Writing an essay often seems to be a dreaded task among students.

Whether the essay is for a

scholarship, a class, or maybe even a contest, many students often find the task overwhelming.
While an essay is a large project, there are many steps a student can take that will help break
down the task into manageable parts. Following this process is the easiest way to draft a
successful essay, whatever its purpose might be. According to Kathy Livingston’s Guide to
Writing a Basic Essay, there are seven steps to writing a successful essay: 1. Pick a topic. You
may have your topic assigned, or you may be given free reign to write on the subject of your
choice. If you are given the topic, you should think about the type of paper that you want to
produce. Should it be a general overview of the subject or a specific analysis? Narrow your
focus if necessary. If you have not been assigned a topic, you have a little more work to do.
However, this opportunity also gives you the advantage to choose a subject that is interesting or
relevant to you. First, define your purpose. Is your essay to inform or persuade? Once you have
determined the purpose, you will need to do some research on topics that you find intriguing.
Think about your life. What is it that interests you? Jot these subjects down. Finally, evaluate
your options. If your goal is to educate, choose a subject that you have already studied. If your
goal is to persuade, choose a subject that you are passionate about. Whatever the mission of
the essay, make sure that you are interested in your topic. 2. Prepare an outline or diagram of
your ideas. In order to write a successful essay, you must organize your thoughts. By taking
what’s already in your head and putting it to paper, you are able to see connections and links
between ideas more clearly. This structure serves as a foundation for your paper. Use either an
outline or a diagram to jot down your ideas and organize them. To create a diagram, write your
topic in the middle of your page. Draw three to five lines branching off from this topic and write
down your main ideas at the ends of these lines. Draw more lines off these main ideas and
include any thoughts you may have on these ideas. If you prefer to create an outline, write your
topic at the top of the page. From there, begin to list your main ideas, leaving space under each
one. In this space, make sure to list other smaller ideas that relate to each main idea. Doing this
will allow you to see connections and will help you to write a more organized essay. 3. Write
your thesis statement. Now that you have chosen a topic and sorted your ideas into relevant
categories, you must create a thesis statement. Your thesis statement tells the reader the point
of your essay. Look at your outline or diagram. What are the main ideas? Your thesis statement
will have two parts. The first part states the topic, and the second part states the point of the
essay. For instance, if you were writing about Bill Clinton and his impact on the United States,
an appropriate thesis statement would be, “Bill Clinton has impacted the future of our country
through his two consecutive terms as United States President.” Another example of a thesis
statement is this one for the “Winning Characteristics” Scholarship essay: “During my high
school career, I have exhibited several of the “Winning Characteristics,” including
Communication Skills, Leadership Skills and Organization Skills, through my involvement in
Student Government, National Honor Society, and a part-time job at Macy’s Department Store.”
4. Write the body. The body of your essay argues, explains or describes your topic. Each main
idea that you wrote in your diagram or outline will become a separate section within the body of
your essay. Each body paragraph will have the same basic structure. Begin by writing one of
your main ideas as the introductory sentence. Next, write each of your supporting ideas in
sentence format, but leave three or four lines in between each point to come back and give
detailed examples to back up your position. Fill in these spaces with relative information that will
help link smaller ideas together. 5. Write the introduction. Now that you have developed your
thesis and the overall body of your essay, you must write an introduction. The introduction
should attract the reader’s attention and show the focus of your essay. Begin with an attention
grabber. You can use shocking information, dialogue, a story, a quote, or a simple summary of
your topic. Whichever angle you choose, make sure that it ties in with your thesis statement,
which will be included as the last sentence of your introduction. 6. Write the conclusion. The
conclusion brings closure of the topic and sums up your overall ideas while providing a final
perspective on your topic. Your conclusion should consist of three to five strong sentences.
Simply review your main points and provide reinforcement of your thesis. 7. Add the finishing
touches. After writing your conclusion, you might think that you have completed your essay.
Wrong. Before you consider this a finished work, you must pay attention to all the small details.
Check the order of your paragraphs. Your strongest points should be the first and last
paragraphs within the body, with the others falling in the middle. Also, make sure that your
paragraph order makes sense. If your essay is describing a process, such as how to make a
great chocolate cake, make sure that your paragraphs fall in the correct order. Review the
instructions for your essay, if applicable. Many teachers and scholarship forms follow different
formats, and you must double check instructions to ensure that your essay is in the desired
format. Finally, review what you have written. Reread your paper and check to see if it makes
sense. Make sure that sentence flow is smooth and add phrases to help connect thoughts or
ideas. Check your essay for grammar and spelling mistakes.

How to Write an Essay

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Essays are common in elementary, middle, high school and college, and you may even need to write
essays in the business world (although they are usually called "reports" at that point). An essay is
defined as "a short piece of writing that expresses information as well as the writer's opinion."

