Not a fan of college essay writing? These tips will help you achieve your best grades yet!
This post is all about essay writing tips.
I’m guessing you’re looking for essay writing tips for one of three reasons. Either:
- You’re a college student who’s not so good at writing essays
- You’re a college student who usually IS good at writing essays but have a professor who’s a super tough marker, or
- You’re not a college student yet and you need help figuring out how to write a college essay for your application
No matter what, you’re here because you need some essay writing tips that are actually REALLY good.
Luckily for you, essays are my strength and I love being super organized and thoughtful when I’m writing them.
I’ve created a system that I follow EVERY time I’m writing a college essay and it’s exactly what helps me get good marks on my essays every time.
Well…
That, and the fact that I’m a creative writing major, so anything to do with writing is kinda my jam. But the point is, today I’m going to share those steps to write an essay with you!! Now let’s talk about how to write better essays!
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COLLEGE ESSAY WRITING TIPS:
1. Make your citations as you do your research
Would you rather quickly make citations as you go along, or wait until the end and have to go back to every website, book and article individually, hoping you didn’t miss anything?
It’s a lot easier to just make your citations as you go along. As you make notes, quickly note the page number where you got each piece of information or quote. This will save you such a headache later because you won’t have to go through all your sources, wondering where you got a particular quote or statistic.
On top of that, when you’re done looking through a source, rather than just closing it and thinking you’ll do the citations when you’re done writing the essay, just make the full citation before moving on to your next source. This will ensure that you don’t forget anything, and it removes a lot of the overwhelm later on in the essay writing process because it’s one less thing for you to remember to do!
If you’re not great at manually making citations, try BibMe or EasyBib. These are both services that will make the citation for you when you just put in some simple information!
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2. Use this editable essay outline
In my second year of college, I was writing so many essays that I made a standard essay outline document that I now use every. single. time.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a research essay, literature essay, personal essay, or any other type of essay. This editable essay outline is amazing and will help you get all your thoughts, arguments and quotes organized so that your writing process becomes insanely easy! Taking advantage of this awesome template is seriously one of the best college essay tips.
3. Start with your thesis
This is one of my favourite essay writing tips. It’s always a good idea to write your thesis before writing anything else, because this will give you direction as you come up with arguments and write the rest of your essay.
Think of your thesis like your Google Maps. It helps you remember where you’re going in the essay.
Also, IT’S OKAY IF YOUR THESIS CHANGES.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written my thesis and then gone ahead and written my body paragraphs and realized that the phrasing (or even the entire point) of my thesis changes. This usually happens because as I’m writing I’ll realize that one of my arguments didn’t totally make sense or I discover a better argument that I want to make instead.
If this happens to you while you’re writing, that’s okay. It’s better that you make strong arguments and reflect those arguments with your thesis, than to make weak arguments just for the sake of keeping your original thesis that can easily be revised.
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4. Write your body paragraphs before your intro
You might prefer to write your intro first, but I personally find it so much easier to write my body paragraphs first (after my thesis, of course) so that I can get the hardest part over with. This also just helps give you an idea of what to focus on in your intro so that you accurately reflect the content of your paper!
5. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, and verbiage at first- just write
Okay, obviously I’m not saying you should turn in your paper with bad grammar, spelling and vocabulary.
I’m just saying don’t worry about this so much when you write your FIRST draft.
This is my favourite writing tip for any kind of writing because it seriously works so well. If you just let yourself write a draft, focusing on getting your arguments onto paper rather than focusing on how eloquent they sound or whether all your grammar is perfect, you’ll have the meat and potatoes of your piece and it’s way easier to work from there.
You can focus on the details later… For starters, just write!
6. Insert your in-text citations as you write
Similar to creating your citations as you research, I think it’s best practice to insert your in-text citations as you write.
I never did this in high school because nobody told me to. But I finally realized that it’s so much easier to insert in-text citations as you write your essay than to go back through the whole essay at the end and try to find all the places that need citations.
If you do it after the fact, you’re sure to forget a section that requires a citation. Or, even if you get all of them, you’ve at least given yourself a headache over trying to find all the areas that you should have put a citation.
7. Make sure you’re using an active voice
I often get friends asking me to review their essays and the number one thing I notice is that people don’t realize they’re writing super passively. Even I, an avid writer, make this mistake to some degree EVERY time.
What do you do about this?
Just keep it in mind as you write. It’s also a good idea to read through your essay after you’re done specifically looking for places where you could have used a more active voice (and thus been more concise).
