Teach Me How To Make An Essay, Step-By-Step Instructions For Beginners
So, you have never written an essay before? Here is some expert advice on how to write an essay for newbies.
- Start With A GOOD Topic
- Write A Thesis Draft
- Create an Outline
- I. Introduction & thesis
- II. Supporting evidence/example #1
- III. Supporting evidence/example #2
- IV. Supporting evidence/example #3
- V. Summary & conclusion
- Fill in Your Outline With Research
- Write and revise
Most of the time your instructor will assign a general topic for you. However, you are still responsible for coming up with a good idea to expand on the assigned subject matter. Try to choose an interesting topic that you are genuinely interested in exploring. Do a bit of preliminary research to make sure that there is enough supporting content for you to work with.
Once you have landed on a topic choice, the next step is to roughly compose your thesis. Based on your brief preliminary research, knowledge, and personal insights compose a strong statement that will become the basis for your paper.
For the sake of this tutorial we are going to suggest that beginners work with the 5-Paragraph essay structure. This means that you will only need to write 5-paragraphs for your essay.
The best way to condense your essay into this structure is to work from an outline. The 5-paragraph outline should look like this.
Working within this outline structure will help to keep your essay focused and brief. You can further expand on this structure by include 3-main points for each supporting evidence/example that you use if you are required to make your essay longer.
Once you have your paper all planned out all you have left to do is fill in the blanks. Stick with your outline while you do your research and fill each paragraph with relevant information that has been correctly cited. Remember to reflect back on to your original thesis in order to decide to what to include in your paper. Good essays are well focused with each evidence or example item being relevant to the author’s original statement.
After you have your outline filled out you are nearly finished. All that is left to do is to use your creative writing skills to tie the different ideas together into a fluid composition.
Before you hand your paper in go back to the beginning, edit and revise. Read your paper out loud at least once to make sure it sounds great. Now you have completed a very basic 5 paragraph essay!