When I was in college, it was always a struggle of whether I should study history or English. Ultimately, I went with history, which I'm still not sure if that was the right choice or not. I always thought that even though I understood the English language and its many irregularities and intricacies, I couldn't really explain it to someone. I was stupid for believing that and I was stupid for letting a professor talk me out of double-majoring in history and English.
Recently a former student of mine from when I worked/volunteered with a local school school district asked me if I could teach him how to write a proper essay because he was tired of sliding by. I was impressed with him asking me that, especially once he gave me his reason. I wrote up step-by-step directions for him, mainly geared towards writing an academic essay, though they can be easily modified for other types as well. As I was writing it up, I felt it was something I should share and turn into a series of "How Tos". So, here is the first in the series: How To Write An Essay. Please share it and use it however you please, just please give credit where credit is due.
1. Formulate a thesis statement. At this point it
can be as simple as “I’m going to argue…” or “My goal is…” However, you must
make sure it includes your hypothesis or argument as well as your main
reasoning for your belief. You must have this information before even starting
an outline.
2. What are your main arguments behind your thesis
statement and where will you get your information? Write down your thesis
statement on a piece of paper and below it jot down the main points you want to
argue. At this time you also need to know where you’re going to get this
information. Is it all coming from your personal experiences and beliefs or
will you be using outside sources?
3. Get your information. You want to do research
before you even layout and outline for your essay. This will help prevent
unintentional bias. If you layout your essay before doing research, you can
very easily start focusing only on research that specifically backs up what you
are arguing and ignoring information to the contrary. When garnering sources,
try to utilize both secondary and primary sources and use a diverse selection:
newspaper articles, books, journals, interviews, documentaries, etc. If you get
stuck, a good place to get started are the sources sections of Wikipedia
articles related to your topic as well as sources listed in any secondary
sources you have used. In fact, you should always look at the sources cited in
any source you use as well as the credentials of the author to help determine
whether or not it is a quality source. Obviously, if you’re writing about your
personal experiences, this step is not as relevant.
4. Outline your essay. The most basic essay form
has five parts: Introduction, Body consisting of three points, and Conclusion.
By writing an outline, you will be able to stay more focused and keep from
meandering or going on a tangent about one particular item when writing your
essay. By giving each section a headline you can also take these headlines and
physically insert them into your essay so you can actually see the structure.
99% of the time when you are done writing your essay, you can then remove these
headlines and have perfect flow. This helps with structure and staying on topic
and lessens the worry of an awkward transition from topic to topic. For each
section, if you write your topic sentence (the first sentence of the paragraph),
this is going to make writing your paper easier and more efficient.
5. Write the introduction. This is arguably the
most important part of the essay. Your introduction is going to set the tone of
your paper and show the reader what to expect. In all reality, your
introduction is going to determine whether or not the reader continues reading
beyond the first paragraph. You want to start your introduction with a hook—something
that will grab the reader and pull them in. An anecdote, a shocking fact or
statistic, a vivid image or description of a person or event or place. This is
where you can get a little creative. In the past you’ve maybe been told that
the very first sentence should be your thesis statement (because I know I have),
but that is not true. The best place for your thesis statement, which states in
one sentence exactly what you’re about to discuss, is the last or next-to-last sentence
of your introduction. Before that, you should elaborate on your “hook” and
connect it to your thesis statement and the points you are going to argue in
the paper.
6. And then write the conclusion, which is probably
the hardest part. It’s important to write the conclusion before writing the
body so that you can, in a sense, work backwards. By having the conclusion
already written, you know exactly where you’re going to end up and better
create the straightest path there. With the conclusion already written, it is
going to keep your paper more focused and you’ll be less likely to veer off
path. Essentially, your conclusion should echo the introduction and reinforce
your thesis statement. This is why writing the conclusion is so hard—how do you
restate your introduction without simply restating your introduction? I wish
there was an easy answer to that question, but there isn’t. With practice,
writing a conclusion will get easier. Some papers will have a more natural
conclusion than others—some will better off if they feel like they just end.
What is crucial, however, is that you don’t finish with, as my 8th
grade language arts teacher called it, “a Forrest Gump ending”. In other
others, don’t conclude your essay the same way Forrest Gump ended his stories
with “Well, that’s the end of my essay.” The key thing here is to restate your
thesis statement and your main points of argument. Depending on what device you
used, try to connect your conclusion back to the hook from your introduction.
This is a little harder if you used a statistic, but if you used a description
or anecdote, it should be fairly easy to mirror it or even continue or finish
the thought in your conclusion.
7. Write the body. The easiest way to do this is to
take the headlines from your outline and physically insert them into the paper.
This is going to keep things more organized and will also allow you work on
each section individually. In other words, you don’t necessarily have to work
start to finish and instead could work on the section towards the end of the
paper if that’s the section you’re just “feeling” at the moment. When you’re
done, 99% of the time you can simply remove the outline headings and have a
perfectly structured and flowing paper. If you already wrote topic sentences in
your outline, then a good chunk of the body is already done.
If you
are using sources make sure you CITE EVERY ONE OF THEM every time you use it
using the proper citation format. Even paraphrasing a source without a citation
can be considered plagiarism and subject to punishment.
