Tips for Planning and Writing a Good Essay.

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By Babatunde Odewale (Contributing Author)

What is an essay, and what should you keep in mind when writing them? An essay is a type of work that can be defined as an intellectual or literary composition on a subject of general interest that requires the author to express their thoughts and ideas or prove a particular position. Put simply, it is a piece of writing on a particular topic. This type of work has its characteristics, structure, and tips for its preparation. It is a prevalent academic writing task and is often the first type of written assignment students are asked to do. It is usually written in prose but may also be done in verse.

Writing an essay is a challenging task. It requires a lot of time and effort, and your professor or teacher will judge the result. To avoid making mistakes that can lead to low grades, you need to know how to plan and write an essay.

The introduction should introduce the topic with the thesis statement, and the body should provide evidence to support the thesis statement to convince the reader that it is true. The conclusion should summarize what has been said and restate the main points of your argument.

General tips for planning and writing a good essay.

The first step in planning an essay is to decide what you want to write about. You should have a general idea of what your essay will be about and make sure that your thoughts are organized in a logical order. Once you have chosen your topic, you should think about the structure of your essay. When structuring your ideas into an argument, start with the main point or thesis statement, then build up to that point with supporting facts. There are three common ways to organize a paper: chronological order, cause and effect, and compare-and-contrast. Most essays typically have an introduction, body, and conclusion, but whatever its structure your argument must be clear and easy to follow. It is important to remember that essays are not just opinion pieces; they are arguments. You need to convince your readers of something, so you need evidence and facts to back up your points.

1. Choose a topic that interests you, or if you cannot choose your topic, read the instructions given by your professor or teacher carefully and follow those. This includes finding out what kind of essay you are supposed to do: persuasive, analytical, or argumentative
2. Start with an exciting introduction and set the tone for the rest of your paper. Make sure to have a strong thesis statement in your introduction.
3. Make sure to have a clear outline of the points you will make in your essay; this will help you stay on topic and organize your paper.
4. Write a reasonable conclusion that wraps up what you have said in the paper and leaves the reader thinking about it. The conclusion summarizes everything that has happened so far and presents the reader with a final thought on what this means for them or society as a whole.
5. Make sure your essay is of the appropriate length (do not go too far below or above the required length).

You should also know that there are many different types of essays written about any given topic. For example, there are narrative essays, persuasive essays, argumentative essays, etc. The kind of essay chosen will depend on the purpose of the writing assignment and the audience being targeted by it.

Different Types of Essays

• Descriptive essay

A descriptive essay provides a detailed description of your topic. It can be about a person, place, thing, or event. It is typically written in an informal style to introduce a topic, creating an impression in the reader’s mind through vivid details, using an expression that is appealing to all readers, and sentimentally describing difficulties. Although the descriptive essay gives you a more creative approach to writing without limiting your imagination, it would be best to stay close to the topic. When writing a descriptive essay, you are free to describe the subject matter most unusually creatively. It should, however, have a quick introduction, a complete description, and an executive summary that gives readers an understanding.

• Narrative essay

A narrative essay tells a story and is usually a personal essay created to share a meaningful experience. This type of essay explored different challenges that writing might have overcome, which makes it so appealing. As a writer, in a narrative essay, you walk readers through a story without proving any points. However, the personal narrative must include a moral aspect so that readers can derive useful information from it. By writing a narrative essay, the writer learns to express their emotions and feelings creatively. A narrative essay is informative, written in the first person, shares personal experience, is conversational, and presents people and events in sequential order.

• Persuasive/ Argumentative essay

A persuasive essay, also known as an argumentative essay, attempts to persuade the reader to adopt a viewpoint or take a position on a topic. A persuasive essay should incorporate supporting information and facts to back up a statement and connect with readers to support an argument or cause. This type of writing tests your ability to research and present your views on the topic. It will be essential to refer to credible sources. Otherwise, the reader will doubt the argument presented in the essay. To establish a firm position in the reader, you need to write a persuasive essay with specific characteristics in mind. These include a clear tone of voice, providing accurate information, focusing on facts and statistics, conveying information from a reader’s point of view, and having a debatable topic that prompts the discussion.

• Explanatory essay

An explanatory essay is a concentrated text that neutrally explains something. The main objective is to analyze a subject without deciding. It demonstrates the writer’s knowledge or expertise in a specific field and requires them to explain complicated information in a simple and easy-to-understand approach.

It is a short essay usually written on a single page. It is like an analytical essay where you explain a piece of literature, a book, a play, a poem, or a novel. In writing an explanatory essay, writers should focus only on a specific part of the text and explain it in their language.

Explanatory essays should offer analysis based on data. Therefore, when writing this type of essay, use a neutral tone and present the ideas properly. The most common characteristic of an explanatory essay is to convey information precisely, be specific, follow the sequence of events, and inform the reader without describing subjective opinions.

The structure of the explanatory essay includes an introduction with a thesis statement presenting background information, body paragraphs explaining the facts, and a conclusion that summarizes the main points.

• Critical Essay

A critical essay analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, and techniques of someone’s work. These essays begin with a summary of the main points of the text, film, artwork, etc., followed by an analysis of the meaning of the work. Next, the writer should indicate how successful the creator/author of the original work was in achieving their goal.

• Compare/ Contrast Essay

This essay is about the similarities and differences between two things. It could analyze both similarities and differences or focus on similarities or differences.

A contrast essay is an essay that focuses only on differences. (Examples: discussing the differences between leadership and management, the difference between efficiency and effectiveness, etc.)

A comparison essay is an essay that focuses only on similarities. (Examples: discuss similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, discuss similarities between cane and bamboo, etc.)

• Cause/ Effect essay

The cause-and-effect essay explains why things are the way they are, how they happened, and what will happen next. When writing this type of essay, the writer should create a logical relationship between the two sets of events and explain what event characteristics made the subsequent incidents.

There are two ways to write this type of essay. First, you can link cause and effect together, and second, cause and effect can be written separately. The essay is a bit like an explanatory essay. After carefully reading the topic and narrowing down all the possible causes and consequences of a particular event, it should state facts.

Conclusion

One of the main goals of writing an essay is to get a positive evaluation or grade. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to correctly answer the question on the topic, or respond adequately to a prompt, and prepare the text following all requirements. In the contemporary world, everyone uses different sources of information, but if you follow all the simple steps above, you will see that the essay practically writes itself. All you need is to develop ideas, which is an essential part of the matter. Do not let the act of picking up a pencil and paper overwhelm you!

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