show you exactly how to approach your specific assignment. The help you get is safe and legit and can make the difference between struggling with a confusing assignment or racing to meet a deadline and having the time and the guidance to achieve your essay goals simply, easily, and effectively. Joins thousands of other students in turning to professional help to overcome your most difficult essay struggles.
Writing an effective essay can result from this set of tips or just a result of your experience. Sometimes, not following any rules gives more results. Still, the most important idea here is to do something. The worst enemy you have on this road is procrastination. Follow these tips, or choose your own path, just start right away!