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How to write an academic essay - A guide by a professional essay writer
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Hey all,
I’m Drew, a professional essay writer and a history graduate. I have 6+ years of experience writing essays full-time and thought I’d share my writing process with you in a how-to guide. This is the final part of my series of how-to guides on researching, planning and writing academic essays. It's a follow-on from the planning guide, so be sure to read that one as well!
This guide is targeted for those in the humanities and social sciences but should still be helpful across all disciplines.
- Plan. An effective and detailed plan is the foundation of any good essay. In fact, you should spend much, much more time planning an essay than writing it, so you’re left with a skeleton of your essay with all the key points and details. The writing process is about adding the substance to that skeleton with style, professionalism, and flourish. As planning is such a huge part of the writing process, it warrants its own guide, which I have written here.
- Create a time schedule. Writing an essay is a mentally and creatively exhaustive process, so you’ll want to make sure you’ve given yourself enough time to write the full thing whilst maintaining the quality you’re capable of. You should aim to write about 1000 words a day, and certainly no more than 1,500, unless you’re on a time crunch. With a good plan in place this should only take 3-4 hours per day. After you’ve done your 1000 words of the day, just relax and leave the essay alone until tomorrow. Writing effectively can only be done by conserving creative energy. You should also leave a day or two to proofread and edit after the essay is written.
- Begin writing. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But anyone who’s ever written an essay will tell you beginning is the most difficult step of the process. Blank Page Syndrome is real, folks, and if you’re not careful you’ll be trapped looking at that white desert of a page indefinitely. My recommendation is to just begin writing, no matter how terrible your opening line is. I find a good technique is to begin my essay with a boring fact – for instance, if I’m writing an essay on the history of American media, I might begin with something as dull and simple as “The media has always been a huge institution in the United States of America, but this was especially so in 1837-1850”. This statement is by all means an uninventive and poor start to an essay – but it helps me beat the blank page. You can go back and make it sound better at the editing stage.
- Write the introduction. The introduction is the most important paragraph in your essay. Without a good intro, your reader will feel lost and frustrated, unable to understand what the point of your essay is. So here’s a real easy way to write a good introduction. Firstly, give one or two sentences of context directly related to your topic. Secondly, state what your essay intends to investigate – you can literally write “This paper aims to investigate...”. Thirdly, write a sentence for each of the points your essay will make, in the order they will come in. Finally, write a sentence or two summarizing your thesis statement and what your final argument will be. It’s as easy is that. But the trick is to keep it simple. Speak directly to your reader and keep your sentences short and sweet. You can add flair and style later in the essay – the introduction is for informational purposes only.
- Write the body. The body of the essay is everything in between your introduction and conclusion. Depending on the length of the piece, you should have 1, 2, 3, or more separate points that all help argue the value and legitimacy of your thesis statement (i.e. your overall argument) in different ways. Even at University level, the old PEA (Point-Evidence-Analysis) structure works wonders, and you can use it for each of your individual points. Point: One or two sentences describing the point you wish to make in this part of the essay. Evidence: A few sentences detailing the evidence for this point (this could be sources, anecdotes, novels, etc.). Analysis: This is the crux of the essay. Analyze how this evidence you have outlined demonstrates the point you said earlier. Be creative and assertive in your points – no “it could be said” or “it may be understood as” – be confident in your critical analysis skills. For many professors, analysis is the most important part of an essay, so put lots of time into getting your point across accessibly, succinctly, and creatively.
- Conclude. So you’ve finished writing up your separate points that all argue towards the thesis statement you made in your introduction. Now it’s time to bring them all together. Conclusions are actually pretty simple. You can begin with a sentence stating what the essay set out to do (literally, you can write “This essay investigated...” – there’s no need for over-complication). Following that, briefly remind your reader of the content of your essays – a short sentence for each point and the way in which it demonstrated your thesis statement is ideal. Finally, bring all of this research together in a final sentence or two, stating what it argues and how this aids our understanding of the topic.
