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Learning some essay writing tips is the best strategy students could use for succeeding in their academic assignments. There are people who see writing as a pleasure: even when it comes to their college tasks, they are eager to demonstrate their skills and show how well they understand the topic. But unfortunately, these instances are an exception: most students hate the idea of spending hours on research and writing. Some of them also do not know any tips for a good essay.
So, when faced with yet another assignment, they can only stare at the blank Word page gloomily, lacking any creative thoughts along with inspiration. If you fall into this group, do not get discouraged early on. We’re going to offer the best seven tips that might change your view on writing. Read them, consider them, and your essay is bound to get more pleasant!
What Are Essays Tips and Why Are They Needed?
If the thought of sitting down and writing makes you feel depressed and hellishly bored, there is no efficient resolution, but still, everything isn’t lost. Consider this: if process of doing research and crafting an essay horrifies you, doing it quickly could be a relief. And for gaining speed together with ability to work effectively, person has to understand what is required of them and how to accomplish it. That’s exactly what essay writing strategies are about.
There are hundreds of various tips people could use for speeding up their assignments. Some of them work for one group but not for another while several can be seen as helpful in general. We distinguished 7 biggest strategies that we believe to be most effective. Take a look at them, think about their strong and weak sides, and try applying them when working on the next essay. Maybe not all of them will be suitable in your case, but at least some are guaranteed to make your life as student easier!
Tip #1: Avoid Procrastination When Writing Essays
This is one of the most important tips for every person writing a paper, though most students choose to ignore it. It’s understandable: when faced with an unpleasant assignment, no one is in a rush to start working. But procrastinations are dangerous — they are possibly the worst thing that could happen to productivity. Focus on a task and you’ll be done with it sooner, otherwise, laziness will continue growing. Don’t postpone it until other days, hoping to feel more inspired, because it may not happen. Writing a good essay is process that should take precedence over other matters, and there are several great rules that could help with focusing.
First of all, understand the relevance of a new assignment. What is it supposed to accomplish? Why did your professor think that it is a good idea to add it into your curriculum? Sure, sometimes the answer might be unclear, but in the majority of cases, there is no reason. Perhaps this task could stimulate critical thinking skills or reveal some crucial info about a specific topic. The second strategy is promising yourself an alluring reward at the end of writing. It could be a visit to cinema, a delicious meal, or even re-watch your favorite show. Decide on it, and your productivity will rapidly increase!
Tip #2: Prepare Workplace and Limits Distractions
Among tips on writing an essay, this one has a more technical nature. Where do you work on college assignments? For example, many students do it at the table, and not surprisingly, this table is usually cluttered with all possible stuff, from textbooks to a laptop, cell phone, CD discs, photos, and toys. If this fits the description of your table, then do some thorough cleaning before beginning your essay. Remove everything not related to research and typing from the surface. When a person is doing boring task, they manage to find distractions everywhere, even if it entails simply staring at photo they’ve already seen thousand times.
Another good point one should consider as they write essay concerns the Internet. It is endlessly distracting, with your friends tweeting the news every several minutes, people you follow reblogging exciting posts on Tumblr, and Facebook sending constant new notifications. So, it’s preferable to conduct research, gather all ideas you’ll be using, open useful documents like academic articles, and then turn the connection off. This could save you from the obsessive need to Google things that have nothing to do with your essay. Wherever you study, including if it is from your bed, this advice will be useful. Internet could be a great helper, but it’s also the biggest evil in students’ lives.
Tip #3: Ask for Help When Facing a Dead-End
One of the tips to writing a good essay includes seeking assistance in case you arrived at a dead-end. Who says that you should do everything on your own? Not everyone is a professional writer, so finding help makes sense since you could benefit from it. Here are four main sources you could contact.
- Friends. Whether this is your best friend or classmate, consulting with them could be extremely helpful. They could have already covered this task, being ready to share some ideas and insights. Maybe they enjoy writing, so they could offer a more practical kind of assistance. Classmates are in the same boat as you are, so they’ll be conducting similar research. Combine your efforts, discuss difficulties that keep occurring, or simply complain to each other — this could stimulate new ideas as well as relieve your state of mind.
- Professor. Who could offer more solid help than person who gives tasks to their students? Yes, it might seem intimidating at first, but don’t worry: almost every professor loves it when students show initiative and prove that they care about assignment. Clarify some confusing moments in instructions, discuss where you could find credible sources and how many of them should be present, or ask them for an essay tip. Professors know more about academic writing than anyone, so they could give a great piece of advice.