Don’t know what an active/passive voice is? This article breaks down active/passive writing, giving you everything you need to know (with examples)!
8. Avoid first person pronouns unless it’s a personal essay
In general, it’s best practice to avoid first person pronouns in academic papers unless you absolutely need them.
If your professor asks you to write a reflection or a personal essay, then obviously you need to use personal pronouns to talk about yourself. Otherwise, if you’re doing a research essay or literature essay, avoid using first person pronouns.
If you’re doing an essay for college admission, then usually that’s a personal essay in which case this tip doesn’t apply!
9. Remember introductory and conclusion formats
Introductions and conclusions are both an art and a science, in my opinion. Sometimes, they can be the hardest part of the whole essay.
A good rule of thumb that I tend to follow? Try to make your introduction go from general to specific, and then your conclusion from specific to general.
The key?
You don’t want your intro to start off so broad that it’s irrelevant. You also don’t want your conclusion to finish off so broad that it doesn’t fit with the rest of your essay.
The ‘specific’ element of both sections is pretty much just your thesis. The goal with your intro is to lead into your thesis, and the goal of your conclusion is to restate your thesis and then leave the reader (aka your professor) with something interesting to think about or some sort of closing remark.
If you’re still stuck, look at examples of good introductions and conclusions if you need them!
10. Edit for conciseness
All in all, you want your essay to get your arguments across without being too wordy. So, as you read through your finished essay, look for places where you can make your writing more concise or use better words (and make sure you’re not repeating certain words too frequently).
11. Edit for spelling and grammar
Obviously, one of the most no-brainer essay writing tips is that you have to check your spelling and grammar!! I usually do a couple read-throughs to make sure all my spelling and grammar is good and that I haven’t made any typos.
12. Edit to make sure all your points make sense and all your proof is relevant
This might seem pointless, but it’s actually really important.
When you get caught up in essay writing, you might not realize that a particular argument doesn’t totally make sense or that some of your proof/quotations aren’t completely relevant.
If you can, take a break from the essay so that you can come back to it with fresh eyes. Even if you just step away from it for an hour, this will really help.
But if you don’t have the time, at least make sure you read through it once or twice, looking at your arguments and ensuring they’re all relevant and logical.
13. Make Purdue OWL your best friend
Purdue OWL is by far the best resource out there (in my opinion) on all things essay, including the best essay writing examples. Go there when you have questions about how to properly format your paper, need help with introductions, conclusions, body paragraphs, or really anything else. It basically has all the essay writing tips and answers for you.
This is seriously my favourite resource that I’ve been using since high school. I still use it all the time to get tips and essay examples for college papers!
14. Make sure your formatting is correct
Obviously, you need to make sure your essay writing format is correct depending on what your professor wants.
As a Creative Writing major, most of my essays are for literature classes, so I tend to mostly use MLA formatting. But you can pretty much count on having to do a variety of different types of essays in college no matter what program you’re in, so it’s good to familiarize yourself with different types of essay formats like MLA, Chicago, and APA.
Then, just make sure you’re thinking about all the different aspects of that particular type of format. Think about things like:
- What should your citations look like?
- Where should your page numbers be?
- What should your title page/first page look like?
- Do you need a cover page?
- What headers/footers do you need?
- Are you using the correct font and spacing?
If you’re unsure of your professor’s expectations on any of these points, just reach out to ask! It’s usually pretty standard unless they specifically tell you otherwise.
15. Write an impactful title
Titles can be the hardest thing ever!
It’s a good idea to ask your professor what they like to see in a title. Some professors just want something simple that reflects the content of your essay. Others like more creativity.
I once had a professor who actually asked us to try and make our essay title witty or funny. I’m not saying every professor will be this way (most probably won’t) but it’s always a good idea to ask for some direction on titles because when it comes to writing, you really do have to cater to your specific professor sometimes.
If your professor doesn’t give you any specific direction, a great title format (that I usually use) is to make the first half creative and captivating and the second half a description of the essay content.
Here are some great examples of essay titles that follow this format.
16. Submit it with confidence
Don’t do that thing where you submit your essay but continue to stress over it, panicking about what you could have done better or whether you’ll get a good mark.
Submit it and let it go. Don’t even think about it again until you get your mark back.
I know this can be hard, but we seriously add so much unnecessary stress to our lives in college by stressing over things that we no longer have control over. If you’ve submitted your essay, just be confident in what you wrote and don’t lose sleep over it!
Which of these essay guidelines are you going to use for your next paper?
This post was all about essay writing tips.
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