How to Write a Brilliant Essay

Great Tips for Essay Writing

Jan 4, 2009 Sabrina Louise Webb

When faced with writing an essay, there are many things you can do to improve the quality of the work you produce.

The first thing any essay writer should do is to find out the deadline date. Although this is very obvious, most people do not perform well under pressure. Find out when your work has to be handed in by and create a realistic timetable to work by.

Brainstorming

Once you have chosen a question, or have a topic in mind, it may be very useful to brainstorm some ideas. This is especially useful as it allows you to focus your ideas and thoughts and gives new perspectives on the question.

Brainstorming is also helpful because it ensures that you understand what the question is asking of you.

Organisation

There is a famous proverb, ‘He who fails to plan, plans to fail.’ It is easy to see when an essay has not been organised or planned well. An organised and structured essay shows the reader that your arguments are clear, concise and coherent.

One way of planning is to use a paragraph structure and bullet points. Give each paragraph a heading and use bullet points to include the main points you want to make in each section. This will allow you to order your material.

Style

Most academia requires that essays are word processed. This allows the individual to draft their writing and edit it as required. Most also utilise the spell-check function. As a whole, word-processed work looks more professional and is easier to read than the hand written essay.

There are some other style tips that are easy to implement with a computer: some essays are required to be double spaced. Also, paragraphs should be indented, and margins can be increased or decreased as necessary.

Bibliography and Referencing

The bibliography is possibly the most important part of any piece of academic work. It references your sources, avoiding plagiarism. It is beneficial to keep a ‘working bibliography’ which should be updated regularly as you are preparing and researching your work, which will ensure that you include everything you have read.

All academic essays require quotes to be referenced; most use what is known as the Harvard System, or footnotes to do this. Again, this avoids plagiarism.

Final Touches

There are a few things you can do once you have finished writing to improve the quality of your work. The first is to proof read it. It usually helps if you wait a while before doing this, as you will be more likely to spot any errors that you may have previously missed.

Ask yourself, does what you’ve written make sense? Does it flow nicely? These sorts of things are usually picked up upon by the individual marking your work and can gain you extra marks, so it’s important to reread your work as a whole before you hand it in.

Many find it useful to double check their references and bibliography so that nothing has been missed out.

Have you given your work page numbers, and included your name? (Although obvious, many people forget to do this!)

Hopefully, with careful planning, preparation and application of the above tips, you will write great essays!

The copyright of the article How to Write a Brilliant Essay in Academic Writing is owned by Sabrina Louise Webb. Permission to republish How to Write a Brilliant Essay in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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