How to Write a Good Academic Essay
The majority of universities, high schools, and colleges require academic essays from their students at different stages of education. It’s the most effective way of assessing knowledge on a particular topic and showcasing abilities to analyze & collect data.
However, most modern students find writing an academic essay a complicated task. To change this situation, we are about to present you with the most reliable tips on how to ace your academic essay and surprise the professor with your work.
10 essential tips for brilliant academic essay
-
Detailed plan
It all starts with a well-developed plan for your future academic essay. There’s a misconception that writing takes a significant amount of time when it’s all about planning. With an aforethought plan, it is possible to cope with the writing process in less than half an hour.
A detailed plan with all the primary points you want to bring up is the key to creating a unique and gripping essay. Thus, don’t neglect that important part of the preparation to get the best mark possible.
-
Conduct a mini-research
Once you determine your plan, it’s time to begin your research if it’s needed. If you’re writing an essay expressing your feelings about a certain topic, there is no need for research.
On the contrary, other types of essays, especially academic ones, require finding some related to the topic information using authoritative sources to bolster your argument or present accurate data.
-
Come up with a schedule
Writing an academic essay is a time-consuming and exhaustive process. That’s why it’s crucial to allocate your work time wisely. Dividing the creation of the work into several parts over a couple of days is an excellent solution since it will prevent you from getting tired while maximizing the quality of the written content.
Various studies have shown that writing for around 4 hours a day or approximately a thousand words will lead to the best results in terms of productiveness and quality of the essay.
To sum up, create a schedule, taking into account the deadline, and get to work without any
rushing.
-
Put a pet to paper
While it sounds like the most obvious thing in the world, many people struggle with taking the first step.
Frequently, students focus too much on researching and pre-planning their essay, which is a doubtlessly important part of creating the academic essay, even though eventually putting pen to paper and fighting a Blank Page Syndrome can be even more intimidating.
-
Begin with your introduction
The introduction consists of the thesis statement as well as the context in which you have approached its examination. It determines the way your essay is going to be organized. Without a good intro, your reader won’t be attached to the reading, unable to get your essay’s point.
Start with some uncomplicated basic stuff just to get the work started. You will gradually reach the flow of structured and clear thoughts, moving from your head straight to the clean sheet of paper.
-
Move on to the body
It’s time to present your arguments and ideas in an academic essay. An introduction at the beginning of each paragraph will help the reader to get a clue about the topic.
Depending on the size of the essay, you need to bring up from 1 to 4 various points that support your thesis statement. You should also use the evidence from the previously conducted research by mentioning quotations, facts, statistics, other people’s thoughts, etc.
And don’t forget to analyze the presented data to demonstrate the whole point of your writing. Most teachers consider analysis to be a vital part of any research paper. Thus, make sure to present to be confident and creative with your thoughts.
-
Finish it up with the conclusion
The conclusion in your essay has to sum up everything that has been stated so far in your piece of writing.
Give the reader a quick recap of the content by restating an introduction thesis and summarizing your core ideas.
You may use some general phrases like:
- “In summary, this paper argued that…”
- “Overall, our results demonstrate a strong effect of…”
- “Collectively, our results appear consistent with…”
-
Dedicate energy to proofreading & editing
When you are done with your essay, don’t try to submit it immediately. Take a day off from work and get back to the ready text with a fresh mind.
Now, it wouldn’t hurt to reread the whole essay once more and get to the editing, if it’s necessary. While proofreading is quite a boring process, that will allow you to avoid spelling, syntax, grammar, punctuation mistakes and be fully satisfied with your work.
-
Set up a bibliography
To avoid plagiarism, you have to include a bibliography in your academic essay. You can do that by mentioning it in a sentence that introduces your citation, or presenting the bibliography in the form of a list after your text.
A bibliography should include:
- the authors’ names
- the titles of the works
- the page numbers of the sources
A quick tip: while writing, footnote the sources for yourself to find it quickly in the future and ease up the process of putting the bibliography together.
-
It’s high time to submit the essay
That’s pretty much it. You’re ready to submit the final piece of work to the professor and get him stunned with the written content. You may also read it over for the last time and be happy with what you’ve got because over-editing is a real thing and can ruin an excellent essay.
Conclusion
It goes without saying that an academic essay isn’t the easiest task, but it’s not the end of the world. By simply following the article tips, you will easily manage to write a unique piece of writing.
Thus, stop doubting yourself and get to work now!
