Ways You Can Improve Your Essay Writing Skills

Most students find it hard to write an essay. However, they are part of your academic life, and as such they are important and inevitable. You have to practice and perfect all the basics of writing a good essay. This will help you craft a valuable and persuasive essay. You have to strive to make each essay better than the previous one. Perfecting your writing skills is a continuous process. The more you practice, the better you get at it. You can start by reading samples of other free essays such as those written for college applications or academic papers to help you become a better essay writer. The following are practical tips to help you improve on your essay writing skills.

1. Choose a Topic
Before you write anything, it is important that you pick a topic to write about. Your topic can be related to the objective you have in mind. As a student, there are many occasions where you must write essays This could be for a school paper or a project, a college application or for a scholarship. The style of an essay might be different based on the purpose of the paper, but it should always be well structured and written. When you have settled on a topic, you will need to conduct more research to find support for your ideas. Take careful notes, jot down all of your ideas and be sure to keep track of all of your references.

2. Make an Outline
It is important to create an outline for your essay before you sit down to write it. The basic structure of an essay has 3 main parts. First, there is an introduction which introduces the subject and how you will be discussing/analyzing it as well as tells the reader why it is interesting or important. Second, the main body of the essay, which is made up of several paragraphs and provides support for the thesis or ideas introduced in the introduction. Third, a conclusion that offers a short summary of what has been learned and restates why this topic matters.

3. Focus on Improving Your Vocabulary
Ensure that you are consistently building up your vocabulary. Great vocabulary will help you express yourself in a clear and concise manner. Avoid being too wordy - too many words or overly long sentences make an essay boring and harder to follow. Learning new vocabulary is a continuous process, there are new words to learn all the time. Use of advanced vocabulary makes your essay more effective and persuasive.

One of the great ways of improving your vocabulary is by reading widely. Check new words in the dictionary to understand the meaning and how to use them in a sentence. Learn more prefixes and suffixes. Good use of great vocabulary shows how intelligent you are and makes your arguments more convincing.

4. Avoid Repetition
If you want to be a great essay writer, you should avoid repeating same words and phrases throughout your work. This is quite challenging, especially if you are writing a long essay. What you need to do avoid repetition, is to replace the words or phrase with another similar word. For example, instead of using the word the first name Martin a lot of times, you can replace it with he/him. Also, you can search for alternatives words. However, avoid using unfamiliar words as you may get the usage wrong and it will look like you were blindly using a thesaurus. (If in doubt, you can also look to see the usage of word by other authors by searching for it on the internet.)

5. Read Other Peoples Essays
Reading other essays can help you greatly improve your essay writing skills. This includes looking at the essays of your peer or from authors you know to be highly regarded. You can find many great essays across the internet on virtually any topic. But do not restrict yourself in your subject, read essays on different areas. It will help you learn different styles and kinds of arguments that you can apply when writing your essays. Also, be alert when reading to highlight the strong and weak points of each writer. You can pick the best aspects of each essay and leave the rest. This will also help you find your own voice or style.

6. Always Proofread Your Work
After writing the draft copy of your essay, ensure that you have read it a couple of times before submitting. Proofreading helps you to ensure that the spelling, the format and the sentences are clear and well structured. (Try to do this with a hard copy as it is very difficult to check your work carefully on a computer screen.)

Proofreading is important aspect of your essay. It does not make sense if you are going to spend hours writing a strong essay and then submit it full of grammatical mistakes. There are many tools today that can check for grammar and help you with reviewing your work. You can also have someone else go through your essay before you submit your work. Not only can they help catch some mistakes, but the feedback can also greatly improve your writing.

To become a brilliant essay writer, you need to keep on polishing your skills. We hope that some of these tips will help you improve your essay writing ability.