General instructions for writing a strong college essay

Writing essays is a fact of college life. During your college days you will be tasked to write many papers, and these can definitely be stressful for many students as they requires reading and digesting extremely advanced knowledge, and many times you are stretched for time due to short deadlines. However, fear not, as if you follow these general directions then you will be able to write a strong college paper without all the stress most students experience.

Structure

Although you will write many different forms of papers during your college years, the structure of all of them, with the exception of dissertations, is generally the same. The structure of your writing is extremely important, perhaps as important as the content of your work. A poorly structured paper has a very low chance of being graded highly, no matter how excellent the content is. With this in mind, the structure of your work should be as follows:

  • Introduction: This is a brief overview of what your paper will consist of. Since it tells the reader of what will be discussed, many students complete the introduction as the last thing on their essays, since only after they have finished do they know how their work pans out.
  • Main body: These are the main paragraphs where you will be making your argument and/or analyzing what is required of you. Remember to include your sources to support your point and argument.
  • Conclusion: This is a brief summarization of everything you have discussed during the course of your paper. Make sure to reiterate the main talking points of your writing, to create a lasting impression of it on the reader.

More Ideas

3 Steps To Completed Paper

Plan

Planning your paper is extremely important. Without a plan you do not have a point of reference to look back on while composing your paper. A plan also helps with jotting down your ideas so you do not forget about them while writing your paper. Many students experience this wherein they have a brilliant idea in their mind to implement in their paper, but when it comes time to write they cannot remember it. A plan helps to avoid this agonizing experience. Your plan should include ideas for what you will be writing for each point/paragraph. Hence, your plan will become a condensed version of your final paper, and it will be easy for you to refer back to.

Writing Style

The style of writing that is implemented in college essays is called ‘academic writing’. This is a formal type of writing, and you should absolutely avoid the use of any informal language or colloquialisms. Your writing should also be split into small paragraphs. This is due to the fact that small paragraphs are easier to follow than large chunks of text. A common mistake among students is that they feel that their writing should include formal and advanced vocabulary. This is incorrect; just ensure that your writing is concise and the point you are trying to convey can be understood.

Editing

You are bound to make numerous typos and grammar and punctuation mistakes during the course of writing out your paper. Thus, it is pivotal that, once your have complete your work, that you go back proofread it. Handing in work that is not proofread well does not reflect well on you and hampers your chances of attaining a good score. We hope that these general instructions have made it clear to you in terms of what is expected of you to achieve a good mark in your paper. As you can see, these are all easy to follow and implement into your writing, and so are well worth the effort to do so.