Tips For Writing Essays

Tips For Writing Essays Remember, spell checkers and grammar checkers don't always catch errors, so it is best not to rely on them too much. Use transition words to ensure a smooth flow of ideas from paragraph to paragraph. An outline shows your main ideas and the order in which you are going to write about them. Finally, make sure you formulate every claim in the strongest possible terms. Don’t make your opponent look like they have no arguments, or take the weakest version of their argument. Think about the strongest possible response to the claim you’ve put forward, then beat that. If you’re making a claim, you need to tell me why that claim is correct. Think of a potential response to your argument, perhaps from an author you’re arguing against. It should clearly signal to the reader that the essay is finished and leave a clear impression that the purpose of the essay has been achieved. Before you start the main part of your essay or assignment, there should be a title page. The title page should contain information to enable your lecturer and departmental office or other reader to identify exactly what the piece of work is. It should include your name and course; the title of the assignment and any references; the lecturer it is for etc. Or maybe your teacher is assigning an essay question for your final assignment. FEN Learning is part of Sandbox Networks, a digital learning company that operates education services and products for the 21st century. Infoplease is part of the FEN Learning family of educational and reference sites for parents, teachers and students. Errors are harder to spot on a computer screen than on paper. If you type your paper on a computer, print out a copy to proofread. If you perform poorly at this, you might as well pack up and go home. Next, think about what you need to prove in order to make that claim. Check our encyclopedia for a gloss on thousands of topics from biographies to the table of elements. We'll rewrite your paper for free or you'll get a refund. We don't disclose clients' information to third parties and all our papers are written from scratch. Once you’ve written the whole essay, read over it again. Think about the text you’re reading and think how you might respond to it. This is the single easiest way to get more marks. If I see an argument citing an author whom nobody else has mentioned, and it’s a decent argument, it will make my day. You will save yourself literally days over the course of your university career. They allow you to reference as you write, and you can create and reformat your bibliography and citations at the touch of a button. Write out that response, then tell me why it doesn’t defeat your argument, or at least why it only mitigates it. This is the stuff that actually makes up your argument. Look at every premise you’ve used and claim you’ve made. Be aware whilst you’re reading that all arguments and authors are fallible. What might be the immediate negative reaction of someone reading your central claim? How can you defend yourself against that response? Ideally you want to be able to split your burdens of proof into a few different points. Check with your department for clear information. This site is maintained by Zachary M. Schrag, Professor of History at George Mason University. This material was formerly posted at and was moved to this domain in the summer of 2010. The views expressed here are my own and may not reflect those of George Mason University. You have a big test coming up, and you know it’s going to include an essay question that will account for a large percentage of your grade for the semester.