Essay Guideline

When it comes to finalizing an essay, we often forget or simply do not feel like giving it the final glance so that to make sure the essay is sound as a bell. Unfortunately, we think how stupid it was of us not to pay several minutes to the essay only when we get the it back scribbled all over with the teacher’s corrections.

Experience is the best teacher. And next time you will be writing an essay, you’ll definitely check it for grammar and punctuation mistakes. Here is what you’ve got to pay special attention to:

1. Each time you see “its” or “it’s” ask yourself: Do I need “its” as a possessive case of “it” or a contraction that will stand for “it is?”

2. Check it out with the rest of the words, such as “you’re” and “your”, “they’re” and “there”, “there’s” and “theirs.” As you might have noticed, unlike contracted phrases, the possessive pronouns never use apostrophes. It would be great if you could learn this rule of thumb by heart.

3. You must make sure all pronouns in your essay are used in the correct pronoun case. Simply determine whether the pronoun in every sentence is used as a subject, an object, or a possessive, and select the pronoun form to match.

4. Do not refer to a lady like “it” and do not call your pet “she”. Be sure to use such pronouns as “it,” “they,” “this,” “that,” “these,” “those,” and “which” carefully to refer to definite referents, namely nouns. This way you will prevent confusion and misunderstanding on the reader’s part.

5. Make sure everything agrees regarding singular and plural. “My cat and my wife is sleeping,” is wrong. To avoid such silly mistakes, you should know all the cases when plural and singular are used. By the way, make sure your plurals don’t have an apostrophe before s. It’s a rough mistake.

6. See whether you spell “a lot” in two words. And remember that it is ALWAYS two words!

7. Does “too” in your essay mean “also”? If your “too” was meant to be a number 2, change it for “two”. If both previous meanings are not your case and you wanted to use a preposition, spell it like “to.” It is as simple as that.

8. At least once per essay you are bound to get confused in the meaning of the commonly mixed-up words. Some of the easily confused words are “than” vs. “then,” “affect” vs. “effect,” “lead” vs. “led,” “accept” vs. “except,” “advice” vs. “advise,” “ensure” vs. “insure” and so on. Enumerating all easily confused words will take too long so you’d better check them out in a good dictionary.

9. Keep an eye on the verb tenses within a sentence and in closely related sentences. “She took a ball and plays with it” won’t do.

10. Beware of the dangling modifiers. If you still want to use them, know exactly what each character of your essay is doing and do not make things do something they will never do. Sentences with flying knives and rushing bombs are a real laugh for readers and a headache for teachers.

11. Each time you are reading the sentences in your essay with the word “that”, try to find out whether you can delete this word and still achieve clarity. If so, go ahead and kill it. Do the same with the sentences in your essay. Remember that your main goal is to write a meaningful essay, not to write about nothing in 500 words!

12. Check your essay for punctuation. To make it easier, here are the punctuation caveats you should keep in mind when writing your essay: a period shows a full separation of ideas; comma and coordinating conjunction show such relationships as: addition, choice, consequence, contrast, or cause; a semicolon reveals that the second sentence completes the idea that was started in the first sentence.

You may add to this list of last-minute preparations anything you are especially bad at. This way you will make the process of essay writing even more effective and the result even more pleasant.

Linda Correli is a staff writer of Go2Essay.com - custom Essay Writing Help. She specializes in essay writing of argumentative essays, persuasive essays, narrative essays, and descriptive essays.

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Writing a thesis essay is one of the challenges that students face in their academic life. The main reason why so many students dread writing a thesis essay is its baffling complexity, which is hard to handle at times.

However, writing a thesis essay can be much easier, if you already know how it should be written. And the secret formula of writing a high quality thesis essay is incredibly simple: all you need is to understand the initial purpose of thesis essays and follow the tips for thesis essay structure that you’ll find below.

1. Thesis Essay Peculiarity

Thesis essay is an essay elaborating on the original research and arguing a specific point of view. It requires an argumentative topic on which you have a strong opinion and want to prove it by means of research findings and information analysis. To put it in other way, thesis essay is a scientifically-minded piece of writing.

Consequently, a thesis essay is much more demanding than the rest of essays. It demands responsibility, analytical skills, ability to summarise, compare, and contrast. In order to write a high-quality thesis essay you need to be persuasive and able to prove your case no matter what.

2. Thesis Essay Topic

Thesis essay topic requires tender treatment. To choose the one that is your best bet, stick to the following:

1. the topic must be to your liking, that is you must have strong feelings on its account and hold a solid point of view as far as the solution of this problem goes;
2. your thesis essay topic must be argumentative, ambivalent and thought-provoking;
3. your thesis essay topic should not be widely researched and be on everybody’s lips. On the contrary, it must be a problem that is not known to the public at large and still is concerns us very much.

