An essay is a collection of the information and ideas related to some specific topic in chronological order. It helps the essay writer communicate with other readers and express his viewpoint on a given topic. And it helps a reader to understand a topic in a very short reading time.
When it comes to essay writing, everybody should follow some basic principles. The writer should convey his message clearly and present the ideas in a very simple way. Before writing an essay, you should have a clear purpose of your essay. To whom are they going to serve. When you have a clear goal and purpose for your essay, you can start writing your essay.
Essay writing is painting a beautiful painting. If you are painting a picture that reflects your ideas and thinking very simply and realistically, then it’s a win-win situation for you and the readers, but if not, then it is a very different scenario. So always remember that whatever the idea you have, always make sure they express the message clearly.
Essays are not books, so keep this in your mind when you are writing your essay. Your essay should have a length as it should present your idea clearly without leaving any idea unfinished.
So, when you are writing an essay, it all comes down to some of the fundamental steps you should follow.
1. Conceiving the Idea
Before you start writing an essay, you must have a clear idea about the topic and what you will write. It should not be left out for another time. If your Topic is clear then, write it on paper. Read it a couple of times. Think about your Topic and imagine that as a reader, what kind of essay you want to read, the topic of your essay should be very precise, and it should not be anything bad. When you have your perfect topic and are ready to write, move on to the next step.
2. Research About the Topic
After you have decided on your essay topic, the next step is to research your topic thoroughly- A to Z. Start reading books, articles, blogs, research papers and collect all the details related to your topic in one place. Collect all the facts, history, famous people quotation, quotes and saying any other relevant information about your topic.
Now arrange all the information in an orderly manner. For this, you can use offline or online platforms to collect your information.
Before the invention of the internet, people were doing their research in libraries. They had to spend many days doing that, but now all the information is available at one click away on the internet. You can easily access tons of essays, articles, books, research papers, blog posts, and even different language research papers. So, use it and collect all the information in one place. For this, you can use many notes taking tools like Evernote, notepad. And there you can place your all collected information in one place.
When you have collected all the relevant information about your topic, then you are set for beginning your essay writing journey.
3. Prepare an Outline
You can start outlining your essay when you have all the research, facts, points, and relevant information related to your topic. The outline will give you a hallow structure to work. This structure will shape your essay’s future.
There are many ways you can outline your essay. However, you should keep in mind that the outline is just a boundary wall. It should be used only for your help. The outline will help you to focus on a given topic, and it will make your thinking aligned with your topic.
For this, you can choose three methods of outlining:
a). Mind mapping–
Make an elaborate mind map of your essay and put all the information in a short and abbreviated manner. Mind map should be clear, and it should help you to organize your essay’s flow.
b). Make a flow chart–
You can also make a flow chart, put all the information inside the flow chart. A flow chart has one advantage that it will show you the flow of the essay and present your plan for writing your essay, and you can place all the facts and points of your essay.
c). Put them in Headings and subheadings–
The last one you can outline with headings and subheadings. That will provide the foundation for your essay.
And then, when you have your outline set, you are ready for the next step.
4. Analyze the Outline
When your outline is ready, go again and see if you have missed any important points. After that, see if you have included all the headings and subheadings. See if you have missed something, which is crucial for your essay topic. According to that, you can make changes in your outline, and if you see something is extra, and you can convey your message without that, you should remove it. Now if everything is fine, then we are ready to move on to the next step.
5. Start Writing Your Essay
After you outline your essay and have all the relevant information about your essay topic, you are ready to write your essay. Start writing it according to your outline, and you will be amazed to see the result, how fast you will be able to write your essay. When you have your outline and all the information, it will be a piece of cake to write a great essay.
And if you will follow these steps, then your essay will be more organized and readable, with all the correct and relevant information in a specific order. Readers will get all the information that they are looking for.
So, if you are ready to write an impressive and original essay for your assignment, you should follow these steps. But see, every person has their writing style, it is up to you how to perceive and to write your idea.
The last thing I want to share a great tip with you is a famous quote from Ernest Hemingway, “The first draft of anything is shit.” So, you should not always expect that you will get a perfect essay in the first draft.
After writing it the first time, you should start editing and changing information according to your need. Then you will have your perfect essay.
Read Also: Writing a Research Paper – Outline