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How To WRITE An Essay

The document provides guidance on how to write an essay in 7 steps: 1) decide on the type of essay, 2) brainstorm topics, 3) research the topic, 4) develop a thesis statement, 5) outline the essay, 6) write the essay, and 7) edit the essay. It describes the main types of essays as narrative, descriptive, persuasive, comparative, and expository. The document emphasizes planning and outlining as important steps to write successful, clear essays. Research, a strong thesis statement, and editing are also highlighted as key elements of the writing process.

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Cristian Asmaza
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150 views3 pages

How To WRITE An Essay

The document provides guidance on how to write an essay in 7 steps: 1) decide on the type of essay, 2) brainstorm topics, 3) research the topic, 4) develop a thesis statement, 5) outline the essay, 6) write the essay, and 7) edit the essay. It describes the main types of essays as narrative, descriptive, persuasive, comparative, and expository. The document emphasizes planning and outlining as important steps to write successful, clear essays. Research, a strong thesis statement, and editing are also highlighted as key elements of the writing process.

Uploaded by

Cristian Asmaza
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to Write an Essay

7th grade8th grade9th gradeMiddle SchoolHigh SchoolCollege


Essays are common in elementary, middle, high school and college, and you may even need
to write essays in the business world (although they are usually called "reports" at that
point). An essay is defined as "a short piece of writing that expresses information as well as
the writer's opinion."

Writing
For some, writing an essay is as simple as sitting down at their computer and beginning to
type, but a lot more planning goes into writing an essay successfully. If you have never
written an essay before, or if you struggle with writing and want to improve your skills, it is
a good idea to go through several steps in the essay writing process.
For example, to write an essay, you should generally:
 Decide what kind of essay to write.
 Brainstorm your topic.
 Do research.
 Develop a thesis.
 Outline your essay.
 Write your essay.
 Edit your writing to check spelling and grammar.
While this sounds like a lot of steps to write a simple essay, if you follow them you will be
able to write more successful, clear and cohesive essays.

Kinds of Essays
The first step to writing an essay is to decide what kind of essay to write. There are several
main structures into which essays can be grouped:
 Narrative Essays: Tell a story or impart information about your subject in a
straightforward, orderly manner.
 Descriptive Essays: Focus on the details of what is going on. For example, if you want
to write a descriptive essay about your trip to the park, you would give great detail
about what you experienced: how the grass felt beneath your feet, what the park
benches looked like, and anything else the reader would need to feel as if he were
there.
 Persuasive Essay: Convince the reader of some point of view.
 Comparative Essay: Compare two or more different things.
 Expository Essay: Explain to the reader how to do a given process. You could, for
example, write an expository essay with step-by-step instructions on how to make a
peanut butter sandwich.
Knowing what kind of essay you are trying to write can help you decide on a topic and
structure your essay in the best way possible.

Brainstorming
You cannot write an essay unless you have an idea of what to write about. Brainstorming is
the process in which you come up with the essay topic. You need to simply sit and think of
ideas during this phase.
 Write down everything that comes to mind as you can always narrow those topics
down later.
 You could also use clustering or mind mapping to brainstorm and come up with an
essay idea. This involves writing your topic or idea in the center of the paper and
creating bubbles (clouds or clusters) of related ideas around it. This can be a great way
to develop a topic more deeply and to recognize connections between various facets of
your topic.
Once you have a list of possible topics, it's time to choose the best one that will answer the
question posed for your essay. You want to choose a topic that is neither too broad nor too
narrow.
 If you are given an assignment to write a one page essay, it would be far too much to
write about "the history of the US" since that could fill entire books.
 Instead, you could write about a very specific event within the history of the United
States: perhaps signing the Declaration of Independence or when Columbus discovered
the U.S.
Choose the best topic from among them and begin moving forward on writing your essay.

Research
Once you have done your brainstorming and chosen your topic, you may need to do some
research to write a good essay. Go to the library or look on the Internet for information
about your topic. Interview people who might be experts in the subject. Keep your research
organized so it will be easy for you to refer back to, and easy for you to cite your sources
when writing your final essay.

Developing a Thesis
Your thesis is the main point of your essay. It is essentially one sentence that says what the
essay is about. For example, your thesis might be "Dogs are descended from wolves." You
can then use this as the basic premise to write your entire essay, and all of the different
points throughout need to lead back to this one main thesis. The thesis will usually be used
in your introductory paragraph.
The thesis should be broad enough that you have enough to say about it, but not so broad
that you can't be thorough.

Outlining Your Essay


The next step is to outline what you are going to write about. This means you want to
essentially draw the skeleton of your paper. Writing an outline can help to ensure your
paper is logical, well organized and flows properly.
Start by writing the thesis at the top and then write a topic sentence for each paragraph
below. This means you should know exactly what each of your paragraphs are going to be
about before you write them.
 Don't jumble too many ideas in each paragraph or the reader may become confused.
 You also want to ensure you have transitions between paragraphs so the reader
understands how the paper flows from one idea to the next.
Fill in facts from your research under each paragraph which you want to write about when
you write the essay. Make sure each paragraph ties back in to your thesis and creates a
cohesive, understandable essay.
Write and Edit
Once you have an outline, its time to start writing. Write from the outline itself, fleshing out
your basic skeleton to create a whole, cohesive and clear essay.
You will want to edit and re-read your essay, checking to make sure it sounds exactly the
way you want it to. You want to:
 Revise for clarity, consistency and structure.
 Make sure everything flows together.
 Support your thesis adequately with the information in your paragraphs.
 Make sure you have a strong introduction and conclusion so the reader comes away
knowing exactly what your paper was about.
 Revise for technical errors.
 Check for grammar problems, punctuation and spelling errors. You cannot always
count on spell check to recognize every spelling error as sometimes you can spell a
word incorrectly but your misspelling will also be a word, such as spelling from as
form.
A lot goes in to writing a successful essay; fortunately, these tips for writing essays can help
you along the way and get you on the path to a well-written essay.

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