7 Steps to Write an Amazing Essay

Learning how to write great essays that impress your instructor and earn you top marks can be frustrating process. But it doesn’t always have to be. If you learn the steps involved and take the time to practice every step until you understand them frontwards and backwards, then you’ll be writing amazing essays in no time. Here are the seven steps you need to know in order to write amazing essays:

Research: The first step you want to take is to select a topic and start researching it to develop some ideas and to make yourself informed in a specific area. Use all available resources you find in online, in academic databases, in libraries and in your class notes.

Analysis: Once you have solid foundation from which to work, start analyzing your content. Define key terms, underline arguments and take down whatever evidence has been used. You’ll start noticing patterns and will have enough information to start forming your own ideas and having opinions on the content before you.

Brainstorming: Ask yourself a number of questions about your topic and answer them in phrases or short sentences. Think about your responses and see if you are able to come up with a couple of unique insights to write about. Be creative, but stay within your topic to avoid having to do too much research on top of what you have already done.

Thesis: This is the most important component to any well-written essay. Select your best idea and narrow it down by making a clear assertion about it, a position which you can write your essay around. Remember that your thesis must be a single concise statement that lets your audience know what it is you are discussing and why.

Outline: Before you start writing your rough draft you need to sketch out what your essay will look like. Do this by using one-line sentences that describe what you will include in each paragraph. You should try playing with the essay’s order, mapping out the structure and ensuring that each paragraph is unified.

Intro, Body Paragraphs, Conclusion: Now start writing your essay. Your introduction should first grab your reader’s attention and briefly describe what it is you will be writing. Include your thesis statement near the end of this paragraph. Your next paragraphs will be you r body paragraphs which move from one argument to the next and include all of your pieces of evidence in support of your thesis. Your conclusion summarizes your major points and restates your thesis in different words. It’s also an opportunity to close your argument to give your essay a sense of completeness.

Revising and Editing: All great essays have several levels of revision and editing. To revise you must re-think your essay and look for ways to condense or make your essay more effective by moving its arguments around. After you are done with this, you need to thoroughly edit to look for misspellings, punctuation errors and more. You might be too tired from looking at your essay so it’s a good idea to set aside for a few hours before going through this last important step.

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