How To Write An Essay 8 Tips And 4 Steps For The Best (+ Videos)

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How To Write An Essay: Good day, I hope you are cool? Writing essays is something every student has come across in one way or the other, and each time they face this challenge, making it better than the last is always a goal.

I guess the last time you wrote an essay you did very well huh? Well, we are going to show you how to step this essay and take it to the next level.

Every other “How To Write An Essay” tutorial you’ve read is cool, but this article here is the coolest you’ll ever read, now lets write this essay

What Is An Essay

Wikipedia definition of an essay: Wikipedia says that An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author’s own argument — but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have traditionally been sub-classified as

formal and informal. Formal essays are characterized by “serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length,” whereas the informal essay is characterized by “the personal

element (self-revelation, individual tastes, and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme,” etc.

We’ll divide this article into two.

1. Tips To Write An Essay Perfectly

2. Steps To Write An Essay

Tips To Write An Essay Perfectly

Below are tips to prepare for that killer essay in English. For the records, this is more of a formal essay than an informal essay. The steps and tips here are the type you use when you write an essay to your teacher, professor, a newspaper agency or for publication.

1. Study Other Essays

Every time you read an article or read a book in one way or the other you learn a thing or two. Studying people’s essays most especially the best of the best is a major boost to your essay escapade.

When I say ‘Read Essays’ I mean read every essay you can lay your hands on, essays by your peers, friends, and don’t forget reading an essay or more in your field of study

While reading this essays, try to take a point or two from this people, read the opinion they have, how they present their points how to dissect problems and how they try to convince you doing this will mold you in one way or the other.

2. Have A Plan

Yeah! ‘He who fails to plan plans to fail” it’s as simple as that. If you plan to write an essay on “A” browse each and everything about “A”, understand what A is, how you can do this is by drafting a brief summary of what someone can learn or get from the essay assuming it is ready.

Your aim here is to sell the article to the person, now this summary will look like it is for someone, but it is actually for you. When you have a summary of the post ready, knowing what to write wouldn’t be hard, cause you could draft out what the reader will expect from the essay.

Let’s say this is my summary

On this article, you’ll learn how to write an essay, how to present the essay, how to attract your audience and so many tips to know before writing an essay…..

I have gotten my essay ready already, now on the body of the essay, I’ll take each point in that summary and build an article around it. Do you get? This

summary could come in at the introduction of the essay, if you use it there, you’ve built this kind of anticipation and the person will want to see more.

3. Communicate Using Your Vocabularies

Your words can make and mar you, you know they are individuals who hate reading the long text now this is where vocabulary comes in. You could summarize a collection of words into one word if you practice proper economy of words.

It may seem to you like “Big Words” that’s not true, economize your words by using good words, don’t make it look so brief though but still try to pick proper synonyms to a group of text.

For instance

“He is sometimes a social person and sometimes very reserved, he enjoys staying on his own and this has made him to pick offense easily whenever someone tries to get in his personal space”

Let’s shorten this

“He is an Ambivert and a loner this has made him aggressive whenever someone pries”

We just converted that four-line statement into two. I don’t need to overemphasize this point right?

I have this dictionary on my phone which suggests new words for me daily, with this tip I’ve learned a lot of new words, glancing through your dictionary occasionally will help in the long run.

How To Write An Essay

Synonyms!! O yeah, you need this, if you keep using one word often and you notice it seems like an anthem, I think it’s time you get a synonym. I get my synonyms from Google

E.g “Serious synonym” and google will feed your eyes with synonyms for the word “Serious”

How To Write An Essay: Google showing me synonyms for the word "Serious"

There’s power in prefixes and suffixes. Knowing a good number will help you a lot take for instance ‘ante’

ante means “before, earlier, in front of” you see it used in words like “antecedent, antedate, Antemeridian, anterior”

4. Reference Time

O yeah! During your essay, it is very great if you show reference to many sources or people when you do this your reader will be convinced you know what you doing.

After seeing two or three references, your reader will know that you did your research well. Nothing beats a reference to a very old and hidden fact, what I mean here is telling your reader about a fact that isn’t random something deep and not common

In a section where you reference someone, you could give a very brief context of who this person is, you should say a thing or two of the person views and how they lived I INSIST ON THIS, I ALSO INSIST THAT YOU MAKE THIS SHORT and CONCISE.

