by The Oley School

Created on: July 13, 2008

Oh no! You have to write that big paper for school! You're dreading it. Your afraid it will take forever, you're not sure how to start. What if you fail? Most students experience anxiety when writing formal papers. As a professional English and essay writing tutor, I would like to offer some tips to help you make the most of your essay writing.

Believe it or not, I never really knew or learned how to write an essay until my first semester of college. When I started my first semester and chose college writing as one of my classes, everyone, including my advisor, told me that I should wait at least until the second or third semester to take that class. They explained how difficult it was and cautioned me about taking it so soon. Well I took it anyway and I'm very glad I did! The instructor was awesome, she knew just how to explain things so that students could understand. She used many, many real life student examples. We were given handouts with past student papers to compare and contrast. They were all corrected and had suggestions written in the margins. They were rated excellent, good, fair and poor. Using this method really helped me to understand how to write a great essay and taking this class first helped me with the papers for all of my other classes.

Every essay begins with a basic outline. Learning this outline will help you tremendously in the organization department. Now if you are like I was, those formal outlines with the roman numerals, numbers and letters scare the daylights out of you. They are very confusing and trying to remember what goes under a roman numeral, a number or a letter can be very distracting. So from this point on, throw those things out the window! (You may be required to write an outline in this fashion so make sure you don't throw it very far.) The following outline should help you with your basic essay. Keep in mind that this is just a basic outline and you will need to revise your writing several times before it achieves perfection.

Fill in the blanks to help you get started with a rough idea for your thesis statement.
I want to prove that ______________________ because (1)______________, (2)________________ and (3)________________.

A 5 paragraph essay should have an Introduction with a thesis statement, 3 body paragraphs that back up your thesis statement and a concluding paragraph.

EXAMPLE:
Paragraph 1 = INTRODUCTION AND THESIS
Include general information on your topic here
THESIS STATEMENT: Cats need love, healthcare and good

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