- Essay writing services. When the situation is too complicated, there are some personal problems, or feel no motivation to write, think about professional writing help. Agencies that specialize in academic writing could produce an excellent paper for their clients, meeting their requirements and finishing work just by a right deadline. Sure, there are some drawbacks: such services require payments and are not always effective, but if you know where to look, all these problems will be nullified. Certain agencies set better rates than others, and if you read online reviews, you would be able to find trustworthy options. This is the best solution for instances where student cannot work for some reason.
- Internet. There are millions of people who had the exact same problem as you. Many of them sought online assistance among like-minded students or experts that volunteer to help those who need it. Check out English forums, sort through relevant topics, or post an ask of your own. It is free, quick, and often effective.
Tip #4: Go For Originality, Not Plagiarism
Whatever you do, do not engage in plagiarism. Perhaps your ideas won’t be strong or compelling, especially if you’re writing an essay for the first time. That’s all right, no one expects you to be star expert at it. Look at sample essays writing if you need practical advice. Check how introduction and conclusion should be made, what body should consist of, or how to use evidence. Get some inspiration, but avoid copying anything directly. If students decide to incorporate a line or two from another source, they must cite it correctly.
On the one hand, there are direct quotes: implant them right within an essay, not changing anything, not a word. On the other hand, quotes could be indirect: in this instance, paraphrase them, keeping their meaning but expressing it in other words. Among the best tips to write a good essay, there is knowledge of essay formatting: you should know its rules, whether it is MLA, Chicago, APA, or other styles. If you do, you won’t make ignorant mistakes, and your paper will be original. Invest as many thoughts into it as you have, just be sure to support them with sources occasionally and format them in accordance with rules.
Tip #5: Let Go and Be Creative
Many people tend to think that creativity has place only in fictional works. Academic works are so dry and boring, how could they possibly benefit from it? But creativity is still among the top 7 tips on writing an essay. Trigger it by selecting a good essay topic. If you are given a choice in this regard, choose something that you actually like. When research is interesting, you won’t notice how quickly the time flies. But it isn’t always the option: in lots of cases, students receive theme from a professor, and they have no choice but to explore it.
If this happened, start brainstorming — it is also a part of the best essay writing techniques. Google interesting facts about this topic, and maybe you’ll stumble upon something compelling. Focus your creativity on it. Find an angle that you find genuinely engaging, pick a position you’d want to defend or argue against in real life, and start writing. Your imagination is rich, so dig some hidden gems and transform the writing process!
Tip #6: Take Another Look At Instructions
Every student is always sure that they understood requirements correctly, so they disregard tips for writing an essay that concern double-checking them. In reality, about 30% of all papers get failing grade just because a person misunderstood what was required from them. This is an unfortunate and frustrating situation but you could avoid it only by paying extra attention to guidelines assigned to you. Read them thoroughly for at least several times. Did you understand every sentence correctly? Your view of the assignment has to be perfect if you want to succeed in it.
More essay tips include checking back with your classmates. Do they all share your understanding of instructions? For example, if you decided that you should write an argumentative paper, it is better to ask other students about it. If some say you must be writing an informative essay, then maybe a misunderstanding occurred and you need to clarify it ASAP.
Tip #7: Leave Time For the Final Polishing Round
From all writing essay tips, this one is connected with the first advice about the danger of procrastination. The sooner you complete a paper, the more time there will be for polishing. Whether you hated your assignment or not, you would want to get a great mark for it, and this could be done by organizing the highest level of editing as well as proofreading. Read everything you wrote again, preferably after some time has passed. Even a few hours would be good, but several days would be far better.
Tips for essay writing always include attention to grammar, and students should ensure it by examining each sentence they created. If they read an entire paper aloud, it could swiftly help to eliminate errors they made. Most feel reluctant to apply this strategy because they are happy to be done with their work and hope to never see it again. This is a wrong approach: everyone makes mistakes, and best writers aren’t immune to it either. You could score lots of points for good grammar, so be attentive and proofread everything.
Follow Tips for Writing Essays
English is a great language, but even if you are a wonderful speaker, you might not be good at writing. Essays are time-consuming, that’s true, and they require many efforts. It could be a chore to research a topic, create an outline for it, and produce a paper. Your only option is shortening the amount of work by making it more interesting or being done with it sooner. If this is an available option, choose a theme you are truly interested in — this could improve your experience. If not, avoid distractions: do your job quickly and efficiently. This way, you won’t need to waste even more hours on revisions later on. Follow the essay writing strategies we outlined, seek out more of them if you need them, and you’ll see that even the biggest volume of work is not as scary as it seemed! In case you still feel intimidated, ask for assistance with particularly tough tasks and enjoy your freed time.