- Proofread and edit. Firstly, breathe. You’ve written a whole essay, and that’s no mean feat! Distract yourself and get away from your computer for a bit. Then, come back after a day or so (more, if you have the time) with fresh eyes ready to proofread and edit. Proofreading is boring but so, so important. You are looking to see if the essay is easily readable. Read it out to yourself out loud. Does it make sense in a conversational tone? No matter how difficult and complex the topic, the essay should make sense to someone with little experience in the topic. If it doesn’t, consider revising wording, sentence structuring, and grammar. Have a friend read it to themselves and give you honest feedback. Proofreading is its own beast and warrants its own how-to guide, which I’ll write up soon.
- Reference and create a bibliography. Firstly, let me make this clear: Reference as you write. Having to backtrack over your work and find where you sourced quotes, paraphrasing, sources and figures is a nightmare, and will extend your workload significantly. As you’re writing, simply bracket or footnote where you are getting the information from – it doesn’t have to be a full reference, simply an author and a page number will do. When you’ve finished your essay, scratch up on the referencing system specified by your teacher (there’s guides to them all online) and reference accurately. Bibliographies and referencing are time consuming, but doing them accurately is an easy way to gain marks (and, likewise, doing them incorrectly will easily lose you marks). Remember that services like Zotero will reference automatically for you, but you should still double-check these for accuracy.
- Proofread. Again. Before submitting your essay, read over it one last time. This time, though, don’t attempt to change major parts of the essay – be happy with what you’ve got, because over-editing is a real thing and can ruin a good essay. Simply look out for spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax issues in your essay, and fix them accordingly.
- Submit your essay. You’re done! Congratulate yourself, because every completed essay is an achievement. You probably won’t be happy with the final piece, but don’t worry – we are our own worst critics. Remember that if you’ve been diligent in your research, thorough in your planning, and careful in your writing, you stand a good chance of getting a good grade.
I hope this helps some of you in your writing process. It’s important to remember, however, that everyone writes differently, and there are a million ways to write an essay. This is simply the method that works for me. I’d love to read how you guys approach essays in the comments!
**I have re-posted this as the previous post was removed due to having links to my blog on it. I've removed the links, sorry for breaking the rules everyone!
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[Serious] What are some helpful tips to writing a good essay?
Main Post: [Serious] What are some helpful tips to writing a good essay?
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I like that. I show my students PIE (Point, Illustration, Explanation), but PEEL is better. I'm going to use this in my classes now :-)
/r/writing, My teacher gave me an F for this essay. Was it really that bad?
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It's about the value of life. I'm an incoming freshman and my teacher hates me. Sorry for the (gift of the lord) thrown in there, it's a Catholic school...brownie points.
The Value of Life
Life. A small word in length like life its self, but larger than the Titans in meaning. The value of life, the quality of life, the length of life, the will to live, with so many meanings in one word, one has to focus on the real meaning. Friends, family, teachers, and acquaintances all value their own life, but now I focus on someone who changed my life through kindness and love. My uncle was similar to Randy Pausch. A strong willed man who had the love to help others. He was similar to Randy in many other ways too. Like Randy, my uncle had cancer, a stage four brain tumor.
Through the tough chemo and radiation my uncle stayed valiant. Being a youngling I had no clue what he was suffering through. Countless times I remembered his calm laugh, smiling profoundly at my terrible jokes. He never complained or argued about his condition, he accepted it for what it was and took the time to his advantage. As a, “my glass is half full” type of guy, he was glad he had the time he had to live and was happy he didn’t have less. Like Randy said in his book, “ They’re supposed to answer: ‘The park is open until 8 p.m.”(62) Meaning that one gets to spend time there, and it’s a gift; almost like the gift of life.
