How to Write an Essay

An essay is a formalized prose that conveys a single idea, thesis, or story. Whether you are a student working on an assignment, or a professional writing a piece for awareness, knowing how to write an essay is very crucial.

However, many don’t possess the linguistic skills required to create compelling essays. As a result, students lose marks, and their academic performance plummet. And professionals aren’t able to connect well with the audience.

That is why we’ve come up with this post to show you a detailed guide on writing an essay.  For your convenience, we’ll cover each aspect in detail so that you can follow along easily.

Step-by-Step Guide on Writing an Essay

Below, we’ve given all the steps necessary to create a compelling essay for your needs. Keep reading on to find out everything about the process.

⦁    Understand The Assignment Requirements

First, try to understand what type of essay you want to write for the assignment. Mainly, there are 4 types: Argumentative, Expository, Descriptive, and Narrative essays. Let’s understand these essay types in a bit more depth to determine which one is right for you.

Argumentative

An argumentative essay revolves around the author’s standpoint on a particular topic. It starts with a thesis statement that clarifies the reader's stance and tries to convince them of it by citing pieces of evidence.

Expository

An expository essay refers to describing or elaborating something. It contains a neutral tone as the author presents evidence on both spectrums of the topic, letting the reader decide the outcome.

To make this balanced POV (Point of View) a success, the writer must research thoroughly and be unbiased in their explanations.

Descriptive

Often the most creative type of essay. It requires you to open up your imagination and describe a general situation, place, object, or person. You can also invoke emotions and use figurative language to make the reader feel what you’re feeling.

Narrative

A narrative essay is a story that allows the use of first-person nouns. You can tell unique personal experiences and write with as much creativity as you want to hook the audience.

After considering all the 4 major types of essays, decide upon which one you should pick to satisfy your requirements. Make up your mind about the preferred length, or the format you want to follow throughout the essay; these things will be crucial later on.

⦁    Choose A Suitable Title

A title is what will define your essay. It must be something that relates to the problem you want to discuss, or a niche that you want to cover.

The best practice when thinking of a topic is to consider the audience. Who will read this essay? What would they like to hear? What wouldn’t be so effective for their conscious? – Answer these questions one by one you’ll soon arrive at an umbrella title.

Such a title is too broad to be covered in one essay. So, the next step is to make it more defined and get to the sub-niche if you can. If you narrow down the topic, you can focus better on a smaller aspect, leading to a more polished work overall.

After you’re done finding the title of your essay, proceed with the brainstorming and researching step.

For instance, let’s talk about the topic “AI in Education: Future Trends and Innovations.” We’d use an expository essay to present a neutral POV to the audience. Hence, people will decide their stance based on the points we give to them.

⦁    Research And Brainstorm Ideas

You should start the research process once you’ve finalized your essay type and topic. Gather information from credible links that have high traffic and better SERP results. Mostly, this is where you’ll get valuable content.

Look to explore peer-reviewed journals, articles, conference papers, etc., by using a suitable search engine like Google Scholar. These sources of knowledge are mostly accurate since they undergo a strict procedure of fact-checking and validation.

After you’re done with collecting evidence, spend some time organizing them according to different sections. Brainstorm and jot down the most relevant points in chronological order that you’d like to use in your essay to make it a substantial piece.

Tip: The AI essay generator from Prepostseo can help you quickly scan relevant points for the desired topic. Input the essay title and take inspiration from the tool’s output to create your craft.

For the demonstration, we’ll take the topic used in section 2, and choose Expository as our essay type. The length will be set to short, and we’ll check the ‘Humanize’ box to make the results highly readable.

Essay Generator Output:

We can see that the essay generator has accurately invoked the points of VR, AR, and Chatbots for the given topic. It has aptly discussed the benefits that AI can bring to education, providing ideas for your craft.

⦁    Create An Outline

The fourth step is to create an outline for your essay. Recall the rough format that you’d thought of in the first step. Follow a simplistic outline design to give polished results. Don’t rush your thoughts, instead, keep them aligned for each heading (one at a time.)

As a general rule of thumb, essays have three main sections: introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

For example, let’s take the topic of “The impact of Social Media on Young Children’s Mental Health.”

As we can see, the above image shows the outline for the discussed essay. It has an introduction, and body paragraphs II, III, IV. Finally, there’s a conclusion, which summarizes all the talking points in the essay.

Generally, all types of essays follow the same outline design we’ve shown in the image above. However, a narrative essay can be a bit different. So, make sure to check out the requirements of the selected prose before beginning to write it.

After overviewing the outlining process, let’s begin to write the essay. Sections 5, 6, and 7 contain the details of writing an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

⦁    Write A Captivating Introduction

There are multiple ways to begin your essay. Some writers like to include a juicy fact or figure to get the attention of the audience. While others may want to give a rhetorical question to get readers engaged.

