You probably know the main stuff about how to write a good essay. You just use a three-part structure, support your main idea with a bunch of powerful arguments, and try to make the reader involved through a good intro and conclusion. That might be it. Still, if you want to know how to improve your essay writing skills and become really unmatched in your college writing, you have to look deeper.
We’ve collected 7 tips to writing a good essay
If you master and follow all of them, you could become the best writer in your class. Sounds luring? Then go ahead and use them fervently.
1. Read a Lot
Often the main key to great essay writing is being a good reader – an attentive one. Read books, short stories, subscribe to New Yorker and make a habit of reading their weekly issues, find blogs that appeal to you and read them regularly. Read college essays written by others. While reading, you could take notice of the structure of great essays, pay attention to what makes you interested in the piece, what keeps you read till the end. You will also see the importance of personal voice and writing style, which would help you to define your own. Consume the information, digest it, and shape it into something that’s yours.
2. Expand Your Vocabulary
Reading will also help you to broaden your lexicon. Mastery of the language is one more answer to the “How to get better at writing essays?” question. There are lots of ways you can do that. For instance, you could subscribe to a “word of the day” newsletter by the leading online dictionaries. It doesn’t take much of your time, but it’s absolutely worth it. Moreover, you can improve your word stock by playing word games with friends. “Scrabble” is an absolute classic! Or, say, “Taboo,” which is a game where you explain certain concepts while trying to omit words that are normally associated with them. Or you can simply spend 15 minutes a day browsing the dictionary for new vocables. Alternatively, use a thesaurus when writing.
3. Quote Others to Appear Knowledgeable
Using quotes adds significance to your own writing. You are immediately seen as a person who is attentive to others’ opinions. Besides, why try to invent a powerful phrase when someone has already done it before? Still, be sure not to overuse this tip.
4. Use Active Voice
When you use passive voice, you switch the attention from the subject to the object. At the same time, you make your statement weaker and the action itself not so important. Active voice is often associated with brevity, conciseness, and straightforwardness. More to that, it adds some power to your writing.
5. Conquer Metaphors
A well written essay is often saturated with figures of speech. One of the most common and — at the same time — robust ones is a metaphor. It makes writing more enjoyable when the author shows an idea through the means of comparison, by placing one thing instead of another for the illustrative purpose. You can write your entire essay as a metaphor (as George Orwell did it in his Animal Farm) or just insert one of two into your text.
6. Write an Introduction with a Hook
What makes a great essay truly captivating from the beginning? A hook in its intro. This might be a quote, a fact, an anecdote, a vivid depiction of the setting… Try to decide which type of hooks you are most comfortable with, and use them. For the even better effect, you can get back to your hook throughout your text.
7. Revise
Here is the final tip which sounds not surprising at all. It is the essential component of the complex “how to write better essays” formula. Regardless of your topic, time spent on outlining and generating ideas, or of the text’s complexity, always check the writing at the end. There’s nothing as disappointing as getting a lower grade only because of a few mistakes (or even worse: typos!) that you didn’t notice. During the revision, you can also edit sentences, remove chunks of information, or even reshape the structure.
These were our in-depth essay writing tips. Follow them if crafting knock-out pieces of text is one of your ambitions. Be critical towards your writing and always revise it thoroughly. What’s also vital is that you turn on your creativity, amplify your personal voice, and keep your reader in mind throughout the writing process. May your essays be splendid!