Oo! Did I mention this? When you quote someone it is cool for you to counter that quote, take for instance this article

“A famous quote goes,

“don’t judge a book by its cover”

I am here to tell you this, go ahead and judge by its cover, it is the duty of the person(who is the book here) to present a good picture of himself (cover) because “the first impression last longer”

Now, assuming I way to counter that topic further I have given my reader a reason to keep reading, he’ll want to know what you have to say. When you counter famous quotes, your explanation should

be very very logical and smart. When you do this, you make your reader know that you don’t follow the bandwagon, that you have reviewed the famous quotes and come to the conclusion it is false, you now prove this by stating your point.

5. Punctuations! Syntax! Manner Of Approach

Your sentences sell you. I did mention a part about VOCABULARIES, well now note, when you use vocabularies don’t make it difficult for your reader and still don’t make it long.

I fancy that you replace words-stuffing with concise vocabularies. You can communicate your message across by using proper syntaxes, this will do you much help in passing your message without sounding like an ‘English professor wannabe’ or like someone trying to stuff words

An essay is normally formal and in a professional manner, so you should live up to expectations, this doesn’t mean you should bore your reader to death. When you go through your essay, do you feel confident in the words you read? If yes great, if No, edit a little.

When you write an essay, you can compel your readers with Active voice rather than passive voice. Passive voice sentences often use more words, can be confusing, and can lead to a mixture of prepositional phrases.

E.g
Passive Voice:

“The entire house was painted by Tom”
Active Voice:

‘Tom painted the entire house’

One is straight to the point, the other isn’t. These tips go a long way as you learn how to write an essay.

6. Stay Real

I feel like I shouldn’t explain this topic, but well all I am saying here is, Be real when you write your essay, your teacher or anybody will easily spot when you are fake so staying real is everything.

7. Every Paragraph Needs A Topic

O yeah! You READ me right. Your topic tells a lot about your essay, topics also plays a role in the paragraphs, you know the topic of this section has said it all. The cool role about “Adding a topic to every paragraph” is this, as you write different paragraphs with different topics, your teacher or reader gets the

The idea behind your essay, he flows with the essay and gets the point your driving in. The topic should look like a summary but not a summary (winks) a catchy topic needs to come before every paragraph.

8. Know Your Reader

Is it your teacher, is he a professor, was she a doctor, what is his rank in society, what award has she gotten and for what. All these are things to have in mind before you write an essay, knowing your reader will do you a lot because

you’ll know what he/she is expecting and you wouldn’t fail. When you write an essay to meet your reader’s expect you may get the impulse of wanting to please them, this isn’t bad, but if you make this your main point, he will definitely realize the fake game and fail you.

Steps To Write An Essay

Now I’ll tell you the steps to write this killer essay.

1. Title

Trust me, your title is everything, you should make a research before you choose your title, the title of this essay will make your reader want to go further into reading it. Super cool Titles always have a verb and a sentimental word.

Take for instance

True Reasons Why Nigeria Needs A Young Leader Now

Unknown Dangers Of Single-Sex School

Effective Reasons To Start Drinking

Lil Wayne Is Hip-hop Only Saviour

Nothing beats a topic that will appeal to someone’s believes. When you pick a topic make sure you build the article around that topic, let the topic be catchy yes! And let the article be worth it.

2. Introduction

This is a short and concise paragraph, I can call this a low budget TOPIC, you’ve captured the reader’s attention with your dope a*ss topic, now let’s get him on his feet and make them more anxious a little

E.g

The young Nigerians know a lot than the elders this century and stand a chance to face the test of time

Single-Sex School is a menace to society and should be stopped before it destroys our core beliefs and morales

Those who drink have more chance against deadly diseases than you, your doctor lied to you.

2pac and Biggie’s reign was built on over hype and gang wars than word wars.

Okay! Don’t fall for any topic you’ve seen there 😉😉, I may be right I may be wrong all I am doing here is passing a point out.

3. Here Comes The Body

This is the real deal, your introduction and Topic was the hype surrounding this section, it is like an artist hyping his album assuring you that it will be the best ever.

If you have a catchy Intro and Topic then give your reader a dumb body, you have failed. Scan through all the ideas and points you’ve gathered and make catchy topics for them, this topic shouldn’t run away from the main topic but should rather in a way support it.

Every point should be explained in details.

4. Conclusion

Every part of your essay connects but your conclusion, topic and introduction share a special bond. Your introduction and topic were giving the reader a reason to read further, your conclusion should remind the reader of those reasons.

This should be short, your conclusion is the direct opposite of your body, your body entailed a detailed explanation of key points, your conclusion should show how these key points connect.

I hope I was able to help? Make sure you give this essay yours. I hope you’ve learned how to write an essay?

Okay, you definitely have learned how to write an essay, now learn how to write an outstanding application letter.

If I missed anything, please call my attention to it.