How to Write Better Essays: 5 Practical Tips

How to Write Better Essays: 5 Practical Tips

To the majority of students out there, learning how to write an excellent essay can be an annoying experience. Of course, there are some strict rules and practices we can all learn and implement. In each new essay, but that is not how we bring our essays to the next level.

Instead of writing mediocre essays through the college years and applying the same formula. Some of us really want to improve our skills and simply write consistently good essays. This challenging and exasperating process in which one has to put on a few pages what others would put in a whole book. It is indeed an exceptional ambition that needs to be continuously developed and improved.

Luckily for you, there are nowadays numerous ways in which students can improve their essay writing skills; from free online student essays, online essays tutors to even whole books, courses, and programs devoted to essay writing and its challenges. However, sometimes it is not enough to just get help; a student simply needs practice and a deeper understanding of what it means to write an essay. Therefore, we’ve come up with five practical tips you can use to start writing good essays right away and keep getting better at writing in the future.

So here are the ideas and tips about “How to Write Better Essays and 5 Practical Tips”:

Basic Essay Writing Steps

Before we jump into the super practical tips, it is essential to take a look at the basic essay writing steps. That are simply too important to be neglected.

• Research and analysis; the topic you’re to write about needs to be researched an analyzed prior to writing. You need to utilize all the s of information, from the Internet, the academic database to the library. Once you have a good knowledge base, you can start analyzing the arguments. and clearly define claims, reasons, and evidence.
• Brainstorming; for your essay to be genuine, it is essential to brainstorm ideas and concepts you can use. To make brainstorming easier, make sure to go for a walk. Write down everything you think of, connect the dots and try applying every idea to your essay; if it fits, use it.
•   The main question; there always needs to be a min question that you’re going to write your essay around. That is the main point of your essay, so it needs to be a concise sentence that sums up everything you’re going to write about. Excellent composition is impossible without a clear and direct main question.

•   Outline; before writing the essay, it is important to sketch out how it’s going to look like; you can use one-line sentences to describe paragraphs, and bullet points to describe the content of those paragraphs. You can also adjust the order of your essay. And look into the segments that you find the easiest to solve. Also gradually progress into the main idea and overall argumentation and conclusion.
• Actual writing and structure; this is the part when you start writing your essay. Make sure to start with an introduction that will grab the reader’s attention right away. Move on to an even more exciting buildup and explanation of the main question. And conclude your essay with a memorable wrap-up paragraph or even a sentence.
•  Style and Language; it is always important to format your essay in line with the correct guidelines for citation. Moreover, you need to correct all the grammatical mistakes and make the sentences have a flow, rhythm, emphasis, formality, tone and other intuitive adjustments. You don’t want the quality of your essay to decrease because of a typo or misspelling.

Practical Essay Writing Tips

In addition to the basic essay writing rules, to write better essays, you can always follow our practical tips. These tips can be seen as technical, creative and innovative, so make sure to choose those that will improve your essay writing the best. During your college education, you will come across many difficulties when it comes to essays and papers, but if you start implementing these suggestions and recommendations as quickly as possible, you will soon be turning in amazing and continuously impressive essayist. So, let’s begin:

1. Expand the Vocabulary

According to Oxford-Royale, by expanding your vocabulary, you’ll be able to express precisely what you mean, as clearly and as concisely as possible. All good essays share a common characteristic, which is in-depth, yet straight to the point explanations that are not going on forever and wasting the time of both, the readers and the writer; something that can be achieved only with exceptional vocabulary and outstanding sense of effective communication of thoughts and ideas.