As I sit typing my essay, way too comfortable in a pillow fort of blankets, pillows, towels, and a fluffy dog bouncing around, I realize how fortunate that I am. With my sight working like a newly built machine, my ears functioning to full capacity, and my ability to move around freely, not bound by a paralyzed muscle, I remember back to a day at a large carnival. Walking around, weighed down by the giant stuffed bunny in my hands, I noticed a boy missing part of his arm. Scared by the sight I ran to my mom, bunny in hands, and cried that there was a monster loose in the park. She confirmed me that he was, in fact, not a monster, but a normal human like my brothers and me. She also told me of how lucky I was to be a healthy young boy. Years later as a rebellious young teenager, I was flown to North Carolina to attend a lacrosse camp to brush my skills up over the summer and experience the East Coast. Walking around the town, I noticed a man playing an all to familiar tune on an old guitar. As a curious young man, I walked over to notice a man sitting on a ledge, wheel chair feet away. Seconds later I realized that he was missing both of his legs. Here I was, a spoiled young child standing on two legs complaining about the weather, and ten feet away from me was a man with no legs enjoying life and doing what he loved; playing classic tunes from his childhood on a guitar, and he was smiling too.
All of these people have made a change in my life. Maybe accepting the fact that the weather isn’t perfect, or that I have a cast is a good thing to do, but accepting the fact that your body is healthy and you have the gift of life is the right thing to do. My uncle taught me that maybe you might not be athletic, or smart, strong, or beautiful, but at least you have the gift from the Lord, the gift of life and the ability to give your love.
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it kind of rambles on and is a bit incoherent. The intro seems to imply that the entire paper is going to be about your uncle, which is certainly not the case.
I like the experience with the legless man. Mention it earlier in the paper and perhaps expand on it.
seriously, just try reading it out loud to yourself. That can help a ton.
Essay writing is much easier than most people think
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As someone who has struggled with procrastination for most of my life, I must admit that there are no easy answer for summoning motivation to do things we don’t want to do.
However, I think one of the main factors that cause many students to procrastinate on their essays is the feeling that it is an extremely difficult/ time-consuming affair.
In reality, I think if people learned more efficient writing and researching strategies, it would be easier to conceptualize essay writing as something fairly simple that can be cranked out in a matter of hours.
The main advice I can give you is: Don’t focus on the writing; focus on the arguments.
I think many students approach their essays from a standpoint of perfectionism - there’s this feeling that every word and sentence needs to be perfect, and as a result you spend way too much time obsessing over stylistic features like sentence structure or word choice.
In order to crank out essays efficiently, it is much more important to focus on arguments and ideas (especially in the beginning). Style is important - but it’s much easier to perfect the style after the backbone of the essay is already in place.
Different people have different techniques for writing academic essays, but I just wanted to share my approach.
Let’s say your university level Poli Sci essay prompt is: “Explore the expansion of presidential power in modern American history (1500 words)”
- The first thing you really want to do is to zone in on the prompt and make sure you really understand the nuances of what it’s asking. The worst thing you can do is to start going down a rabbit hole and writing an essay that doesn’t specifically address what the prompt is asking you to explore.
The key words I would zone in on are “expansion of presidential power” and “modern American history.” Expansion of presidential power can occur in different domains - for example, in terms of balance of power between legislative and judicial branches of government, constitutional powers, or powers explicitly granted by the constitution, delegated powers, or powers that have been delegated by other branches of government, emergency powers, executive orders, executive privileges, and so on. The point is, “presidential power” is a very broad term, so it’s important to be conscious of the different types of ways the prompt can be interpreted, and how the essay should acknowledge the complexity of the issue (even if it just focuses on one specific type of power).
The second key phrase to zone in on is “modern American history.” The post-WWII era is usually considered a turning point, but you could also see if there were other turning points more specific to the evolution of presidential power discussed in the literature. Regardless of how “modern American history” is defined, the cut-off point should be logical and based on the literature.
2) The most important thing in the beginning is just to get a broad overview of the topic in very general terms. It would be a huge mistake to start trying to write the introduction, or even reading niche sources like “The evolution of war powers under George W. Bush” because you don’t know how to contextualize any particular concept without a grasp of the bigger picture first. For example, if you read a 30 page article discussing the nuances of how war powers were expanded under GWB, you could be easily fooled into thinking this was the most important expansion of presidential power in modern American history, and this is what the entire essay should be about.
Instead, what I would recommend doing is just googling very broad terms like “types of presidential power” and “expansion of presidential power” and searching for really short articles that discuss the key highlights in modern American history. This will help you understand the “big ideas” so you can mentally start to prioritize what’s important, and how key concepts should be organized.
