How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 4. Finalise the Essay Plan.

This article is part of the series ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: The Six Steps to Academic Essay Writing’. One article in this series will be published on the Elite Editing blog each day this week. You can also access them through the Elite Editing website at http://www.eliteediting.com.au/

What should be finished before I start writing?

In Step 2 of the essay writing process, you would have drafted a rough essay plan before you began your research. During the research process (as explained in Step 3), you would have developed this plan further as you learned more information on your topic.

The first draft of your essay plan may have looked like this:

Introduction (150 words)
1) Thesis statement: Through an examination of the evidence, it is clear that Critical Thinking is highly relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse for a number of reasons.
2) Introduce main points or topics to be discussed: accuracy of diagnoses, patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, communication

Topic 1: Accuracy of diagnoses (300 words)
Topic 2: Patient outcomes (300 words)
Topic 3: Prevent and solve problems (300 words)
Topic 4: Communication (300 words)

Conclusion (150 words)
1) Concluding statement: Thus, it can be seen that the concept of Critical Thinking is invaluable and highly relevant to Registered Nurses.
2) Sum up main points or topics that have been discussed: accuracy of diagnoses, patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, communication

However, as you were collecting, organisation and analysing information in your research document, you may have found that Topic 2: Patient outcomes and Topic 3: Prevent and solve problems were far more important than you thought. You might have decided that Topic 4: Communication is not something that should be discussed in the essay. Importantly, you would also have found out what information or points needed to be discussed under each of your topics. All of these changes would have affected your essay plan, and you would have made these changes to your essay plan (and the organisation of your research document) as you went along.

Once you have completed your research, and before you begin writing your first draft, you need to re-think your essay plan and write a final version based on what you discovered during your research. Your final essay plan will contain more detail than your first draft and be a very specific guide to how to write your essay. It might look like this:

Introduction (150 words)
1) Thesis statement: Through an examination of the evidence, it is clear that Critical Thinking is highly relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse for a number of reasons.
2) Introduce main points or topics to be discussed: patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, accuracy of diagnoses

Topic 1: Patient outcomes (450 words)
a) Assessment
b) Planning of care
c) Implementing care plan
d) Evaluation of care and outcomes

Topic 2: Prevent and solve problems (450 words)
a) Types of problems
b) Prevention of problems
c) Solving problems

Topic 3: Accuracy of diagnoses (300 words)
a) Problems with inaccurate diagnoses
b) How critical thinking allows improved diagnoses
c) Benefits and outcomes of accurate diagnoses

Conclusion (150 words)
1) Concluding statement: Thus, it can be seen that the concept of Critical Thinking is invaluable and highly relevant to Registered Nurses.
2) Sum up main points or topics that have been discussed: patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, accuracy of diagnoses

Once you have completed the final draft of your essay plan, you are ready to begin writing the first draft of your essay. You might like to print out the essay plan and have it sitting next to you as you write. Depending on the length of your research document, you might print that or simply have it open on your computer. Your essay plan will let you know what information from your research document needs to be included in your essay as you write.

The next article in this series is ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 5. Write the First Draft’.

This article (and the remainder in the series) has been written by Dr Lisa Lines, the Director and Head Editor of Elite Editing. If you require further assistance with essay writing or with the professional editing of your completed essay, please contact her through the Elite Editing website at www.eliteediting.com.au/contact.php

For more information on our professional essay, assignment, thesis and dissertation editing service, please visit www.eliteediting.com.au/essay-editing.php

To submit your essay assignment, thesis or dissertation for professional editing now, please visit http://www.eliteediting.com.au/submit.php

How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 2. Draft the Essay Plan

This article is part of the series ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: The Six Steps to Academic Essay Writing’. One article in this series will be published on the Elite Editing blog each day this week. You can also access them through the Elite Editing website at http://www.eliteediting.com.au
Have you ever borrowed some books to start your research and realised you did not know where to begin?

Have you ever spent time reading a great deal of information that in the end was irrelevant to the essay or assignment you were working on?

Have you ever started to write your essay and realised you had too much information on one topic, and not enough information on another topic?

If you write a first draft of your essay plan before you begin your research, you will be organised, prepared and save time.

