An essay is a short piece of writing that generally shows the author's view on a particular subject. There are many different kinds of essays, including narrative, descriptive, and persuasive. The following steps, however, can be used to write any kind of essay.
Establish Your Topic
- Your teacher may assign you a
topic or ask you to choose from among a few topics. The assignment may
contain certain key words that will suggest the content and structure of
your essay. For example, you may be asked to
- Analyze
- Argue
- Compare and contrast
- Describe
- Discuss
- Summarize
If you do not understand what you are being asked to do,
check with your teacher.
- You may be asked to find a topic
on your own. Most people find this difficult. Give yourself plenty of time
to think about what you'd like to do. Trying to answer questions you have
about a particular subject may lead you to a good paper idea.
- What subject(s) are you
interested in?
- What interests you most about
a particular subject?
- Is there anything you wonder
about or are puzzled about with regard to that subject?
- Be sure your topic is narrow
enough so that you can write about it in detail in the number of pages
that you are allowed. For example, say you are asked to write a 1-page
essay about someone in your family. Since you only have a limited number
of pages, you may want to focus on one particular characteristic of that
person, or one particular incident from that person's life, rather than
trying to write about that person's entire life. Having a narrow focus
will help you write a more interesting paper.
Too general: My
sister.
Revised: My
sister is my best friend.
Similarly, you may be asked to write a 5-page paper about
volcanoes. Again, since you only have a limited number of pages, you may choose
to focus on one particular volcano or one particular eruption, rather than
trying to talk about volcanoes in general.
Too general: Volcanoes
of the world.
Revised: The
eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991.
- One method for narrowing down
your topic is called brainstorming. Brainstorming is a useful way to let ideas you didn't
know you had come to the surface.
- Sit down with a pencil and
paper, or at your computer, and write whatever comes into your head about
your topic, no matter how confused or disorganized.
- Keep writing for a short but
specific amount of time, say 3–5 minutes. Don't stop to change what
you've written or to correct spelling or grammar errors.
- After a few minutes, read
through what you have written. You will probably throw out most of it,
but some of what you've written may give you an idea you can develop.
- Do some more brainstorming and
see what else you can come up with.
- Develop an outline to organize
your ideas. An outline shows your main ideas and the order in which you
are going to write about them.
- Write down all the main ideas.
- List the subordinate ideas
below the main ideas.
- Avoid any repetition of ideas.
- Every essay or paper is made up
of three parts:
- Introduction
- Body
- Conclusion
- The introduction is the first
paragraph of the paper. It often begins with a general statement about the
topic and ends with a more specific statement of the main idea of your
paper. The purpose of the introduction is to
- let the reader know what the
topic is
- inform the reader about your
point of view
- arouse the reader's curiosity
so that he or she will want to read about your topic
- The body of the paper follows
the introduction. It consists of a number of paragraphs in which you
develop your ideas in detail.
- Limit each paragraph to one
main idea. (Don't try to talk about more than one idea per paragraph.)
- Prove your points continually
by using specific examples and quotations.
- Use transition words to ensure a smooth flow of ideas from paragraph to
paragraph.
- The conclusion is the last
paragraph of the paper. Its purpose is to
- summarize your main points,
leaving out specific examples
- restate the main idea of the
paper
- Try to set aside your draft for
a day or two before revising. This makes it easier to view your work
objectively and see any gaps or problems.
- Revising involves rethinking
your ideas, refining your arguments, reorganizing paragraphs, and
rewording sentences. You may need to develop your ideas in more detail,
give more evidence to support your claims, or delete material that is
unnecessary.
- Read your paper out loud. This
sometimes makes it easier to identify writing that is awkward or unclear.
- Have somebody else read the
paper and tell you if there's anything that's unclear or confusing.
- Look for careless errors such
as misspelled words and incorrect punctuation and capitalization.
- Errors are harder to spot on a
computer screen than on paper. If you type your paper on a computer, print
out a copy to proofread. Remember, spell checkers and grammar checkers
don't always catch errors, so it is best not to rely on them too much.
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