3) As most people know, you don’t want to fall in the trap of just summarizing lots of sources - you need to develop a thesis statement that is interesting and debatable. An example of a thesis statement you could use on this topic would be, “While virtually every modern American president has gradually expanded the Executive Branch’s legal authority to wage war unilaterally, the most powerful historical check on presidential war powers is that of public opinion.”
4) If you’re having trouble thinking of an interesting thesis statement, don’t worry - that just means you need to keep doing more research. Look for broad articles that give lots of general analysis, and certain themes will start to pop out.
5) By now, you should have lots of random ideas jotted down from various different sources, and it’s time to start organizing them into a cohesive outline. Here’s an example outline you could use:
INTRODUCTION:
Start with some general reflections on the expansion of presidential powers over time. Perhaps throw in some interesting quotes or commentary on how the executive branch has changed so dramatically from how our constitutional forefathers originally intended.
Thesis statement: “While virtually every modern American president has gradually expanded the Executive Branch’s legal authority to wage war unilaterally, the most powerful historical check on presidential war powers is that of public opinion.”
SECTION 1: LEGAL EXPANSION OF PRESIDENTIAL WAR POWERS
The purpose of this section is simply to prove how each president has expanded the legal authority of the executive branch to wage war without restriction from other branches of government. You can use the following examples:
Truman’s intervention into Korea without congressional approval
Eisenhower’s use of the CIA to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected PM
Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs invasion and naval blockade of Cuba
Nixon’s secret escalation in Cambodia
Carter’s secret mission to free American hostages in Iran
Clinton’s Operation Desert Fox
Obama’s rampant escalation of U.S. drone strikes
Trump’s assassination of Iran’s General Soleimani
Conclude with some general commentary on the inefficacy of congressional oversight and the lack of judicial precedent to curb executive war powers.
SECTION 2: THE POWERFUL CHECK OF PUBLIC OPINION
The purpose of this section is to prove that while the president’s legal authority to wage war may be unrestricted, they are inevitably subject to the judgments of public opinion, and this serves as a strong limiting factor that prevents abuses of power.
Fears of public backlash was instrumental to Kennedy’s decision to choose diplomacy over military intervention during the Cuban missile crisis
While Johnson received congressional authorization for his escalation of the Vietnam War, his presidency inevitably crumbled due to the massive public repudiation
Carter’s presidency never recovered after the failed hostage rescue mission
While President George W. Bush received congressional approval for both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he left office with approval ratings in the 20’s in large part because of his handling of the wars.
This shows that in democracies, limits on executive power are both legal and political. Even if a president’s legal authority is unrestrained, in practice, presidents are extremely reactive to public opinion - and with or without congressional approval - will often make wartime decisions based on political calculations.
CONCLUSION:
End with some high level observations about your topic as well as future implications. For example, in an era where popular opinion is extremely fractured and dominated by echo chambers on both sides, does this empower presidents with loyal followers (who are easily influenced by powerful media leaders)?
Is there any legal remedy if a powerful president backed by extremely loyal followers crosses the line into tyranny and despotism?
6) As you can see, after you’ve done some general research and written a detailed essay... The essay essentially writes itself. This is why I would discourage you from trying to write too much in the beginning before you’ve developed a more holistic understanding your topic. My preference is to start with short, generic articles about a given topic, then develop a thesis statement and write an outline, then dive into longer books and articles for all the specific details, and finally, you can start the gruntwork of writing and editing to put your thoughts together in the most beautiful and elegant way possible.
7) As a shameless plug, I recently created a new subreddit called https://www.reddit.com/r/FreeEssayHelp/
I’ve been working off-and-on as a professional academic writer for the last few years, and recently quit my job in sales to write essays full time.
This might sound a little bit hypocritical, but I personally do not believe most people should use an academic writing service. At the end of the day, my preference is always for students to do their own work because it will help them become better writers.
However, as someone who has a notorious procrastination problem myself, I know that sometimes... it’s just impossible. While I get a huge adrenaline rush from writing essays and genuinely love it... my apartment is a mess and I haven’t washed my dishes in days. So there’s no way I can judge anyone for using these services.