However, introductions must always be kept clear and to the point. It must contain a thesis statement that lets the reader know about your stance on the topic in 1-2 lines. Or, about the things you will discuss throughout the document.

Professional writers also like to add some background information about the topic to set the mood right for the reader. 

Tip: Using Prepostseo’s essay generator can give you an idea of how to write your introduction.

For example, let’s consider the following topic: “Students should not be allowed to play PUBG.” This is an argumentative essay that requires you to fulfill some criteria with the introduction.

That is to start with a hook line, probably a little bit of background, and a thesis statement discussing your stance. Let’s see the said tool’s output and how you can get inspiration from it.

Essay Generator Output:

The intro has all the elements we’ve discussed so far for an introduction. A hook, reasonable background info, and a thesis statement. Next, let’s see how to write the body paragraphs.

⦁    Craft Clear Body-Paragraphs

Body paragraphs are the heart of your essay. They must start with a topic sentence that clarifies to the reader what’s to come next. For instance, writing a paragraph about the effects of volcanic eruption on wildlife must start somewhat like this:

“The impacts of volcanic eruptions on wildlife are horrendous as it affects their shelter, environment, and endangers many species.”

The topic sentence can let the reader know about all the points that will be discussed in the paragraph.

After opening up the paragraph, you’ll have to provide evidence to the reader on the given points. Use quotes, real-life examples, and references to add credibility to the craft. 

Also, utilize transition words and phrases in the body paragraphs like, furthermore, consequently, in addition to this, and so on. This adds cohesiveness between the sentences, ensuring a smooth reading flow for the readers.

Conclude the paragraphs by analyzing the given evidence and relating it to the main topic. Writers also like to prepare their audiences for the next body paragraph as in to establish coherence in their work and promote readability.

⦁    End With A Fitting Conclusion

By the end of an essay, you must write a fitting conclusion to summarize everything you’ve talked about so far.

Briefly recap all the main arguments you made in the body paragraphs. Also, reinforce the thesis statement under the consideration of the pieces of evidence you provided earlier on. 
Following this pattern will solidify your words in the reader’s mind, making them convinced of your viewpoint.

However, if you’re still struggling to write a fitting conclusion, the AI essay generator is here to help.

Tip: Choose a suitable essay title, type, and preferred length in the tool to get a strong conclusion for your work.

Continuing our example for the argumentative essay, here’s its conclusion by the recommended tool.

Indeed, we’ve got ourselves a conclusion that concisely lets the reader know about all the main talking points and the author’s reinstated thesis statement.

Remember, the tool is just for idea generation. All the rest of the work, including proofreading and final edits, must be done manually to ensure the best essay possible (more on this later.)

⦁    Provide A Reference List

Once you’re done with the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion of the essay, it’s time to add a reference list.

The list must include sources for all the quotes, examples, facts, and figures you’ve used in the entire work. Adding citations not only establishes the authority of the writer but also makes the work transparent.

Many types of citation styles and formats are used for essays. Some of them include:

⦁    APA 7th Edition
⦁    MLA Manual of Style 9th Edition
⦁    IEEE format
⦁    Chicago 17th Edition
⦁    And so on …

Which one you should use depends upon the requirements of your assignment or the platform at which you’ll be sharing your work.

Tip: If still unsure, get help from the essay writer and see how it adds the reference list to your essay. Use the generated format in your work to meet the criteria of publication.

For the demonstration, we’ll use the essay “Students should not be allowed to play PUBG.” We’ll check the ‘Add References’ button and see how the tool responds

The tool has given us a reference list in APA-7 style. Using this output, you can learn the way to cite crucial information and cement your words with authority.

⦁    Proofread And Do Edits

Proofreading is an essential part of finalizing an essay. It helps remove clunky regions of the text which are meaningless in the context of the discussion.

Furthermore, rereading your work can help correct grammatical mistakes like punctuation, typo errors, and so on. Taking these steps will ensure that the work produced is pristine and perfect for the audiences to enjoy.

However, the best practice when proofreading essays is to read everything out loud. This helps balance out the reading rhythm of the words, making it easier for the readers to understand the flow of thoughts.

As an additional tip, use the paraphrase tool by Prepostseo to get your message across clearly. Convert the sentences from passive to active voice when necessary. And synonymize to remove word redundancies and polish up the craft.

If you follow up on everything we’ve told you so far, you’re sure to get high grades from your professor. Or a lot of attention from your audiences if you are a professional writer. Nevertheless, we still have a last step to conclude our post and the whole writing process.

Final Words

In this post, we saw the entire process of writing an essay. It starts by understanding the requirements of the assignment. Then, select a suitable essay title and type for research.

After the brainstorming sessions, you must draft an outline and start writing the introduction, body paragraphs, and finally the conclusion of the essay.

In the end, provide a reference list in the required format, proofread to make necessary edits, and check for plagiarism before submission.

That’s all from this post! We hope you enjoyed reading our content!