You must write the first draft of your essay plan before you start your research. This will give your research direction and ultimately make it easier for you to write your essay. Having a plan will let you know what you need to research and how much research you need on each topic or subject that you will be writing about.

You will base this first draft of your essay plan on your essay question, and your current knowledge of your subject. It will not happen very often that you are asked to write an essay on a topic you know nothing about, since you will already be studying the subject and will normally have had one or more lectures or tutorials on the topic.

It is acceptable if your essay plan is rough or vague at this point, or if you do not have a great deal of detail. You will develop your essay plan (expanding it and including more detail) and possibly even change it as you go through the research process.

What does a first draft of an essay plan look like?

The first draft of your essay plan will show you what main topics you will discuss in your essay, how the essay will be structured, and roughly how many words you will spend on each part.

If your essay question was ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’ and you had to write 1,500 words, then your essay plan might look like this:


Essay question: ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’
Essay length: 1,500 words

Introduction (150 words)
1) Thesis statement: Through an examination of the evidence, it is clear that Critical Thinking is highly relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse for a number of reasons.
2) Introduce main points or topics to be discussed: accuracy of diagnoses, patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, communication

Topic 1: Accuracy of diagnoses (300 words)

Topic 2: Patient outcomes (300 words)

Topic 3: Prevent and solve problems (300 words)

Topic 4: Communication (300 words)

Conclusion (150 words)
1) Concluding statement: Thus, it can be seen that the concept of Critical Thinking is invaluable and highly relevant to Registered Nurses.
2) Sum up main points or topics that have been discussed: accuracy of diagnoses, patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, communication


Introductions and conclusions

As you can see from the example essay plan above, an introduction and a conclusion will normally be approximately 10% of the word count of the entire essay. (This is a general guide and does not apply to essays longer than 5,000 words).

In order to be considered a true introduction your first paragraph must do two things: 1) answer the essay question in a clear statement (this is called your thesis statement) and 2) introduce the main points your essay will make to support your argument. You cannot discuss any major points or topics in your essay if you have not introduced them in your introduction. Also, you must discuss all your main points or topics in the order that you introduce them in your introduction. This helps to maintain the flow and structure of your essay.

Similarly, in order to be considered a true conclusion your last paragraph must do two things: 1) re-state the answer to the essay question and 2) sum up the main points your essay has made to support your argument. Remember, a conclusion cannot contain any new information.

Body of the essay and topic sentences

You can find out how many words you will write in the body of your essay by taking away the number you will spend on your introduction and conclusion from the total amount. How you divide the number of words in the body of your essay between your main topics will depend on how important each topic is to your argument. How long you spend writing about each topic should reflect the importance of each topic. If all of your topics were of equal importance, you would write roughly the same amount of words on each. If one topic was more important, you would write about it first and spend longer discussing it. If one topic was less important, you would write about it last and write fewer words on it.

Using topic sentences at the beginning of each new paragraph is essential for ensuring that your essay is well organised and well structured. It also ensures that the essay flows logically and reads well. A topic sentence must do two things: 1) introduce the new topic about to be discussed and 2) shows how this new topic helps to answer the essay question or support your argument in answering the essay question.

If your essay question was ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’ and you were about to discuss the topic ‘accuracy of diagnoses’, then your topic sentence might sound like this: ‘Another way in which Critical Thinking is highly relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse is in ensuring accuracy of diagnoses’. This sentence clearly demonstrates to the reader that you are about to discuss ‘accuracy of diagnoses’ and you are doing so because it is another way that Critical Thinking is relevant to Registered Nurses, which is what your essay is arguing.

The next article in this series is: ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 3. Conduct the Research’.

This article (and the remainder in the series) has been written by Dr Lisa Lines, the Director and Head Editor of Elite Editing. If you require further assistance with essay writing or with the professional editing of your completed essay, please contact her through the Elite Editing website at http://www.eliteediting.com.au/contact.php

For more information on our professional essay, assignment, thesis and dissertation editing service, please visit http://www.eliteediting.com.au/essay-editing.php

To submit your essay assignment, thesis or dissertation for professional editing now, please visit http://www.eliteediting.com.au/submit.php

Planning the Essay

How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 2. Draft the Essay Plan
This article is part of the series ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: The Six Steps to Academic Essay Writing’. You can access the full series through the Elite Editing & Tutoring blog, at http://eliteeditingtutoring.blogspot.com, or through the Elite Editing & Tutoring website at http://www.eliteediting.com.au
Have you ever borrowed some books to start your research and realised you did not know where to begin?