It’s honestly the most rewarding job I’ve ever had because I love learning new information, and the process of grinding essays is very mentally stimulating for me.
If you are in trouble and need help with your essays, you can either visit my subreddit for some free help, or text or WhatsApp me at 1-832-604-9277 for the fastest response.
All the best,
Max
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My problem with essays is that I’m straight forward and state my points. But it’s never enough for the word limit and I’m a bad fluffer. I’m also simple in my word usage ( I know words lol. If someone says it I know what they mean but I can never see me saying it) so I google.
How to improve essay writing or writing in general?
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Hi, I’ve noticed that I’m pretty bad at writing, I can hardly write a proper essay or discuss serious subjects with other people (both in my native language and English). I know the only way to improve is to write as much as possible, but are there anything else that I can do to improve my writing skills? Thanks in advanced.
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Reading is just as, if not more, important as writing when it comes to improving your skills.
How do you actually write a good essay?
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I've been an uni for 2 and a half years now and I still have no idea how to write a good essay.
All the advice I've been given thus far has been conflicting. I was told to never use the first person, then got told that I should use the first person in one particular subject. I've gone from getting high marks last year to being told I write like a newspaper journalist for the same subject in the space of a semester despite not changing my writing style. I've messaged tutors to ask them for advice, taken it then been given a low mark because I didn't answer the question properly despite being told I was following a good train of thought. I've been to my uni's essay writing service's lectures and seminars and been given guides to help with writing essays, only to take that advice on board and then have it commented on in my submissions. I've gone through essays to clarify the direction it will take in the introduction and added linking sentences between paragraphs, only to be told there wasn't enough signposting.
Despite having written around ten essays by this point, I'm still in the position of being unsure if I'm writing something decent or spending ages on something mediocre. It's frustrating and demotivating trying to write a good essay with all the advice I've been given only to receive a disappointing mark or be unsure I'm not actually writing a load of nonsense.
Does anyone have any hints or tips on how they go about writing essays and any tips to know if you're writing good ones? Any resources that'll help?
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It can be so confusing. I got really good grades and feedback throughout the last year, but when I submitted my 80 mark essay to a student competition I was told my essay covered too many topics and wasn't clear or in depth enough!
There is no one 'good' essay, it's completely subjective, so to an extent you need to cater to your module leaders tastes. Having said that, I get consistent good feedback on these things:
Articulately written (let yourself be a bit pretentious!! I also think reading poetry and nonfiction can help you develop this skill)
Multiple levels of critical perspectives
Based on extensive reading, but also including original insight (this is usually me making links between established concepts and ideas)
Conveying the limitations of my own understanding - and usually ending with further questions to explore
Talk to your module leaders individually and see if you can suss out what they are looking for? And read read read as much as you can!
How to write an essay quickly?
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Gotta write a 2500 in the next 24 hours.
I know it's doable, I've done quite a bit of reading for it and have a plan.
Problem is, I usually have more time so I can take my time rewriting bits and reading more and trying different things out and see what works.
I don't have time for that but I don't know how to write an essay without doing those things! Like I have a plan for my paragraphs but when writing I'm always like 'ah I wonder about x...' and then I go research more and add more etc. If I stop myself doing this then I can't continue because I won't be satisfied.
Also how do people just write without doing hours of research? I'm studying history and this essay is about the causes of the Great Depression. Obviously thats quite a big topic with lots of literature and I need to understand how each cause is related to each other before even putting any words on paper I feel.
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I find it really interesting how different people have different approaches to essay writing. I research the topic briefly to get a basic understanding and obviously attend classes etc. But when writing it I'm almost researching as I go finding papers journals websites and taking information and references as I go it has ALWAYS served me well.
What are the best essays you've ever read?
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Since we're in r/books it would be nice to have a literary or philosophical edge to the essay, but feel free to leave any others.
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George Orwell. He's widely considered the best essayist since Montaigne (the French writer who invented the essay, around the time of Shakespeare). His essays are open-source via Australian Project Gutenberg.
Read this. "Some thoughts On the Common Toad":
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part45
That link contains nearly all of his essays. It can also be downloaded in ebook form.