Top University Student Essay Writing Tips

By Nick Sanders

Throughout your time in college or university, you will need to write essays as the main bulk of your work, and having a key strategy for writing these will be imperative.

Know your research material - everyone will need to conduct research for their essays and this will affect how well they will be able to contribute to their overall understanding in the topic. You will need to make notes when reading this research material and also need to understand what you will be writing about.

Relaxing into it - you should take a breath before starting to write an essay. You probably wont hear many other people tell you this, but you should look at focusing your mind and allowing the words to flow freely onto your computer screen. So that you can focus more effectively on the different arguments within your paper, you will need to understand what the topic is about, and the relevance to the different materials that are available to you - not doing so could put your essay in danger of going off target.

Know the question - if you understand what the essay question is about and what you will need to cover, then this will make it a lot easier for you to write about it. You need to understand what is expected of you too, because submitting an essay that is over the word count or goes completely off topic wont be accepted with glee.

Know your question in-depth - simply knowing what your essay question is asking wont be enough to write an effective essay for submission, as you will also need to understand that you will need to analyse all of the information out there and understand what is expected of you. You will also need to ensure you know the different parts to the question and what key terms are used and also mean.

Set a schedule - knowing when your essay is to be handed in and when you need to have it completed by will probably put your mind at rest. You will need to establish a plan of the different things that you will be doing throughout the different parts of your essay, including the research and writing stages.

Note things down - you should make some notes of the different things that you will need to make sure that are contained in your essay, establishing the different parts of your essay will be crucial if you want to make sure that you have the different areas covered in your academic writing.

Start with a strong first sentence. Don't waste time composing a long introduction, simply state your main points clearly within your first sentence and use the rest of your essay to back yourself up.

As you're writing the essay, periodically check the question to make sure you arent rambling. Don't pad your essay with unrelated information, and make sure you arent repeating yourself.

Don't panic. If you are running out of time or things to say, remember that you can list the points you want to say and this will show that you did have the knowledge to answer the question. Don't rush, or try to ramble or cram, as this could undermine the rest of your essay. A simple one sentence conclusion emphasizing your main point should be a sufficient to sum up if you become too stuck.

Editing at the end - reading over your essay paper when you have got to the end should be completed no matter what. This is best left to the day or a few days after you have typed the last word, but should be done as you will be able to check your work for spelling and grammar errors. When you do this you will probably realise there are quite a few mistakes in your work that you didn't think were there - something that could negatively impact on your grade if the weren't rectified.

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