11 ESSAY WRITING TIPS

1. Start as early as you can! Usually university professors give students a week or more to write an essay or term paper, so if you start early you will have enough time for writing, editing, proofreading, peer-reviews and masterpiece creation.

2. Read the instructions carefully and attentively. A student should analyze the language and the keywords of the assignment. She/he should pose questions such as: what' is the purpose of this essay? Why does the professor want us to write this type of essay or term paper? Who is the target audience? If a student is uncertain about the language, the essay and overall writing, she/he should seek help from those who can help, i.e. peers, professors, and friends.

3. Pre-write before you write. Create a rough draft. Writers can use many tools to come up with successful ideas for writing and they need to use them to develop a list of ideas to be used in the essay. Some of the tools are: brainstorming, free-writing, non-stop writing, perception games, clustering, discussion groups or talking to strangers. All these activities help students to develop more ideas to later put on paper.

4.Read before you write. Reading literature, texts, magazines and books provides you with additional ideas, quotes and thoughts you can integrate in your essay making it look more professional. Using quotes and ideas of other people sparingly shows your professor that you are a knowledgeable individual with broad horizons who has a diligent attitude in writing essays. Furthermore, quotes and opinions of others allow you to support your point and build stronger arguments.

5. Write your thesis statement and questions you will answer in your essay The thesis can change later on, yet without writing one first, it makes it hard to write an essay. Every essay or term paper deals with one or more topics, so the writer should stay consistent with that topic since the very beginning (i.e. thesis statement).

6.Outline Writing Before creating the first (rough) draft please assure that you prepare an essay outline that will meticulously recall everything you plan to present in the essay. The outline should show how different points of view presented in the essay relate to the thesis statement. The outline is not carved in stone, so after creating one it is totally acceptable to remake it during the latter phases of essay writing. If a certain point does not fit it is ok to change it to guarantee consistency of style.

7.Easy Writing RuleWhenever writing an essay or term paper, please start with the easiest part or paragraph. One needs to keep in mind that a rough draft is going to change later on, so to start the writing process, it is recommended to actually begin writing with the easiest parts.

8.Rough Draft Preparation The purpose of the rough draft is to be the backbone of a completed essay. Therefore, a student should pay much attention to the topic, thoughts and ideas and little to the grammar, sentences, and paragraphs. Students can work on the smooth flowing sentences, paragraph structure and other elements once the ideas and thoughts are clearly expressed in the rough draft. The introduction, for instance can be written only after the other parts of the essay or term paper are written.

9.Writing a conclusion. The conclusion of the essay is to tell the reader or the target audience what the essay was about.

10.Audience analysis. The rough draft is created only to improve the overall quality of your essay or term paper. Thus, it should be rewritten once or twice to improve the logical connection between the paragraphs and the flow of sentences. The audience or the reader is the ultimate receiver of the essay information. The essay or term paper should incorporate the audience’s background and assure that they understand the language, thoughts and any possible professional slang.

11.Final Touches. Once the Essay is written from the rough draft and proper revisions are made, it is necessary to re-read it one more time to polish the style, wording or layout. It is better to read it too many times and make too many changes to finally develop a written masterpiece, than to read it too little and create a paper of inferior quality.