When I was in my first year of university, I wrote two essays. In the first semester of my second year, I wrote nine essays. I'm a science student, so this took me off guard. Most of my first year was spent on exams and assignments, so this was a new experience. I had to learn quickly to be able to not only write them in time but also make them good. Thankfully, professors and friends have given me some great tips that have made essay writing more accessible and better. Hopefully, you can use these to help you with your next assignment!
1) OWE – Outline, Write, Edit
Writing is a process made up of three steps: outline, writing, and editing. The outline phase is planning and structuring your argument. You are essentially making the skeleton of your essay, which you can refer to during the writing stage. This is an excellent time to play around with order, create a solid thesis, and find evidence to support your points. Once you have a solid outline, write! This is the shortest stage. The last phase (editing) should take up most of the time. Editing is the stage where an essay can be polished and fixed. I'll outline more editing tips next! To give an example of how much time should be spent editing, if I had six hours to write an essay, I would probably spend 1-hour planning, 1-hour writing, and 4 hours editing.
2) Write down everything you can think of, even if it is not perfect
One of the easiest mistakes to make when writing an essay is thinking of the perfect sentence every time you try to write. Instead, try writing everything that comes into your head. And I mean everything. Even if the sentence is saying almost the same thing as the previous one, now you have two sentence options to choose from when editing. This is one of the best ways to get words down. Don't worry about having the perfect sentence, proper grammar, or even spelling! Just write. It is hard to get started, but it works great once you get into it! Once you have many words on the page, you can focus on cleaning it up.
3) Purdue Online Writing Lab is one of the best citation guides out there
This website is free, easy to use, and outlines the two citation styles I have used most often (APA and MLA). Accurate citations are critical; if they are done incorrectly, you can accidentally plagiarize, which is a serious issue in university. Citations may seem daunting at first, but the website will help you ensure they are all done correctly and avoid any trouble. Purdue also covers other important elements of APA and MLA, such as title pages, page numbers, titles, etc.
4) Editing should go from big to small
When editing your essay, you should start with the big picture. Does my essay make sense? Are the arguments ordered in a logical way? Do all the points connect to the thesis? These are big changes, and if they need to be done, they should be done sooner rather than later. Once this is done, you can move to paragraph-level editing. This is similar to the 'big picture' editing phase; in this stage, you will check to make sure your paragraph works. Check to see if you have a good topic sentence (a paragraph-level thesis), that your argument supports your thesis, and that your evidence is solid. You can also check to make sure you stay on topic throughout the paragraph; remove any extra information that isn't relevant to your topic. Once this is done, you can move on to sentence-level editing. Things such as sentence structure, paraphrasing, grammar, etc., should all be corrected during the stage. In going from big to small, you can fix the big issues first before you spend all that time making sure the whole essay is grammatically perfect. Before you hand in your essay, give it one final proofread to make sure you didn't miss any small mistakes, such as capitalization or typos.
5) Get a friend to read it
*Just a quick note: make sure you are clear on your school's plagiarism rules concerning this. A friend should not be writing or editing your essay, but they can offer constructive criticism.
Having a friend, especially someone who isn't in the class/doesn't know about the topic, can help you make a better paper. This is especially helpful for finding gaps in your argument. If your friend does not understand your argument or is confused at any point, you can then fix those areas to make your paper solid. Sometimes they can also point out a missed capitalization too!
Essays can be daunting. They are often quite a bit of work and require some concentration and brainpower. However, it doesn't have to be done in one step. Try breaking it up into the outline/write/edit phases, which will make the workload a bit more manageable! There are a bunch more great tips out there, and make sure to reach out to your professors and teachers if you have any questions.
