For those of you who are not familiar with the type of text, you must know that an essay is an academic piece of writing that focuses on an idea, argument or a specific topic that is analysed, evidenced and interpreted.

Under the essay umbrella, we have many subtypes, but probably the most common at the university level is the argumentative type: it aims at persuading the reader of a particular position about a given topic. Although changing a person’s point of view might be the hardest task in the world, showing strong arguments for a different perspective is already an achievement of considerable proportions.

Students in many countries like the United Kingdom practise for years to accomplish high-standard essays at university. This is why we would like to give you this beginner’s guide to essay writing.

Writing process

We can roughly mention four main stages in the writing process:

1.     Preparation: this is the stage people tend to skip, which only leads to faulty arguments and ineffective texts. You must clearly define the topic, research it in depth and brainstorm the main ideas that will serve your purpose. It is important to consider various authors when researching as a rich and clever text will feature arguments for and against the argument you are presenting.

2.     Planning: once you have got all the ideas you are going to use, you must organise them in a way that will make sense for the reader to process. Not having a clear outline will result in chaotic and unclear ideas that the reader will struggle to connect. If you usually have issues with coherence and cohesion, planning will help you.

3.     Drafting: if you did your planning correctly, you will start drafting an appealing introduction, start developing evidence in the main body of the text and wrap up a conclusion at the end that can be logically deduced from the arguments you elaborated on above. Too often we see conclusions disconnected from the rest of the text, introducing new ideas or merely repeating concepts that have already been described.

4.     Revision: the most important step before this is leaving the text to rest for a while. After you finished writing, make sure you leave it aside for a few days and then get back to it with fresh eyes. Judge your work as a reader, not a writer. Assess whether all the content is relevant, you do not repeat yourself much and the organisation works. Naturally, make sure your grammar , punctuation and spelling are accurate and your vocabulary range sufficient.

A final word of advice

Before you submit your essay, try to judge it as harshly as possible:

•   Have I done enough research?

•   Are the ideas clear enough?

•   Does my text look nice with space between lines, paragraphs and margins?

•   Have I used a professional-looking font and size?

•   Is my introduction interesting?

•   Do my arguments have enough academic support/evidence?

•   Is all the content fully relevant?

•   Are my paragraph well structured and connected with each other?

•   Does the conclusion make sense?

•   Have I used the correct referencing format?

Asking yourself these questions and answering them objectively will allow you not only to end up with high-quality text but also help you improve your writing in general. Remember that the more you practise, the better you will become at it.