Writing a good essay can be a daunting task, especially if you do not have much experience with academic writing. It takes a lot of research, careful planning, and knowledge. However, it’s something that’s easily learnable once you decide to put some effort into it.
Here we’ll tell you how to know whether your essay is good or not by providing you with our favorite essay writing tips.
So, without any further ado, let’s get right to the bottom of it.
1. You understand the topic more clearly after writing your essay
If you’re unable to understand your own essay down to the tiniest details, it’s probably not written well enough. The point of writing essays, both in high school and college, is not just to impress your teachers and professors – it’s a learning experience above all else. It doesn’t matter if your paper fulfills all of the academic standards and technicalities, if you’ve missed the entire point of the essay in question, it’s probably not written very well in the first place.
When writing essays, your best friend will always be researching. Find the relevant literature, read a couple of articles on the topic, and don’t start writing until you’re certain you understand the subject well enough. This won’t only help you write high-quality essays, but it allow you to pass your exams with ease later on.
All in all, if you feel like you haven’t learned anything new while writing your essay, it’s probably not well written at all. You need to be able to defend your opinion on the matter properly – your argumentation must make logical sense to you before you decide to submit your work.
2. Your essay has a proper structure
All essays need to have at least three different „parts“ to be considered well-written: the introduction, analysis, and the conclusion. In the introductory part, your essay should explain the topic in broad terms – what are the exact issues you’ll be exploring?
What should the reader expect to read in your work? What is the hypothesis you’ll be proving/disproving at the end of your paper? Answers to questions like this have their place in the introduction of your work.
The main part of your entire essay, however, is the analysis. It will take up around 60-70% of the entire paper, and it’s the place where you’ll lay out your arguments and try to prove or disprove the hypothesis you’ve set in the introduction.
Lastly, as the name suggests, in your conclusion, you’ll talk about the results of your research. Having this type of structure is incredibly important, as it makes the entire essay feel more complete.
3. Your language is kept formal
You should never use informal language for academic work. Even if this seems like a no-brainer, you’d be surprised at how many people make these mistakes every day. Proofread your work more than a couple of times to ensure everything is written in accordance with the relevant academic standards.
As we’ve mentioned before, technical details are less important than the contents of your work, but that doesn’t make them irrelevant. In fact, poor use of language could make an otherwise excellent essay feel incomplete and difficult to understand.
If you’re not sure how to „switch“ to a more formal way of writing, we advise you to read a couple of academic articles before starting to write your essay. Additionally, you could always seek assistance from experts such as those at Homework Help Global.
4. Quoting and references are key
Plagiarism is a serious offense in the academic world. Remember to quote every reference you make in your essay and don’t forget to include the bibliography at the end of the paper. It’s something that won’t take you much effort to do, but it’s essential to getting a good grade. This especially goes for college students, where these rules are imposed much more strictly.
We won’t bore you with the details – there are many ways you can do this correctly. In fact, the only wrong way of doing it is not putting references where they are due at all.
As we’ve already mentioned, doing your research and exploring other authors’ ideas is a core part of writing an essay. As long as you give credit to the authors of the original arguments presented in your work, you’ll be able to avoid plagiarism issues completely.
5. Your essay is easily understandable, even for people who’re not very knowledgeable about the topic in question
Clarity and simplicity are extremely important to writing a good essay. If you leave even one confusing paragraph, it could seriously harm the quality of the entire paper. That’s why we recommend proofreading and rewriting parts of your essay at least a couple of times before you’ve submitted it to your professor.
A good idea is to let someone else (your colleague or a friend) read it to give you some useful insights on what needs to be changed. Even though it might seem like too much work for a single essay, once you get that grade, it will all be paid off.
6. You feel confident in its quality
We’re all our biggest critics, so if you feel like your essay is well-written, then it probably is! Even if you end up feeling disappointed after you get it graded, make sure to make it a learning experience. The more you write, the better your essays will be – it’s as simple as that. Practice makes perfect, so keep on writing until you’ve got the gist of it!
The conclusion
All in all, writing the perfect essay is never easy. You’ll need to practice your writing skills for a long time until academic writing becomes easy for you. Nonetheless, there are ways you can improve quickly, and that’s what we wanted to tell you throughout this article.
Either way, we hope that, with our short tips, you ace all of your upcoming exams, projects, and essays as seamlessly as it is possible. Good luck!