Get down to choosing a thesis essay topic with these tips in mind, and you will find one truly argumentative and interesting.

3. Thesis Essay Structure

Thesis essay structure must be carefully thought over, since it is the foundation on which you build your proposition and prove your rightness. With a proper thesis essay structure you will create the necessary impression on the readers and make them reject their own views and stick to your point.

Your thesis essay structure should be like this:

1. the introduction must include a statement of your hypothesis, which is a summary of your controversy;

2. confirmation of your hypothesis must be logically arranged:

a. first, provide a short digression in the history of the problem corroborating it by the past attempts at its solution;

b. analyze the problem at the present;

c. prove your hypothesis by the supporting evidence you came across when researching the thesis essay topic;

d. compare your hypothesis with other existing propositions and prove why yours is the best solution;

3. reinforce your thesis statement at the end of the essay by providing a persuasive summary of your thesis essay to make the readers come over to your side once and for all.

This is the proven way of organising thesis essays. So, do not hesitate to use this structure in your paper.

3. The Use of Supporting Evidence

As it has been previously mentioned, your hypothesis in a thesis essay needs a back up in the form of supporting evidence from reliable and relevant sources. The related sources you can use to strengthen your proposition can be:

1. past research and writings and their impact on the study;

2. facts, statistics, and the testimony of others through personal interviews and questionnaires;

3. or articles and books;

4. and examples.

You do not have to conduct a deep research for your thesis essay, as you do for a research paper. All you need is to explore your topic deep enough to have a sufficient amount of evidence and proofs. However, make sure that the information you plan to use is up-to-date and is taken from reliable sources. Otherwise, it will be easy to discredit your proposition.

4. Disprove the Opposing Arguments

Every hypothesis has a weak point, which, if wisely used by opponents, can destroy it all together. To avoid it, try to identify weak points of your proposition and the possible ways how they can be used by your opponents. Then find counterarguments that will rebut your antagonist’s sharp rejoinders. Try to anticipate any objections the readers may have and rebut them at once.

That is all you need to know in order to write a good thesis essay. Be sure that with the above tips in mind you will easily master thesis essay writing and even come to like finding controversial topics and forming your hypothesis on its account. Thesis essay writing will no longer be a tedious burden for you.

About the Author:

Linda Correli is a staff writer of Go2Essay.com - custom Essay Writing Help. She specializes in essay writing of argumentative essays, persuasive essays, narrative essays, and descriptive essays.

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When writing an essay, the first step is to choose a topic. For this you first have to decide what direction your essay is going to take - is it going to persuade the reader to share your point of view, is it going to explain how to complete a task, or is it going to inform or educate the reader on a particular topic? In fact your essay can do several things - narrate, persuade, explain, describe something or a procedure, give causes and effects, compare and contrast, or define something.

Once you have determined the purpose of your essay, think of a topic. Think of a subject that interests you or something that you strongly feel about. Unless the interest or the feeling for the topic is not there, you will not be able to convince your readers. You also have to keep in mind that the topic must fit the purpose.

Now that you have your topic, write down all your ideas on the subject. Gather as much information as you can on the topic and write everything down.

Once you have all the information with you, make an outline of your essay, following this outline:

Introduction: The first paragraph should be the introduction, telling your reader what the essay is going to be about. Try and attract the reader’s attention from the very beginning by giving some startling fact, or intriguing information, or anything else that will make the reader want to read the rest of your essay.

Body paragraphs: These may be 3 or more depending on how many points you are going to discuss. Each paragraph should discuss a different point.

Conclusion: The final paragraph is the conclusion. The conclusion should not be too long; just 3 or four sentences should be enough. It should sum up the main points of your essay and provide a final perspective on the topic.

The important thing to keep in mind about writing an essay or article is that how you write it is just as important as what you write. Your approach to the topic and the order in which you present your points are very important. The transition from one point to another, and thus the transition from one paragraph to another, should be smooth. Keep the order the same as mentioned in the introduction.

Grammar is another important aspect. Bad grammar, wrong punctuations and spellings can make anything bad reading. Don’t write very long sentences or never ending paragraphs. Try not to repeat the same words over and over again.

Now that the essay is written, think of a title. Think of a good title. It’s the title that will decide whether someone wants to read your essay or not. Make it attractive and one that gives a hint of what’s in store, without telling all.

The final step is to proofread it. Read it out loud to yourself or someone else to see if it sounds ok and the flow is right. It is sometimes better to read it over the next day, as you then tend to look at it from a fresh angle and are more open to errors.

Anis Siddiqi is an accomplished writer and has several published articles to her credit. She presently manages the website
http://www.word-mart.com , which offers writing services to audiences worldwide, as well as provide a platform for aspiring writers to post their work.

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