Have you ever spent time reading a great deal of information that in the end was irrelevant to the essay or assignment you were working on?

Have you ever started to write your essay and realised you had too much information on one topic, and not enough information on another topic?

If you write a first draft of your essay plan before you begin your research, you will be organised, prepared and save time.

You must write the first draft of your essay plan before you start your research. This will give your research direction and ultimately make it easier for you to write your essay. Having a plan will let you know what you need to research and how much research you need on each topic or subject that you will be writing about.

You will base this first draft of your essay plan on your essay question, and your current knowledge of your subject. It will not happen very often that you are asked to write an essay on a topic you know nothing about, since you will already be studying the subject and will normally have had one or more lectures or tutorials on the topic.

It is acceptable if your essay plan is rough or vague at this point, or if you do not have a great deal of detail. You will develop your essay plan (expanding it and including more detail) and possibly even change it as you go through the research process.

What does a first draft of an essay plan look like?

The first draft of your essay plan will show you what main topics you will discuss in your essay, how the essay will be structured, and roughly how many words you will spend on each part.

If your essay question was ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’ and you had to write 1,500 words, then your essay plan might look like this:


Essay question: ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’
Essay length: 1,500 words

Introduction (150 words)
1) Thesis statement: Through an examination of the evidence, it is clear that Critical Thinking is highly relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse for a number of reasons.
2) Introduce main points or topics to be discussed: accuracy of diagnoses, patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, communication

Topic 1: Accuracy of diagnoses (300 words)

Topic 2: Patient outcomes (300 words)

Topic 3: Prevent and solve problems (300 words)

Topic 4: Communication (300 words)

Conclusion (150 words)
1) Concluding statement: Thus, it can be seen that the concept of Critical Thinking is invaluable and highly relevant to Registered Nurses.
2) Sum up main points or topics that have been discussed: accuracy of diagnoses, patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, communication


Introductions and conclusions

As you can see from the example essay plan above, an introduction and a conclusion will normally be approximately 10% of the word count of the entire essay. (This is a general guide and does not apply to essays longer than 5,000 words).

In order to be considered a true introduction your first paragraph must do two things: 1) answer the essay question in a clear statement (this is called your thesis statement) and 2) introduce the main points your essay will make to support your argument. You cannot discuss any major points or topics in your essay if you have not introduced them in your introduction. Also, you must discuss all your main points or topics in the order that you introduce them in your introduction. This helps to maintain the flow and structure of your essay.

Similarly, in order to be considered a true conclusion your last paragraph must do two things: 1) re-state the answer to the essay question and 2) sum up the main points your essay has made to support your argument. Remember, a conclusion cannot contain any new information.

Body of the essay and topic sentences

You can find out how many words you will write in the body of your essay by taking away the number you will spend on your introduction and conclusion from the total amount. How you divide the number of words in the body of your essay between your main topics will depend on how important each topic is to your argument. How long you spend writing about each topic should reflect the importance of each topic. If all of your topics were of equal importance, you would write roughly the same amount of words on each. If one topic was more important, you would write about it first and spend longer discussing it. If one topic was less important, you would write about it last and write fewer words on it.

Using topic sentences at the beginning of each new paragraph is essential for ensuring that your essay is well organised and well structured. It also ensures that the essay flows logically and reads well. A topic sentence must do two things: 1) introduce the new topic about to be discussed and 2) shows how this new topic helps to answer the essay question or support your argument in answering the essay question.

If your essay question was ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’ and you were about to discuss the topic ‘accuracy of diagnoses’, then your topic sentence might sound like this: ‘Another way in which Critical Thinking is highly relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse is in ensuring accuracy of diagnoses’. This sentence clearly demonstrates to the reader that you are about to discuss ‘accuracy of diagnoses’ and you are doing so because it is another way that Critical Thinking is relevant to Registered Nurses, which is what your essay is arguing.

The next article in this series is: ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 3. Conduct the Research’.

