Your instructor will expect to see a well-crafted thesis early on in your essay. Place your thesis at the end of your first paragraph. If you don’t understand how to write a thesis, ask your instructor for help. This is an important concept that will keep coming up in courses where you have to write papers.
Telling a personal anecdote Citing a surprising fact or statistic Overturning a common misconception Challenging the reader to examine her own preconceptions
You can create a numbered outline using a word processor or just put it on paper. Don’t worry about being too detailed when you create your outline. Just try to get the major ideas on paper. A really solid outline helps you figure out how you’re going to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
Make sure that you have your outline handy as well. You can build on your outline by expanding on each of the points in the order that they are listed in.
Think of the topic sentence as a way to tell readers what you’ll talk about in the rest of the paragraph. You don’t need to summarize the whole paragraph—just provide readers with a taste. For example, in a paragraph that describes Okonkwo’s rise and fall in Things Fall Apart, you might begin with something like: “Okonkwo starts out as a poor young man, but then rises to a position of wealth and status. ”
Returning to the invention stage. This includes exercises such as freewriting, listing, or clustering. You can also revisit your notes and books to see if there’s anything you missed or forgot. Visiting your school’s writing lab. You can find a writing lab on most college campuses. They are free to students and can help you improve your writing at any stage in the writing process. Talking to your instructor. Take advantage of your professor’s office hours or one-on-one appointments. Meet with them and discuss ways that you can improve your essay before you hand it in.
An MLA style works cited page starts on a new page at the end of the essay. Provide entries for each of the sources that you used. These entries should include the information necessary to allow the reader to find the source with ease. [7] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source MLA style in-text (also called parenthetical) citations provide readers with the author’s last name the page number for the information. It’s necessary to include an in-text citation for any information that you quote, summarize, or paraphrase from a source. It comes right after the sourced information, and it includes the author’s last name and page number in parentheses. [8] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
Qualify or complicate the information in your essay Suggest a need for further research Speculate on how the future will change the current situation
If possible, give yourself at least 5 days to work on your essay. Dedicate separate days to researching, crafting your thesis, outlining your ideas, drafting your paper, and making revisions.
Have I answered the question in a satisfactory way? Do I have a clear thesis? Is my thesis the focus of my essay? Do I include adequate support for my argument? Is there anything else I could add? Is there a logic to my essay? Does one idea follow the next? If not, how might I improve the logic of my essay?
Try swapping essays with a friend from class. You can read and comment on each other’s essays to make sure that both of you have done the best work possible. Make sure that you swap papers at least one day before the paper is due so that you will have time to correct any errors that your friend finds.
As you read, correct any errors that you find and make a note of anything that you think could be improved, such as adding more details or clarifying the language.
Always ask your professor if you don’t understand the assignment. It’s important to have a clear idea of what they want before you start working on the assignment.
A well-detailed answer that satisfies the assignment requirements A clear and direct piece of writing that is easy to follow A polished paper with no minor errors, such as typos or misspellings
For example, if you are tasked with writing about a character in a book, then you will need to provide lots of details about that character. This will probably require rereading some passages of your book as well as revisiting your notes from class. [16] X Research source To ensure that your paper is easy to follow, you’ll need to make sure that there’s a logical order to your essay. Do this by creating an outline and checking your work for logic. Start early and give yourself lots of time for revision. Try to complete your first draft about one week before the paper is due.
Freewriting. Write as much as you can without stopping. If you can’t think of anything, write “I can’t think of anything to write,” until something comes to mind. After you finish, go over what’ve written and underline or highlight any useful information for your essay. Listing. Make a list of all of the details and information that are relevant to the essay prompt. After you have listed everything that you can think of, read over it and circle the most important information for your essay. Clustering. Write your topic in the middle of the page, then branch out with other connected ideas. Circle the ideas and connect them to the main one with lines. Keep going until you can’t do any more.
Good sources to use for English essays include books, articles from scholarly journals, articles from trustworthy news sources (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. ), and government or university sponsored web pages. Many instructors include “research quality” in their grading criteria, so including poor sources, such as blogs, may result in a poor grade. If you are not sure if a source is of good quality, ask your instructor or a librarian.
