Tips for Essay Writing

Decide which topic you feel most comfortable writing on and prepare a question or hypothesis that focuses on a particular area of that topic.

Once you have your essay question or main idea, you can begin your research.

Tips:

1. Try to think of at least 3 main points, discussion ideas or arguments for your essay. These can take the form of case studies (i.e. two case study discussions and an evaluation). Use these 3 points as the main focus of the body paragraphs in your essay. For example:

* Introduction – respond to your question and outline the points you are going to make * Body Paragraph 1 – Discuss your first point with evidence to back up your view * Body Paragraph 2 – Discuss your second point with evidence to back up your view * Body Paragraph 3 – Discuss your third point with evidence to back up your view * Conclusion – restate your position and remind the reader of your points. End with a strong concluding sentence.

2. For best results, try to write a detailed plan. Remember, the more work you put into the plan, the easier it will be to write the essay.

3. The introduction should tell the reader what you’re going to write about (the topic) and what you are going to say about it. Save the detail for the body paragraphs.

4. Your body paragraphs should match up with your essay introduction. If you do something different from what you said you’d do in the introduction, the reader will be confused, and you will weaken your case.

5. Keep each paragraph to one main idea only. Every sentence in the paragraph should – in some way – relate to that idea. If they don’t, they shouldn’t be there.

6. Each paragraph needs to have a topic sentence which summarise this one idea. The topic sentence tells the reader what the paragraph is about. All other sentences in the paragraph relate in some way to the