This article (and the remainder in the series) has been written by Dr Lisa Lines, the Director and Head Editor of Elite Editing & Tutoring. If you require further assistance with essay writing or with the professional editing of your completed essay, please contact her through the Elite Editing & Tutoring website.

How to Write an Essay Plan: An Example

Title: How to Write an Essay Plan: An Example

Before you start writing your essay, it is important that you plan it. Below is an example of what an essay plan should look like (including explanations and tips), and how much detail it should contain. You can use this as a guide for your essay plans.


Essay Question: Was the Russian Revolution a genuine revolution or was it a coup?

Word Limit: 2,000 words

Introduction (10% of word limit): 200 words

Introductions should never be longer than 500 words, so this 10% guide only applies to essays shorter than 5,000 words.

To be considered an Introduction, an Introduction must do two things:

Answer the question – It was a genuine revolution.
This must be done first. An Introduction must answer the question. This is how you put forward a strong argument.

List the evidence your essay will put forward to prove your answer – This can be seen through an examination of the sections of society which supported the revolution. workers, peasants, soldiers, national minorities. Any major topic or subject that you plan to discuss in your essay must be introduced in the Introduction.

Body of the Essay: 400 words each

How long you spend writing about each subject should reflect the importance of each subject. If all four topics are of equal importance, write roughly the same amount of words on each. If a topic is more important, write about it first and write more words on it. If a topic is less important, write about it last and write fewer words on it.

Topic 1: workers

Topic 2: peasants

Topic 3: soldiers

Topic 4: national minorities

Conclusion (10% of word limit): 200 words
Conclusions should never be longer than 500 words, so this 10% guide only applies to essays shorter than 5,000 words.

To be considered a Conclusion, a Conclusion must do two things:

Answer the essay question again (using different words than in the Introduction, don’t repeat yourself exactly) – It was a genuine revolution.

Recap (repeat, summaries) all the evidence you have given to prove your answer during your essay– workers, peasants, soldiers, national minorities

A conclusion must not contain any new information, you are only summarising what you have already written.

Writing Essays Well: Introductions, Thesis Statements and Topic Sentences

Writing Essays Well: Introductions, Thesis Statements and Topic Sentences


Introductions

In order for the first paragraph of an essay to actually be a proper introduction (in other words, for it to fulfill the requirements of a proper introduction), it must do two things. These two things are:

1) Include a thesis statement.
2) Provide a preview or essay plan for the essay.

So what do these two things mean?

1) A thesis statement is the sentence (or sometimes sentences) that tells the reader what the position of the author is. When you are given an essay question, the thesis statement is your clear and concise answer to the question. For example, if an essay question was ‘What were the causes of the Holocaust in World War II?’ then your thesis statement would be something like ‘There were many complicated and inter-related causes for the Holocaust, including the economy of Germany, the ideology of the fascists, and Hitler’s personal racism.’

A ‘thesis’ is an ‘argument’, so the thesis statement indicates what the argument of the essay is, or what argument (or point of view) the author of the essay will be putting across to readers.

2) An introduction must introduce all the main points that the essay will discuss. Argumentative essays must provide evidence in order to back up or support the thesis statement. This means you have to provide proof to back up your answer to the essay question. So if your essay is on the causes of the Holocaust, and your essay is going to discuss six main causes (two paragraphs on each), then your introduction must list (or introduce) each of these six main causes. So an essay map or preview is just a list of topics that your essay will discuss. Usually this list is linked to your thesis statement, or comes straight after it.


Topic Sentences

When writing an essay, you must use ‘topic sentences’. These are sentences that go at the beginning of each paragraph in which you are about to discuss a new topic. So in the example we have been looking at of the Holocaust essay, I mentioned that the essay will discuss six reasons for the Holocaust and each reason will have two paragraphs. So that means that every second paragraph would use a ‘topic sentence’ since it would be moving on to discuss another reason for the Holocaust. Here are some examples of topic sentences for the example essay:

‘The most significant cause for the Holocaust is the economic state of Germany.’
‘Another reason why the Holocaust occurred is due to Hitler’s personal views.’

These sentences let the reader know what the paragraph will discuss (what the next point to be discussed in the essay is) and also relate the paragraph back to the introduction. This gives the essay a nice flow, and shows that it has been well organised.

