One of the good things about essay writing is that it provides an opportunity for you to display your best work, outside of the pressured exam environment. That's not to say that there aren't pressures around essays but you do have the luxury of being able to research your answer and devote more time into constructing an answer that will enhance your prospects of getting a good grade.
Do your research:
It's often said that good novel writing is 80% perspiration and 20% inspiration and the same applies to good essay writing. It might sometimes be tedious but the single biggest secret to getting good essay marks is to have put in the hard work researching your topic. This applies whether it's a university thesis or a high school mid term that you are facing.
A useful tip for research is to use more than one reference source. Not only will this give you a broader range of opinions and facts on your subject matter but it will also look good when the person marking your essay sees that you have gone beyond the basic study textbook. Time constraints will limit the amount of sources that you can consult but, in most cases, you can get a good feel for a topic by checking out two or three different reference texts.
Students often have access to a computer which means that information is at your fingertips instantly. However, it's important to be aware of the limitations of some online information. For example, whilst Wikipedia is a great website and is probably 95% accurate, there are occasions where it contains false information. A trip to your local library can therefore be a very useful supplement to your online research, offering free access to books that have been meticulously researched.
Think before you start writing:
Having done your research, the temptation is to leap straight into the writing stage. However, if you haven't properly organised your thoughts, then this often leads to a disjointed essay that will be hard for the examiner to read and won't enable you to achieve the marks that you deserve based on your talent and the amount of research that you have done.
It's often helpful to write down a skeleton plan of the points that you want to cover off in your essay. For example, you may have an idea for an introduction to the essay and then you may want to outline two competing theories on the topic before rounding things up with your measured conclusion. Taking just a little time to organise your thoughts will often have a dramatic effect upon the results that you achieve and should also make the actual process of writing the essay a lot less stressful and tiresome.
Presentation:
People who mark essays often have a huge pile of them to go through and they may have other things that they'd like to do with their lives. Therefore, examiners often speed read essays and presentation is often at least as important as the actual content. This might seem a little harsh but we all have the ability to present our essays in a legible structured manner, so it would be foolish not to do so.
Some of the key things to cover off in terms of presentation are:
- Paragraph spacing.
- Don't have overly long paragraphs or sentences.
- Type your essay if this is possible. If not, make sure that you write as legibly as possible.
- Often, it pays to write an initial draft and then go back and produce your shiny final version.
- Avoid spelling or grammatical errors. Use your spell check facility, if using a computer.
- Use quotation marks where you are including quotes and include the reference source in brackets after the quotation.
Make your writing interesting:
I've already alluded to the fact that examiners often have a huge quantity of essays to go through. They may get a little bored of seeing the same facts and opinions regurgitated from the standard textbook and presented with a lack of panache. Therefore, if your essay can provide a fresh angle on the topic, with quotes from several sources and is written in a refreshing style, then the chances are that your essay will stand out and earn higher marks.
Beginning, middle and end:
Finally, it's worth reiterating one point relating to essay structure that you have probably heard a thousand times already. Examiners like to see essays that start with an introduction that sets the scene for the topic. They then expect the main body of the essay to appear with the writer presenting any conflicting opinions on the subject matter. Then, finally, they expect you to be able to tie the essay up with a reasoned conclusion. Essays that fail to comply with this established essay convention will almost invariably be marked down.
It might seem that there's quite a lot of work involved in producing a good essay. However, having an established and structured approach to writing your essays should actually make the process of writing less stressful. People who find essays hard often struggle because they feel overwhelmed by the prospect of having to write 1,000 words or 10,000 words, etc, on a given topic. Having a structure to your writing process will hopefully make things less scary by breaking the essay writing process down into chunks. You should also see a noticeable improvement in the marks that you get, which is always very satisfying!