Writing essays can be overwhelming, especially in college! Gone are the days of simple five-paragraph essays and one-page papers. Essays assigned to you in college tend to be longer and on topics that require extensive research. If you happen to get away with a one-page response, chances are that you have to include concise yet accurate information to support your topic. This sounds hard! That’s because it can be complicated. Don’t worry because I’m here to help. Here are 8 tips for writing essays in college that will make your semester bearable!
The first tip to writing a college essay I can offer you is to plan ahead. When your professor assigns you an essay, take note of the due date. Ask yourself how much time you have to write the paper and how much time you can devote to it each day. A good idea is to break down the paper into steps and split those steps into days. For instance, you can decide to do research for the essay on Monday and have an outline ready by Tuesday and so on and so forth. This will keep you from feeling overwhelmed and ensure that you meet your deadline.
The first thing to do with any essay is to pick a topic. Sometimes, topics are assigned to you which can make things easier, but that is not always the case. If you are given free reign of your topic, then be sure to pick a topic that will provide you with plenty of evidence from your secondary sources. Otherwise, you will be struggling to meet a page count.
Most college papers will ask you to make some sort of argument. This requires that you find evidence to support your position. Hit the library for the most reliable sources around, the books. Also, another essay writing tip would be to check online sources such as JSTOR or the online library database. Organize your research on flashcards and by categorizing them between primary sources (interviews, original documents, etc.) and secondary sources (books, reviews, etc.). Be sure to highlight and flag pages on books that contain quotes you want to use. Keeping track of your research and notes will make writing the actual essay easier.
Another tip for making writing a college essay easier is to create an outline. This will help you further organize your research and bring you a step closer to drafting the perfect college essay. Look at your research and try to group similar ideas together in clusters. From those groups, pick the most important ideas. These will become the main ideas of your paper. From there, weed out all of the notes that act as supporting details for those ideas. Then check your outline to see if there are notes you can toss out due to repetitiveness and so on. An outline takes many forms from a traditional format, to a web, to a flow chart. Pick the one that works most effectively for your paper and organize away!
Now that you have an outline, you can start to form a thesis. The thesis is the main idea of your entire paper. If someone were to read your thesis, they would be able to deduce your position on your topic. When formulating a thesis, ask yourself these questions: “Do I answer the question?” “Have I taken a position on my topic?” “Is my thesis specific enough?” Answering these questions will help ensure that your thesis is strong, focused, and clear. This is probably one of the best tips for writing and essay that I can give you!
The next step for writing your essay is to actually write your essay! With organized research and a strong outline, writing a draft of your paper should be a piece of cake. Don’t worry about being too perfect with grammar in this first draft. What is important here is that you solidify your ideas and apply the basic structure of your paper. Make sure to include all the ideas, explanation, quotes, and examples you want. They don’t have to be perfectly written, but make sure that you at least have all the details of what you want to say in some form on the paper.
Now that you have a decent draft of your paper written, it is time to edit the paper to perfection. You would be surprised how many students skip this step. Because of the high volume of classes that most college students take, time is of the essence. This results in most students pulling together a half decent paper instead of taking the time to craft a thoroughly researched A paper. If you follow these tips for writing essays, your essay should get an A! Make sure you check for grammar and spelling errors. Read your paper out loud a few times to make sure it flows! Once you are happy with the results, it is time for the final step! This is one of the best tips for writing essays!
You are done! You have followed all the tips for writing a college essay and now you are able to breathe. There is nothing more satisfying than turning in your essay. The hard work is done and chances are if you followed these steps you have written a pretty good essay. Be proud of yourself and go celebrate with a nap!
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