So, you can tell what the topic of the first body paragraph is by reading the topic sentence, which is the first sentence in the paragraph.


Concluding Sentences

A concluding sentence goes at the end of a paragraph or topic, and sums up for the readers what has just been discussed and relates it back to the question.

So if you had used the topic sentence ‘The most significant cause for the Holocaust is the economic state of Germany’ and then written a paragraph or several paragraphs discussing this topic, a concluding sentence could be: ‘Thus it can be seen that the economic state of Germany was the most important cause for the Holocaust.’

Topic sentences and concluding sentences go before and after your paragraphs like a sandwich, leading the reader through your essay.

Essay Editing

This week we were planning on adding the next article in the series: 'How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 3. Conduct the Research'.

However, there is a problem! Not enough students are following our blog at the moment.

These articles on the six steps to academic writing are very important for students learning how to improve their work. So we don't want to post the next one until more students will receive it!

If you are currently following this blog, please recommend it to your friends. Tell them to visit this website, http://www.eliteeditingtutoring.blogspot.com and sign up to be a follower.

Hopefully, by next week more students will have signed up to receive this free help from Elite Editing & Tutoring and we will post our next article.

In the meantime, you can always visit http://www.eliteediting.com.au to use our professional editing service.

Our PhD qualified editors will edit your essay, assignment, thesis or dissertation to help you improve your grades or finish your postgraduate degree! Contact us today for more information.

How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 2. Draft the Essay Plan

How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 2. Draft the Essay Plan

This article is part of the series ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: The Six Steps to Academic Essay Writing’. One article in this series will be published on the Elite Editing & Tutoring blog each week. You can also access them through the Elite Editing & Tutoring website at http://www.eliteediting.com.au/

Have you ever borrowed some books to start your research and realised you did not know where to begin?

Have you ever spent time reading a great deal of information that in the end was irrelevant to the essay or assignment you were working on?

Have you ever started to write your essay and realised you had too much information on one topic, and not enough information on another topic?

If you write a first draft of your essay plan before you begin your research, you will be organised, prepared and save time.

You must write the first draft of your essay plan before you start your research. This will give your research direction and ultimately make it easier for you to write your essay. Having a plan will let you know what you need to research and how much research you need on each topic or subject that you will be writing about.

You will base this first draft of your essay plan on your essay question, and your current knowledge of your subject. It will not happen very often that you are asked to write an essay on a topic you know nothing about, since you will already be studying the subject and will normally have had one or more lectures or tutorials on the topic.

It is acceptable if your essay plan is rough or vague at this point, or if you do not have a great deal of detail. You will develop your essay plan (expanding it and including more detail) and possibly even change it as you go through the research process.

What does a first draft of an essay plan look like?

The first draft of your essay plan will show you what main topics you will discuss in your essay, how the essay will be structured, and roughly how many words you will spend on each part.

If your essay question was ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’ and you had to write 1,500 words, then your essay plan might look like this:


Essay question: ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’
Essay length: 1,500 words

Introduction (150 words)
1) Thesis statement: Through an examination of the evidence, it is clear that Critical Thinking is highly relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse for a number of reasons.
2) Introduce main points or topics to be discussed: accuracy of diagnoses, patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, communication

Topic 1: Accuracy of diagnoses (300 words)

Topic 2: Patient outcomes (300 words)

Topic 3: Prevent and solve problems (300 words)

Topic 4: Communication (300 words)

Conclusion (150 words)
1) Concluding statement: Thus, it can be seen that the concept of Critical Thinking is invaluable and highly relevant to Registered Nurses.
2) Sum up main points or topics that have been discussed: accuracy of diagnoses, patient outcomes, prevent and solve problems, communication


Introductions and conclusions

As you can see from the example essay plan above, an introduction and a conclusion will normally be approximately 10% of the word count of the entire essay. (This is a general guide and does not apply to essays longer than 5,000 words).

In order to be considered a true introduction your first paragraph must do two things: 1) answer the essay question in a clear statement (this is called your thesis statement) and 2) introduce the main points your essay will make to support your argument. You cannot discuss any major points or topics in your essay if you have not introduced them in your introduction. Also, you must discuss all your main points or topics in the order that you introduce them in your introduction. This helps to maintain the flow and structure of your essay.