So, in order to write better essays, make sure to start with expanding your vocabulary. A good essay-writer is never really satisfied with the words, expressions, and phrases at their current disposal, so one’s vocabulary should be one of the main preoccupations of a good writer. Not to mention that by deploying a good vocabulary you will display your intelligence and wittiness; moreover, it will allow you to be more persuasive, direct and efficient in projecting your ideas to the reader. Here are some tips on how you can improve your vocabulary starting today;

•    Consult a dictionary on a daily basis; always check synonyms and antonyms for the most common words you use, and try to look for different ways to express or describe common events, or the uncommon ones as well.
• Read; reading is one of the best ways to expand your vocabulary; make sure to read different genres, ranging from fiction to non-fiction, as well as varying in topics. This will develop not only your vocabulary, but also your general knowledge.
• Consult a thesaurus; by using a thesaurus, you can be sure to add some variety to your language; make sure to look into the context and contextual meaning of the new words, because, some of them might not always be appropriate and suitable in the specific context.

2. Think about Your Reader

With any type of writing, from creative to academic writing, it is essential to consider the people who are going to read your text. The same applies to essays or papers because the reader is the one deciding whether the essay is actually good, of any value, or not.

The way the reader understands the essay is the way the essay will be perceived. It is important to know and understand who you’re writing for, so even prior to writing the actual essay, spend some time thinking of those who are going to judge your written words. However, this isn’t supposed to scare you off into bad essay writing; it is just supposed to be a guideline into the fact that your essay needs to be exciting and attention-grabbing. So, in regards to the reader, here’s how you could write the essay;

• Since teacher or university lecturers will be marking your essays, make sure to focus on answering the main question effectively.
• Because the lecturers have set the main question, they have a basic idea what the ‘answer’ should be like, so make sure to be original and surprise them with an unusual approach.
• Because the lecturers will be reading other essays as well, make sure to keep them interested
• Make sure to keep your essay easy to read and to the point, because, time is everything for the lecturer who won’t be able to reread poorly written paragraphs and essays.

3. Read other people’s essays

In creative writing, reading other author’s books will help you mold your own writing style. The same applies to academic writing, essays, and papers. In order to write better essays, you need to start reading essays that are better. Make sure to read a range of essays on different topics and subjects, or essays of your peers, or those who are older. By looking into different disciplines and perspectives, you can be sure to quickly develop new ideas and techniques which you can apply to your own arguments and essay writing style.

An important notion when it comes to reading other people’s essays is the idea of surface value; this shouldn’t be the case if you want to understand someone’s ideas, concept and writing style fully. Make sure to analyze people’s essays thoroughly; look into their persuasiveness, balanced arguments, point explanations, and writing techniques. Also, be critical of other people’s essays as well, as this will help you understand the way your professors or lecturers will criticize your essays.

4. Use advanced language and syntax

In order to make your essays better and more unique, make use of a good vocabulary to employ advanced sentence structures that are linguistically original. This may sound complicated, but all it takes is practice, and of course, excellent vocabulary.  

In line with the practical tip no1, you should know so far that conversational and informal English have nothing to do in your essays. Make sure to voice and communicate your ideas in advanced. Formal English is in line with the educational value of your essays. The reader of your essays needs to feel like you’re confident in your ideas, opinions, and expressions in the essays, and the only way to achieve that is through complex, advanced, vocabulary-rich content.

This doesn’t mean that your essay should seem as if you’ve picked up random, complex-sounding words from a thesaurus. There needs to be grammatically correct structure and advanced knowledge of English syntax. A clever delivery of under-used words and phrases will leave the right impression. So make sure to take an in-depth look into those grammar books and dictionaries of yours.

5. The Elevator Pitch

According to Heroic Hollywood, the Elevator Pitch is a technique used by salespeople to summarize sales pitches into short, compelling arguments. These arguments usually cover all important notions, ideas, and points without using any unnecessary words. A salesperson is to imagine themselves in an elevator, with a perspective customer whom they’re supposed to sway before reaching their destination.

In line with the same logic, an elevator pitch summary needs to highlight the most critical arguments briefly, that should translate into essay writing in terms of keeping the reader interested in the entire essay. So, to make things more understandable, your essay’s summary needs to be very concise, which you can also use as an intro or a guide to help you stick to the main points during the actual essay writing.