Tips for Writing Good Essays
Essay structure, like most areas of writing, is a bit confusing, especially for newer students. In basic terms, essay structure revolves around the central idea or thesis, which is the subject of the essay. The rest of the essay is built upon this central idea or thesis. In order to construct a good essay, structure is a vital factor, as essay structure has a profound effect on how well the essay is written and also how good it turns out to be.
At its most basic level, the point of an essay structure is to provide a logical, particular, and reasonable argument against a specific topic sentence. But structuring this argument can be very difficult, although it’s actually quite easy, really, an essay has to be constructed on a central theme, with each paragraph relating to this central theme in some way. In other words, there needs to be a main body of the essay that you write about, then there should be an introduction (topic sentence), then the main body, which is all of your supporting arguments, and then the conclusion (corollary to your main body). Of course, each of these paragraphs should be supported by at least one paragraph that discusses what you are arguing or providing evidence to back up what you are saying. Also, there needs to be a conclusion that wraps up your main body.
Essay structure is not the same as organize a thesis statement. In a thesis statement, you would simply divide your main body of work into separate parts by discussing the topic you are researching, then providing various arguments to support that research. However, when you are doing an essay, you have more freedom in how you arrange your thoughts and information within the essay. You still need to provide persuasive and logical information within the body of the essay, but you don’t need to divide it into sub-phases as you would with a thesis statement.
Structure is very important because it enables readers to follow your arguments. If you don’t have a proper structure for the essay, readers may get the impression that you are not capable of writing well. For this reason, many students choose to have a set of essay structure guidelines to follow, such as using APA format or MLA format. However, these formats might prove useful only for students who have access to such materials, as most schools don’t have these resources available to their students. Therefore, this might prove inefficient for a student without access to these resources. As a result, it’s better for most students to simply follow the basic essay structure rules as described above.
The first thing any student should do before starting to write an essay is to create an outline. Outlines allow writers to get a feel for the overall direction in which they want the essay to take. Students can use an outline to decide on the title for the essay, as well as to determine the topic or main topic for the entire paper. Moreover, both the title page and the conclusion must be written in the same outline form.
In addition to the outline, another way of creating effective essay structure is by breaking down the essay into its parts. This method is usually used by students who are unsure about how to begin and how to end their essays. The parts of a essay, after all, serve as the foundation upon which the rest of the writing rests. Thus, writing effectively means first putting together a solid structure, then working on developing the individual parts.
One of the best ways to develop good essay structure is through the elimination of writing clutter. Every sentence should have a purpose and be connected to another sentence, to provide a smooth flow of ideas throughout the paper. Furthermore, all the sentences should connect to some main idea or point. If not, the essays will often end up disjointed and even confuse the reader.
Finally, a strong essay structure always involves using commas and periods correctly. Commas and periods help establish the perspective of the writer, while breaks allow the readers to understand what the writer is trying to say. Of course, using these tools correctly can take a lot of time, so it would be a good idea for students to find resources that will shorten their writing process.