Similarly, in order to be considered a true conclusion your last paragraph must do two things: 1) re-state the answer to the essay question and 2) sum up the main points your essay has made to support your argument. Remember, a conclusion cannot contain any new information.

Body of the essay and topic sentences

You can find out how many words you will write in the body of your essay by taking away the number you will spend on your introduction and conclusion from the total amount. How you divide the number of words in the body of your essay between your main topics will depend on how important each topic is to your argument. How long you spend writing about each topic should reflect the importance of each topic. If all of your topics were of equal importance, you would write roughly the same amount of words on each. If one topic was more important, you would write about it first and spend longer discussing it. If one topic was less important, you would write about it last and write fewer words on it.

Using topic sentences at the beginning of each new paragraph is essential for ensuring that your essay is well organised and well structured. It also ensures that the essay flows logically and reads well. A topic sentence must do two things: 1) introduce the new topic about to be discussed and 2) shows how this new topic helps to answer the essay question or support your argument in answering the essay question.

If your essay question was ‘Is Critical Thinking relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse?’ and you were about to discuss the topic ‘accuracy of diagnoses’, then your topic sentence might sound like this: ‘Another way in which Critical Thinking is highly relevant to the role of a Registered Nurse is in ensuring accuracy of diagnoses’. This sentence clearly demonstrates to the reader that you are about to discuss ‘accuracy of diagnoses’ and you are doing so because it is another way that Critical Thinking is relevant to Registered Nurses, which is what your essay is arguing.

The next article in this series is: ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 3. Conduct the Research’. If you can’t wait a week for this article, please contact Elite Editing & Tutoring.

This article (and the remainder in the series) has been written by Dr Lisa Lines, the Director and Head Editor of Elite Editing & Tutoring. If you require further assistance with essay writing or with the professional editing of your completed essay, please contact her through the Elite Editing & Tutoring website at http://www.eliteediting.com.au/contact.php

For more information on our professional essay, assignment, thesis and dissertation editing service, please visit http://www.eliteediting.com.au/essay-editing.php

To submit your essay assignment, thesis or dissertation for professional editing now, please visit http://www.eliteediting.com.au/submit.php

How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: The Six Steps to Academic Essay Writing

How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time!

The Six Steps to Academic Essay Writing

There are six steps to writing an academic essay. If you follow each of these steps correctly, you will find that you can write university essays that will earn you a distinction (or high distinction) every time. It is simply a matter of understanding what steps to follow, and then completing each of them thoroughly.

This article provides an outline and brief description of each of these steps. It is an introduction to a series of articles that will examine each step in more depth. Reading just this article alone will provide you with assistance in learning how to plan, research and write your essays. However, reading all the articles in the series will allow you to gain a more sophisticated insight into essay writing, and to improve your grades even further.

One article in this series will be published on this each week, at http://eliteeditingtutoring.blogspot.com/. You can also access them through the Elite Editing & Tutoring website at http://www.eliteediting.com.au

These are the six steps you need to follow to write high quality university essays:


1. Analyse the Question

There are generally two types of essays: argumentative essays and explanatory essays. In an argumentative essay, you are expected to put forward an academic argument in answer to the essay question and support your argument with academic sources (references). In an explanatory essay, you are expected to explain or describe a process or topic in answer to an essay question and support your argument with academic sources (references). Regardless of the type of essay you are writing, it is very important that you understand what is being asked of you before you begin your research and writing your essay.

You must be sure that you understand all parts of the question and what it is asking you to do. You must be able to recognise the ‘task words’ in the question, which tell you what you have to do (for example, ‘discuss’, ‘compare’, ‘analyse’ or ‘argue’) and the ‘key words’ in the question, which tell you what you are being asked to write about (for example, Critical Thinking, or the roles of registered nurses). (More information on this step will be provided in the article ‘How to Write Distinction Essays Every Time: Step 1. Analyse the Question.’)

2. Draft the Essay Plan

You must write the first draft of your essay plan before you start your research. This will give your research direction and ultimately make it easier for you to write your essay. Having a plan will let you know what you need to research and how much research you need on each topic or subject that you will be writing about.

