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The Beginner’s Guide to Writing an Essay

So you have a task to write an essay, but you are a beginner and don’t know what the first sentence should be on the blank page. It sounds terrifying. Actually, it is not as bad as you might think. You just need to get assistance in writing.

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Thornie Longmuir
  Thornie Longmuir  —  Staff Writer



You will feel more confident when you get reliable help from an experienced person. Also, you can learn many useful tips, such as the ones this article reveals. Find out the benefits of being a beginner in essay writing from our guide – it teaches you how to create essays naturally!






1. Choose an easy topic

This tip is essential for a beginner because it is hard to manage a difficult topic when writing an essay for the first time. Start searching and get through a significant amount of information: firstly on the Internet and then in libraries. Suppose the topic is easy to research and fits your essay type as your teacher assigned – otherwise, the primary thing you will do is call someone for help: “ Write my essay , please!” With a simple topic worth writing about, you will get more freedom, especially if the subject you investigate belongs to one of the exact sciences, such as math, chemistry, biology, or physics.

2. Collect information

After you decide on the topic, you can smoothly proceed to the research process. It is necessary for students to remember that the more reliable references they have, the more valuable their essay will be as a result. You can use a list of recommended literature for your particular essay topic or search for some new fiction or non-fiction compositions. This depends on the essay type you are working on. Basically, you can rely on books, as well as videos and online articles. Provide quotations from these references and express your statement on them in the essay. Information from other sources is a valuable tool for providing details of evidence in your writing.

3. Write some prompts

Prompts are notes that you can make before writing your first draft. Decide which parts of the research you can use in the thesis statement and which information you can put in the middle or end of your essay. Make sure to note every inspiring thought concerning other texts – it is useful when an academic work gives another author’s viewpoint.

4. Prepare a structure

The standard structure of an academic essay consists of five paragraphs: an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The structure acts as a map for the work to help the author and reader stick to the main investigation point. Let’s look over it:

 The introduction has a fixed place and starts the essay. It consists of a hook, thesis statement, and a short review of the researching method to explain it for readers.

 Body paragraphs include data analysis and details of the evidence. Every paragraph of the body should begin with a topic sentence. In the text, the author will also place citations from references.

 The conclusion restates the thesis and reverses the hook. Final thoughts bring readers a clear understanding of the purpose of the essay.

Consider which part of this structure is suitable for placing the prompts and citations you prepared earlier.

5. Build a strong thesis

One more point to consider more deeply is the thesis statement. This is a central part of the introduction, which convinces the reader to continue to acquaint themselves with your essay. Building a strong thesis means to make it thorough, specific, and rational. It is never a question, so every beginner essay writer should create an argument within.

When building a thesis statement, the author of the essay needs to keep in mind the counterarguments that readers might have. Be ready to defend your arguments to opposing opinions.

6. Write several drafts

A first draft is always rough. It is also a place where novice essay writers can unleash their creativity to break through the fear of the blank page. Therefore, the essay’s first text is never perfect, and you need to revise it thoroughly by yourself. This step helps to decide on the flow of the text, how to rearranging parts, and whether to include or exclude certain viewpoints and citations.

7. Check citations

One of the main things every student should remember about the essay is the citation style. The most common styles are APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian. They are essential tools that help to create citations and format your essay correctly. It is also a chance to save your writing from plagiarism when you reference the author correctly.

8. Get help with editing

Ask one of your peers to give you a reliable response to the essay you made or rely on the assistance of a professional editor. Those who are acknowledged not just in grammatical, punctuation, and spelling improvements, but also in formatting aspects, are best to check your essay. Ask the editor to pay attention to transitions between paragraphs and the consistency of each one.

It is also advantageous when you can sit back and look at your essay with relaxed attention, especially when you use valuable online sources to check grammar and style such as Ginger or Grammarly . Meanwhile, a fresh viewpoint from a different person can help find mistakes the author made.

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"The Beginner’s Guide to Writing an Essay." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/article/the_beginner_guide_to_writing_an_essay>.

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