Developing competent writing skills and learning to effectively express yourself is an important part of your educational career. Writing an essay or preparing for an essay exam may seem like a daunting task. A strong, effective essay shows a clear understanding of a topic and makes a firm, supportive case for your ideas. Knowing how to write a strong essay using basic, key ideas can make the difference between a persuasive, powerful essay and a weak, borderline or even mediocre essay.

Introduction

Your thesis statement sets forth the key idea or ideas in your essay. The thesis statement should support or refute the main idea – or prompt – set forth in the essay instructions. You should not simply repeat the prompt provided in the instructions. In structuring your thesis statement, use clear, active language that lets the reader immediately know the stance you plan to take in the rest of your essay. You must be able to say whether you agree, disagree or only partly agree with the prompt given in the instructions.

Brainstorm

Brainstorming and free associating can help you come up with ideas to support your thesis statement. After writing your thesis statement, take time to organize your thoughts. Jot down any ideas that come to mind regarding possible supporting statements for your thesis. You need to be able to back up your argument in a clear, well-organized manner. Write down whatever ideas come to mind – you don’t need to use them all, but it’s helpful to have a list of ideas to refer to when writing the body of your essay. At this point, you may also wish to come up with an outline to guide you during the rest of your essay, such as including specific ideas for the body paragraphs.

Support Your Thesis

The body of your essay provides support for your thesis statement. Based on the topic, you may choose to have two or more paragraphs. Each paragraph must begin with a topic statement that clearly defines your standpoint and what you will be discussing in that paragraph. In “CliffsAP English Language and Composition,” author Barbara V. Swovelin states that you must be able to provide relevant information to support your thesis and somehow connect your ideas to the thesis statement. Use examples from the prompt if necessary.

Conclusion

Having a strong conclusion ties your ideas together in a coherent manner and can help to confirm your main argument. Your conclusion should restate your main argument. The College Board states that your conclusion should “summarize and make sense of the evidence you presented in the body.” The conclusion acts as the exit point from your essay where you reflect on the information you presented in your introduction.

With the application pool for entrance into a top-rated school becoming more and more competitive, it is important to make your application stand out above all others. After you narrow down your list of colleges that you wish to attend, it is time to think deeply about both the colleges themselves and yourself. Your personal essay is the part of the application where you get to put your own personal stamp on it. Obviously, grades, extracurricular activities, and test scores are vital in the admissions process, but colleges weigh your essay and recommendations with equal importance, especially when comparing candidates whose other qualifications are very similar.

The prospect of writing such an important essay on an often vague topic (e.g. Tell us why you should be accepted into our university) can initially seem incredibly intimidating. However, with a little bit of thought and a basic formula, you will easily be able to write a top-notch essay that will be instrumental towards getting you into your top schools.

The most important aspect of the college entrance essay is making sure that, if the question includes several different parts, you ensure each and every one. Though some parts of the question might be harder to right about or seem less relevant to your life than others, admissions officers are looking to see if you can follow simple directions.

Additionally, a question with multiple parts will make your life that much easier as you will already have a basic outline for your essay. If the question is vague, and simply asks you to talk about yourself, it is important to create you own outline before writing. A good college entrance essay will include aspects about your past (like your background and any particular experiences that have shaped you), your present (what you are focusing on in school now, your extracurricular or volunteer activities, etc), and your future (why do want to attend the school you are applying to, what programs available are you particularly interested in, and where do you see yourself in the future).

Always keep a positive attitude about yourself and your experiences in your essay. If something negative in your life happened that you deem noteworthy, do not focus on how bad the event was, but instead try to elaborate on how the experience made you a better person and prepared you for the rest of your life.

Though the college entrance essay can seem intimidating at first, a little bit of thought and preparation will help you write a perfect essay and get you into the school of your choice.

Effective essay writing is critical for a student to achieve academic success. It demonstrates to the professor that a student has a comprehensive understanding of the topic, good critical thinking skills and the ability to convey it all in writing. While tackling an essay assignment may seem like a difficult task, heeding a few tips and practicing the craft frequently will result in improved results.

Start Early

Don’t wait until the last minute before you begin writing your essay. Avoid the pitfalls of procrastination by getting started early and setting a schedule that gives you sufficient time for finishing before the due date. This way, if you run into unexpected issues in the course of writing your essay, or if you decide to change topics, you have enough time to get it done. Additionally, when you rush through the writing, the quality of your writing tends to decline.

Expect to Rewrite

Don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the little aspects of your essay on the first draft. The primary purpose of a rough draft is getting your ideas down on paper in raw form. Once you have accomplished this, go back and make corrections to your work repeatedly until you feel it’s a finished product. Remember that even the most gifted writers write multiple drafts before unveiling the end result. This will help take the pressure off as you first start your essay, lessening your desire to procrastinate.

Avoid Using Overly Technical Language

Experts in every industry typically understand their specialization so well that they have their own language, or jargon. Even if you find yourself becoming familiar with this language over the course of your research, avoid inserting unnecessary jargon into your essay. Depending on your assignment, you may be writing for a general audience that is learning about your topic as you present it. If you are giving readers just an overview of what you learned, throwing in technical terms may be inappropriate.

Don’t Plagiarize

Carefully organize all your research and give proper credit to your sources whenever it is appropriate to do so. Even if you aren’t using direct quotations, paraphrases and summaries require citations as well. Unless you are writing down an original thought or common knowledge, acknowledge the source you got the information from. Bear in mind that plagiarism is not only committed with the intent to steal the work of others; failing to give credit due to careless citation is no excuse.