Essays form an important aspect of studying English in middle or high schools. Students are encouraged to try their hand at essays via assignments, class discussions or simple homework. While some students who are proficient in English find little difficulty in writing an essay, for most it might pose a serious problem.
Why essays are perceived as problematic for certain students? Well, it poses a unique kind of threat for some due to its very nature. Writing a 500 word essay in a coherent manner is no joke. Even some adults may not be able to do it. So it is quite natural for a teenager to feel threatened by them. However, essays hold a very crucial space in the art of learning English.
Why are essays important?
In the following section, we will see how essays improve a student’s ability to learn and study English much better than any other form of creative writing. Let’s check it out:
- Forming simple sentences is not sufficient to have a grasp at English. One must be able to string a chain of thoughts in to words to learn English. Essays help you to do that.
- Essays bring out a creative and oratory style in a child. This helps in their early stage development, and provides a strong inclination towards writing.
- If you start writing essays or any kind of long form paragraphs in English, chances are you will make less grammatical errors as you practice more.
Good essays fetch better grades. They make up the difference between a good English paper and a stand-out one. If you are looking to improve your grades, have a look at “10 tips to improve your grades in English†for more in-depth understanding about doing well in school.
How to structure an essay?
Judging by most school essays, there is a very common mistake that students make while writing one themselves. What is it? Students often tend to ignore or forget the structure of their essays. An essay without a structure is quite subpar to read as it lacks any sense of flow or continuity.
So, how can you structure your essay properly? The easiest way to do it is to sketch up your ideas and form behind your essay, and follow these steps:
- Think about the topic of your essay. You can start by writing its topic down and work out what possible ideas you have that revolve around this topic. You can always jot down these ideas in a rough space so that you do not forget about them later.
- On your attempt to jot down the available ideas for your essay, try to maintain a common thread among all your ideas so that it becomes easy for you to structure those ideas later. This naturalizes the whole process of creating a structure for your essay.
- The third step is to ensure that all your ideas can be connected in form of a written piece. Often times, you will see that many ideas just do not write themselves in conjunction to your essay piece.
- Think of an ending or a conclusion to your essay beforehand. This conclusion should be able to bring home a unified collective of your ideas, or dictate an end to your essay in a proper fashion.
- The last part involving the structure of your essay should include your revisions on those ideas selected, and deciding how to lay out your points throughout the piece.
Error Checking and Revisions
After you have prepared your essay it is time for you to check your piece for potential errors. These errors might include grammatical mistakes, spacing or structural errors, and even minor spelling mistakes. Always make sure you are proofreading your essay after it has been finished. This ensures that you would not miss any ideas that you wanted to include in your piece.
In addition to that, make sure to utilize any dictionary or proofreading software so that your words might be much more enhanced and stylish than mundane descriptions. Always maintain a compact and gripping tone in your essay, as nobody likes to read something which does not interest them.
There are certain professional help websites which provide multiple templates for middle or high school essays. If you are not sure about your writing, or you just do not have enough time on your hands, make sure to check them out.
Thinking out of the box
Since the technical aspects of writing an essay has been dealt with now, it is time to talk about the overall quality of essays. However, at first, what separates a good essay from a great one? Is it simple grammar and structure? The answer is no. Ideas and theme of essays distinguish each writer. Hence it is very important to make your essay rich in unique ideas, rather than simple narration.
In order to look for unique and interesting ideas for your essays, here are some tips which you can follow to get better results:
- Always think about a central message that your essay should portray to its readers. This central message should be linked to your essay topic in some form or another. However you can also take the liberty of adding additional dimensions to your topic as a result of your own interpretation.
- Make sure to follow the traditional parts of an essay. Every essay should have a beginning, middle and an end. However, those parts do not have to be in the conventional order. You can play around with the timeline of your essay but be sure not to mix up your language or grammar while doing so.
- Enrich your vocabulary in your spare time so that you are able to tackle any essay topic on the fly. Interact in English so that your grammar is in a perfect condition. Make sure to read a lot of books so that you can bring up ideas very quickly writing a piece of your own.
These tips are only meant for those who can write a decent essay on their own. These will certainly help to step up your essay writing abilities. However if you are looking for beginners’ tips, the first section should cover that pretty well. Enjoy writing and make sure to weave your words in to a perfect piece!