What to Know in Starting Your Essay

Writing an essay, paper or thesis is for many students the biggest challenge of their study.

It is often possible to stamp exam material, but write a piece of it yourself … And even for those who want to become a writer (perhaps even feel self-harm). Do not know where to start (writer’s block), take out nights to finish the essay … And nobody told you that you can have your own opinion. It can be a crazy idea to disagree with all those academics who have done research for years. These are all not crazy ideas since – with literary studies – little attention is paid to writing skills during your studies. This keeps it something elusive. It looks like a trick that you should have a tendency to. Nothing is less true. There is indeed a system in it. If you know this system, it is a question of practice. This process can be accelerated even further by targeted feedback from an expert, which is often lacking.

Why write an essay?

Frequently heard reasons for writing an essay or paper are: “because it has to”, “to get a good grade”, “to show the teacher what I know” and “to make a point”. While the first three reasons seem legitimate, an essay ultimately has one simple goal: to keep an argument. With this argument you answer a specific (research) question, demonstrate that you have studied the subject critically, present a rational argument, use an academic writing style and ensure professional design. Remember that an essay is an argument and not a summary of what you have read. So do not be tempted to show off all your freshly acquired knowledge (an essay is not a selfie), but only use knowledge that really contributes to the point you want to make.

What is an essay?

See an essay as a thought experiment. An essay takes the reader on a journey from the starting point (introduction) to the destination (conclusion). An essay punctuates a topic and answers a question on the basis of an argument. You do this by using academic arguments. These consist of three elements: a claim, a reason for this claim, and arguments and evidence to link the reason to the claim. A reasoning consists of ideas in a logical structure, while proof is information that suggests or demonstrates that these ideas are credible. For example: “A communist regime is untenable, which is demonstrated by the activities of governments to uphold it, such as censorship and the closing of national borders.”

To start!

A good start is half the work, just to name a cliché. A good essay is planned, written and edited (in this order). Work out what you want to say, write it down and make it easy to read. Sounds simple right? However, students and writers often suffer from procrastination and sometimes they need some help from an buy essays online. You secretly hope that the assignment disappears, you decide to do something more important (like the dishes) or take a short break that mysteriously gets very long. Against this, roughly two different strategies can be offered. Strategy one is for stubborn dropouts: put everything aside and agree with yourself that you will work on your essay for 20 minutes non-stop. Once you are busy you will see that this will soon be more than 20 minutes. Strategy two is for those who have a particular dislike of writing: bring writing closer to speaking. Write everything that comes to mind spontaneously and do not pay attention to writing style, spelling and punctuation. That will come later.

Answer the question

The first step in planning your essay is to answer the question. In order to do that, you first need to understand the question well (what is the scope and context?) And ultimately communicate this to the reader. You place a figurative framework around the essay. For example terms that you use are “in the context of …”, “in the light of …”, “in relation to …” The second part, answering the question, is a process that consists of creating, testing and refine the position. With this position (or ‘thesis statement’) you express one idea in a single sentence, answer the question of the essay in a direct way and do a claim that a reader can disagree with (otherwise it is not a point of view) or is it not worth it to transfer an essay).

The steps above really need to be done to start a quality essay. Hopefully this article can be useful for you.

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