You will base this first draft of your essay plan on your essay question, and your current knowledge of your subject. It will not happen very often that you are asked to write an essay on a topic you know nothing about, since you will already be studying the subject and will normally have had one or more lectures or tutorials on the topic.

It is acceptable if your essay plan is rough or vague at this point, or if you do not have a great deal of detail. You will develop your essay plan (expanding it and including more detail) and possibly even change it as you go through the research process.

3. Conduct the Research

Part One: Organising your Research using a Research Document

Your research should be organised so that the transition from doing your research to writing your essay is simple. The best way to do this is to organise your research so that it matches the organisation of the essay. In Step 2 of writing an academic essay, you would have written a rough essay plan before you began your research. This essay plan is the guide you need to use to organise your research.

Copy and paste this essay plan into a Word document. All your research for this essay will be recorded in this one document. Use each of the dot points from your essay plan (topics you are planning to discuss) as a heading in your research document. When you do your research, you will organise it in the order that the information will appear in your essay. Doing this means you will be organising your research by theme or topic, not by source.

Part Two: Research Skills and Academic Sources

Being able to tell the difference between an academic source and a non-academic source, knowing where to find academic sources and deciding what sources are relevant to your research are important skills that you will develop during your tertiary studies.

The first place you should go is the library, even if this means ordering in books from other libraries. For academics to have their books (and journal articles) published, they must go through a process called peer-reviewing. During this process, one or more other academics who are experts in the field will read and assess a book or article to decide if it is of publishable standard. This is why your research will be of the highest quality if you use books, monographs, textbooks and journal articles written by academics for your research, because the work had to meet academic standards. There is no such process for publishing on the internet; anyone can write whatever they like on any subject.

Your second stop after books, monographs and textbooks will be journal articles. Some of these will only be available in hardcopy from the library, but many will be available in their full-text versions through online electronic databases, such as JStore, ProQuest and Ingenta.

4. Finalise the Essay Plan

In Step 2, you would have drafted a rough essay plan before you began your research. During the research process (in Step 3), you would have developed this plan further as you learned more information on your topic. Once you have completed your research, and before you begin writing your first draft, you need to re-think your essay plan and write a final version based on what you discovered during your research. Your final essay plan will contain more detail than your first draft and be a very specific guide to how to write your essay. Once you have completed the final draft of your essay plan, you are ready to begin writing the first draft of your essay.

5. Write the First Draft of the Essay

Now that you have completed your research in an organised way and have written a final draft of your essay plan, writing the first draft of your essay will be easier than it ever has been. All of the following decisions about your essay have already been made:

1. What your answer to the essay question is
2. What main points you will discuss in order to back up your argument
3. The order in which to discuss your main points
4. How long to spend discussing each main point
5. What information each paragraph will contain (i.e. what information you will use to discuss each of your main points)
6. What references you will use to back up your argument

Thus, there is no reason for you to feel lost or stare at your computer screen not knowing what to write. If you do get stuck for any reason, the best thing to do is to just keep writing. You can always improve something once you have written something down. If you have not written anything, not much can be done until you do.

6. Professional Academic Editing

Once you have completed writing your essay, it is vital that you have it professionally edited by an academic editor. You have just spent a significant amount of time doing the best possible job on your essay or assignment, doing your research and writing up your results. After all this effort, it is critical that your work is presented in the best possible way. Using a professional academic editor will ensure that your work is polished, well written, and presented correctly. If English is your second language, having your essay or assignment professionally edited is even more important. You do not want mistakes in your writing to confuse your markers or distract them from the important arguments you are making. This could lead to you receiving a grade lower than the grade you really deserve.

For more information on our professional essay, assignment, thesis and dissertation editing service, please visit www.eliteediting.com.au/essay-editing.php

To submit your essay assignment, thesis or dissertation for professional editing now, please visit www.eliteediting.com.au/submit.php

This article (and the remainder in the series) has been written by Dr Lisa Lines, the Director and Head Editor of Elite Editing & Tutoring. If you require further assistance with essay writing or with the professional editing of your completed essay, please contact her through the Elite Editing & Tutoring website at http://www.eliteediting.com.au/contact.php

Stay tuned for the in-depth articles in this series, which will explain in detail each of the above six steps. Understanding and following these steps will mean a significant improvement in the quality of your essays!