Useful Guidelines that Will Help You Create the Best Essay Ever

Every student has the opportunity to write the best essay ever. The ideas are already swimming around inside your brain just waiting to come out in a written form that everybody can read. No matter what the topic you should have some opinion that can be made into an effective argument. The following are some useful guidelines that will help you craft a great paper:

  1. Conduct Some Simple Brainstorming

    2. The first thing you should do to help get the creative juices flowing is to start with a simple brainstorming technique. The most effective techniques are breaking the topic down into different levels; try some freewriting, taking on different perspectives, and creating bullet lists. Ideally, if you can do spend a few minutes doing all of these you will be able to narrow the focus of your topic down to help give you some sense of direction for when you start your academic research.

  2. Start Your Academic Research

    3. Conducting valid and accurate academic searches for supporting evidence is essential to great paper writing. There are several techniques including taking down information in a notebook or using notecards. The key is that you always take accurate notes and complete citations of where you found the information. Always conduct two levels of academic searches, including background and in-depth. Background information can be gathered by going online, but in-depth information should always be found at the library where reliable academic and government sources are held.

  3. Develop the Three Essential Parts

    4. Generally, educators have taught that an academic paper should have three essential parts: the introduction, the body paragraphs, and the conclusion. The number of body paragraphs to use depends on the scope of the assignment and specific topic at hand. Each body paragraph should contain a single sub-topic which is signaled with an opening topic sentence, followed by your argumentative assertions, supporting evidence or examples, a summation of the material, and finally a transitional sentence that guides the reader into the following body paragraph. The introduction should accomplish three things: 1) it should introduce the main topic; 2) it should provide enough background information so the reader understands what the topic is about; and it should contain a thesis statement telling the reader exactly what you are arguing. Finally, the conclusion should both summarize and synthesize all of the information covered in the assignment.

  4. Let Your First Draft Flow Naturally

    5. The first thing you should know about writing a first draft is that nothing is ever set in stone, so you should never feel the urge to come up with the perfect wording to express your ideas. Don’t stress about using long or academic-sounding words. Just think about the point you are trying to make and start writing. It might help to write from different perspectives so that you have plenty of material to work with when you finally get to the point of making your revisions.

Set Your Work Aside Before Revising

The term revision is defined by “seeing again” and that is exactly what you should be doing when reviewing your work from a critical perspective and rethinking your argument. It’s not just a process for making corrections, that’s what is known as editing and proofreading. Revision is the chance to make your argument that much more compelling by adding, removing, or rearranging material.

Fully Edit and Proofread the Final

Finally, set your paper aside one more time before you begin the process of making edits and proofreading. You should do each of these separately and with a strong attention to detail. Make line by line edits and always choose direct and concise language over indirect and complicated language. Lastly, proofread your entire assignment checking for spelling errors, grammar errors, and punctuation errors.