Kenneth WaldmanWriting your college essay requires plenty of preparation, if you want to do it right. The best thing you can do is take pen and paper and start mapping out the main sections of your essay. This is like a draft that you will use as a main guide for writing your essay. Come up with a unique and catchy title and several subtitles for the body of the essay.
Regardless of whether you need to submit an essay as part of an assignment for college or as part of your admission, it really takes quality time to write a brilliant essay. If you can freely choose the title, you can start brainstorming for ideas, or have a look online at the trending topics. Remember that a badly written essay is mainly the result of lack of planning and research. Just keep reading to find out a few more quality tips on things to remember when writing your college essay.
Always write about what you know best:
In order to write well, you should write about something you are really good at or genuinely interested in. If you love History, then write about a subject/topic related to this niche. If your main hobby is cooking, you could conduct some research and come up with a unique essay title – such as “Food Wars: Quality vs. Quantity” or “Top Michelin Rated Restaurants of the World.” Both titles represent topics of high interest for the general population.
The emotional level:
When writing an essay, you should spend time and reflect upon the subject matter. Introduce to the reader important topics and subjects, but also ‘tell’ them how that respective experience changed you as a person. Talk to the reader through your essay by always maintaining those emotional levels high. You want to make people read your essay right to the last sentence, and you want them to gain useful knowledge and insight to the topic by reading your piece.
Pay attention to the structure:
Carefully plan your essay by keeping in mind the three important parts: introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction is made up of 2 to 4 short paragraphs, the body contains up to 5 paragraphs while the conclusion is one larger paragraph. Go from the general towards the specific in your essay, build up “tension” and then provide a valuable conclusion.
Prewriting is important:
Have a separate sheet of paper where you will write down all the gorgeous ideas you have, without paying attention to the order or other rules. This prewriting phase will help you get a mind map of your entire essay, and then you can get down to writing much easier. Check frequently your prewriting sheet, and just follow you creative instincts to write the perfect essay.
Write a strong thesis statement:
The main attraction of your essay is the Thesis statement. This is the paragraph where you will give away precious clues, and persuade readers that your essay is indeed of great quality. The statement will include hints and a general idea about the topic discussed in the essay. Think about the statement as the short book review you can read on the back cover of any bestseller. Now try to do the same for your essay.
Be impersonal:
When writing an essay, try to stay away from using “I” or “You.” Your essay talks to the general audience and it should be impersonal except when this is clearly stated in the directions. Pay attention to maintain the same writing tense all throughout the essay, don’t jump from past tense to future and then back to the present. Choose a tense that you feel most comfortable writing in, and maintain the same tense in your essay. If you jump between tenses, you risk making your entire essay read very awkward.
Revise at least 2 times:
So you are done writing. Now it is time to go once again through your essay and spot any grammar or stylistic mistakes. In other words you are now editing and proofreading your essay just like a pro. When you are done, start again reading your essay and check if it has a logical flow, good grammar, good punctuation, etc.
Conclusion reflecting the introduction:
If you want to write a nice and professional essay, your conclusion should somewhat reflect on the introduction. There should be a certain connection between your introduction and conclusion. Write your conclusion just like the definite answer or ‘final say’ to your introduction. Before writing this last part, make sure to read the beginning once again, so that you can provide a nice conclusion that rounds up the entire piece.
Stay on topic:
If the teacher gives you a certain topic to write about, just stay on that topic. Keep in mind that you do not have too much space to write your essay so it is important to stay focused. Your essay is about 500 words in length, which equals to one page in Word, double spaced and typed in 12pt Times New Roman. You really can’t afford to stay off topic, so think twice before starting to develop on the lead sentences.
These are all creative and important tips that will help you write that perfect essay. Remember them each time you are getting down to write, and you should also research some more for extra tips. If you are given requirements such as writing a descriptive, expository or persuasive essay, look up online how to write such an essay.
It is important to pay attention to the requirements when writing an essay. This way, you will be able to write an essay tailored exactly to these needs. When you disregard the instructions, your essay could be graded extremely low even if you provide quality knowledge. Spend enough time on reading and understanding all the instructions and you should do extremely well. Good luck with your next application or college essay!
About author
Kenneth Waldman is a freelance writer and content editor at essay writing service EssayMama which provides assignment help for students. Kenneth draws his inspiration out of the traveling and sport. Get in touch with him on Linkedin.