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What is the Best Way to Write an Essay: Useful Strategies

Essay writing is a skill that requires plenty of practice to perfect. And even the best writers will still undergo ongoing exercises to ensure their writing remains top-quality. Taking the advice of many great writers, here is a list of strategies you should be following to write great essays:

  • Make a plan and schedule.
  • Before you start your research and writing your notes, you should take out a calendar and make a plan. Schedule your research days, your first draft due date and your final draft. Give yourself plenty of time afterwards to ensure there aren’t any problems. Writers with plans are more likely to succeed and put together great content.

  • Stick to your schedule.
  • As soon as you’ve developed your schedule make sure you stick to it. If you gave yourself days of rest (as you should) then be sure you take them and put away your writing. Don’t take your personal deadlines any less seriously than your hard deadline. Sticking to your deadlines ensures that you stay ahead of the writing project and greatly reduces the stress you might encounter.

  • Research and take great notes.
  • Start your research at your school or public library. Be sure to ask your reference librarian for some help in getting you started. Conduct your own research using one of the library’s many databases and be sure you consider any suggested or recommended readings that you encounter. Take your notes and write down a complete citation from the start. This will save you time later when you are making your citations list or in-text references.

  • Develop an outline and draft your thesis.
  • Now that you have completed your research it’s a good idea to develop a draft of your thesis to guide you in developing your outline and writing your first draft. Your outline can be as detailed as you like, from having complete sentences to keywords or phrases. Whatever works for you. Just be sure you arrange it in a way that effectively presents your argument and supporting evidence in a logical and easy-to-understand way.

  • Write your first draft quickly and efficiently.
  • It’s time to take your outline and start drafting the first version of your paper. Don’t get bogged down with minor spelling or grammar mistakes. Write down your ideas as quickly and as efficiently as possible. You’ll have plenty of time to make corrections. You may find that you are a bit repetitive when you write your first draft, but more is best at this stage of writing.

  • Revise your argument and approach.
  • Now that you have your first draft you should take a day or two before coming back to do a thorough revision of your paper. This means looking for opportunities to rearrange whole sections and paragraphs or possibly even removing whole sections and paragraphs to present a more effective and logical argument.

  • Proofread and edit your essay.
  • Make sure you aren’t doing this in the last minute. Rushing yourself could mean you miss small mistakes and submit a less than perfect paper. You should aim to check for individual components at every level of proofreading. First check for spelling mistakes, then check for grammar, and lastly check for punctuation errors. Doing so will ensure you give every potential error a chance to be found.

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