When you need to write the essays, take into account several features. Not only to worry about the structure of sentences and paragraphs, but you need to be focused on your word choice too. Because there are so many skills involved in essay writing, and it’s easy to become overwhelmed.
Instructors assign essays so they can see their students’ thoughts on any given subject. But, because students get overloaded with the essay-writing formula and selecting accurate words, student essays are often missing strong arguments and explanations of their thoughts. Students often lack the words that help them explain sophisticated ideas, too. Their struggle for the words keeps them stuck in their heads, so their best ideas do not always make it to the paper.
So, What You Need to Do?
First, you should write all of your thoughts down as the arise, not after thinking about them. Instead of getting stuck trying to figure out what to do, by writing thoughts on paper, you can use those written thoughts to compose an essay. Seeing the thoughts on paper only helps you further develop them with word choice and organization. When you jot down your thoughts in the planning stages, students essays are significantly better than when you do not write your thoughts in advance.
When you write your ideas down, you have more time to formulate your arguments and pick the best words to defend your ideas. You can put the best insights into the appropriate paragraphs and move ideas around if necessary. Without the planning stage, students’ draft tends to be unorganized, and their words are sophomoric.
Essays involve three parts: the word, sentence, and paragraph. When you pre-write and organize your thoughts, you will be able to write sentences that have accurate words. Without those words, sentences become confusing for readers. To make life easier for students, it is helpful to try to write at least 100 words in a paragraph. Of course, if an instructor requires something different, you should always abide the rules the instructor establishes. Once the ideas are down on paper and organized into the appropriate places, you can worry about the words and transitions that make the essay smooth and easy to read.
Students essays usually have the same problem: paragraphs that are not about one thought. Instead, students ramble, because they have not taken the time to plan their essays. It is also important to organize the paragraphs into a thoughtful order that will help prove the point of the essay. Usually, the most important thought of the essay comes first, and the rest of the paragraphs helps to support it. A student who asks the question “why” regarding its organization usually have essays that are structured with purpose making them interesting to read.
A Rule of Thumb
This rule is also called “mini-skirt” and the main idea is that essays have to be long enough to cover the topic and short as well to keep readers engaged. You should be able to judge whether your paragraphs are too long or too short and you need to be able to adjust accordingly. If you have explained your thoughts without leaving too many unanswered questions, then you have accomplished the goal of an essay.
So, prepare strong arguments to describe your idea and work on the word choice. Then, polish your paragraphs involving only essential information that will help you to make your essay interesting.