Writing
For some, writing an essay is as simple as sitting down at their computer and beginning to type, but a
lot more planning goes into writing an essay successfully. If you have never written an essay before,
or if you struggle with writing and want to improve your skills, it is a good idea to go through several
steps in the essay writing process.
For example, to write an essay, you should generally:
 Decide what kind of essay to write.
 Brainstorm your topic.
 Do research.
 Develop a thesis.
 Outline your essay.
 Write your essay.
 Edit your writing to check spelling and grammar.
While this sounds like a lot of steps to write a simple essay, if you follow them you will be able to
write more successful, clear and cohesive essays.
Kinds of Essays
The first step to writing an essay is to decide what kind of essay to write. There are several main
structures into which essays can be grouped:
 Narrative Essays: Tell a story or impart information about your subject in a straightforward,
orderly manner.
 Descriptive Essays: Focus on the details of what is going on. For example, if you want to write a
descriptive essay about your trip to the park, you would give great detail about what you
experienced: how the grass felt beneath your feet, what the park benches looked like, and
anything else the reader would need to feel as if he were there.
 Persuasive Essay: Convince the reader of some point of view.
 Comparative Essay: Compare two or more different things.
 Expository Essay: Explain to the reader how to do a given process. You could, for example,
write an expository essay with step-by-step instructions on how to make a peanut butter
sandwich.
Knowing what kind of essay you are trying to write can help you decide on a topic and structure your
essay in the best way possible.

Brainstorming
You cannot write an essay unless you have an idea of what to write about. Brainstorming is the
process in which you come up with the essay topic. You need to simply sit and think of ideas during
this phase.
 Write down everything that comes to mind as you can always narrow those topics down later.
 You could also use clustering or mind mapping to brainstorm and come up with an essay idea.
This involves writing your topic or idea in the center of the paper and creating bubbles (clouds
or clusters) of related ideas around it. This can be a great way to develop a topic more deeply
and to recognize connections between various facets of your topic.
Once you have a list of possible topics, it's time to choose the best one that will answer the question
posed for your essay. You want to choose a topic that is neither too broad nor too narrow.
 If you are given an assignment to write a one page essay, it would be far too much to write about
"the history of the US" since that could fill entire books.
 Instead, you could write about a very specific event within the history of the United States:
perhaps signing the Declaration of Independence or when Columbus discovered the U.S.
Choose the best topic from among them and begin moving forward on writing your essay.

Research
Once you have done your brainstorming and chosen your topic, you may need to do some research to
write a good essay. Go to the library or look on the Internet for information about your topic.
Interview people who might be experts in the subject. Keep your research organized so it will be easy
for you to refer back to, and easy for you to cite your sources when writing your final essay.

Developing a Thesis
Your thesis is the main point of your essay. It is essentially one sentence that says what the essay is
about. For example, your thesis might be "Dogs are descended from wolves." You can then use this
as the basic premise to write your entire essay, and all of the different points throughout need to lead
back to this one main thesis. The thesis will usually be used in your introductory paragraph.
The thesis should be broad enough that you have enough to say about it, but not so broad that you
can't be thorough.

Outlining Your Essay

The next step is to outline what you are going to write about. This means you want to essentially
draw the skeleton of your paper. Writing an outline can help to ensure your paper is logical, well
organized and flows properly.
Start by writing the thesis at the top and then write a topic sentence for each paragraph below. This
means you should know exactly what each of your paragraphs are going to be about before you write
them.
 Don't jumble too many ideas in each paragraph or the reader may become confused.
 You also want to ensure you have transitions between paragraphs so the reader understands how
the paper flows from one idea to the next.
Fill in facts from your research under each paragraph which you want to write about when you write
the essay. Make sure each paragraph ties back in to your thesis and creates a cohesive,
understandable essay.

Write and Edit

Once you have an outline, its time to start writing. Write from the outline itself, fleshing out your
basic skeleton to create a whole, cohesive and clear essay.
You will want to edit and re-read your essay, checking to make sure it sounds exactly the way you
want it to. You want to:
 Revise for clarity, consistency and structure.
 Make sure everything flows together.
 Support your thesis adequately with the information in your paragraphs.
 Make sure you have a strong introduction and conclusion so the reader comes away knowing
exactly what your paper was about.
 Revise for technical errors.
 Check for grammar problems, punctuation and spelling errors. You cannot always count on spell
check to recognize every spelling error as sometimes you can spell a word incorrectly but your
misspelling will also be a word, such as spelling from as form.
A lot goes in to writing a successful essay; fortunately, these tips for writing essays can help you
along the way and get you on the path to a well-written essay.