Tuesday 31 December 2019

How to Structure and Write Amazing Essays


Essays are a regular standard for university and wrapping your head around what examiners are truly expecting out of you will ease the stress when you’re writing your essays. Even if you are someone who really enjoys writing, learning the theory behind writing a well-rounded essay is a critical skill to learn and put in practice. Here are a few tips and things to remember when essay season begins!

Prep Time

1. Spot the keywords

Before you even start writing or planning, it’s important to go through the assignment and examine it in detail. You need to know and really understand what the examiners want from you and what they will be expecting from the essay. A helpful tip is to analyse the content/assignment given to you and spot the major keywords. This will help you figure out how to format your essay and focus your writing.

When looking over your assignment, there are a few words to look out for to better understand the goal and expectations of the essay. With the word “explain”, you are expected to provide a heavily detailed description. Other words/phrases such as “justify”, “discuss” or “critically assess” all require you to engage in a debate or even a full discussion, with the expectation that you will challenge or provide a supportive argument with regards to the subject.

2. Spot the subject

Another important tip for creating the best writing you can, is to ensure that you are crystal clear on the subject you have been asked to write about. This is the main purpose of your essay in the first place, so if you forget about the original subject you will most likely loose a lot of marks from the overall piece of work.

When examining the given assignment, it is important to figure out what the intended focus is; is it a person, event, scene, key concept or a mixture? Once you have found this piece of information you need to ensure that everything you discuss in your essay links straight back to the above subject.

Planning

1. Word count

Planning before you actually start writing can save you a lot of time in the future from extra editing and cutting and can generally help to ensure your writing is well paced and makes sense. Start writing down some of your ideas, focusing on your intended key points and making sure you link the best possible evidence to go alongside and support your ideas.

2. Structure

It is important that your writing makes sense and is clear throughout and a big way to help with this is to gather all your ideas and research and begin to structure them into paragraphs prior to writing. This will help you visually see what the sections look like and whether they work. You will also be able to figure out whether you have paired the best evidence accordingly to your ideas, giving them as much power and accuracy as they can have.

Once you have put everything into sections, you can then start to assign each section with a word count. Try leaving 500 words for the intro and conclusion and decide how to best use the remainder of your word count. Do all sections need the same word count? Are there any that will require more in-depth writing?

3. Organisation

As you go along planning and organising your sections, focus on clearly illustrating the key points you want to make, always leading right back to the initial focus of the essay. Don’t just concentrate on the information that you have gathered, but rather making a point that best helps you answer the initial question.

Writing Time

1. Construction

As stated previously, the way you construct your essay will heavily affect the overall flow and how clear the points you make will be. It is also extremely important to begin each paragraph with a strong topic sentence. Start by creating a clear analytical point that showcases what you aim to explore in this paragraph. The rest of the paragraph is solely focused on backing up this point, trying to make it as convincing as possible.

Put in key evidence or counter evidence to support your ideas, but also make sure you explain your evidence and why it supports your stance. Once your writing is pretty much finished, read your essay out loud, paragraph by paragraph, preferably even to someone else. This is a crucial step, as it will help you hear if your grammar is correct, your paragraphs make sense and whether your writing flows naturally.

2. Introduction

The introduction of your essay is a very important part of your essay. Examiners do not like being surprised, so the introduction is where you are expected to sum up your argument in a short but strong way. This is where you will need to set your scene and answer the initial question immediately.

Tell your examiners exactly what you will be doing and writing about in this essay; you can give information as a preview to the content you will be providing, like key events, scenes or even theories. Use this introductory paragraph to showcase your aim clearly and in an interesting way, ensuring you stay away from waffling and keep it short and concise.

3. Conclusion

Similar to the introduction, the conclusion needs to be a strong and concise piece. This is your chance to once again state exactly what you wrote about, how you proved your key points and show how much you engaged with the essay topic you have written about. It’s also the last paragraph the examiners will see, so it’s vital that you can end with a bang that will leave a lasting impression.

Start your conclusion by repeating the key argument using 1-2 sentences, to remind the examiner what you have talked about so far. Just like the introduction, it’s important that you avoid waffling and keep this paragraph short and strong. In some subjects, something you could even try is finishing with a statement of change and providing a way forward or a possible solution. This can be a very powerful finale for some topics which it applies to.

4. Sources

To make it easy on yourself, try gathering potentially useful information as you go. When using your sources and information, always ensure you are giving the reason as to why it’s useful; does it come from an expert in the field who has conducted research, someone who has a wide knowledge and experience of your topic, or does it corroborate with the other source material you have provided? It is also important to find a diverse range of sources and information which all points right back to help prove the points you are making.


The more essays you write, the more confident you will feel. Even though they can be daunting at first, essays are a big part of university and once you have mastered the technique, you will have the ability to create phenomenal pieces of work to be proud of.

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