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14 Tips for Writing an Essay

NOT Anybody Can Write a Novel

Chapter Infinite “Life Skillz” – Section 1 “Essays”

So you've likely clicked on this in pure disbelief, wondering “what sort of witchery is this? Blake writes novel tutorials, not essays!” Well... mostly true. This is indeed not witchery, nor the start of a new series (we still need to finish our Novel after all); but an outline for a small public speaking event that I've got scheduled at MSU on the topic of how to write an essay. You see, when I was learning how to write, I was never taught how to write a good essay, that there was a correct format, or that there was a way to make it fun. Now that I do, I wish to share it so that nobody ever has to write a dull essay ever again. And as I am far more comfortable and charming when talking to you fine fellows, I thought I'd write it out here so that you can use it for any non-novel writing needs you may have. The following is my personal guide for writing an essay, divided into three sections: preparing to write an essay, writing the essay, and finalizing the essay.

Section 1: Preparing to write your essay.

Tip 1: Figure out the purpose of your assignment.
Above all other problems, not understanding the purpose of your assignment is the most common reason that students end up failing a paper. And though it may seem straightforward enough, just understanding what is expected of you can be a challenge. When I took my first creative writing course, I was assigned to write an informal essay on the topic of my choice; so I wrote a humorous one about the problem of couples slobbering all over one another, publicly, on campus. The grammar and composition of my paper, according to my professor, was of grade "A" quality, but I lost a letter grade due to the problem of not creating an essay that was suitable to my audience. This, of course, confused me; my thought was that since we were reading the papers aloud, that the audience was my classmates, who would find humor in the topic. However, the audience was not them, but my professor who did not live on campus and so did not understand the references nor the humor of the topic. There are many ways to confuse or fail to identify the purpose of an essay; and the only solution is to be absolutely sure of what is expected of you. To help you figure out what you need to accomplish with your writing, I recommend using the following steps:
1. Carefully read all of the instructions provided by the assignment, ESPECIALLY any rubric which applies to the assignment or class as a whole.
2. Make your own bullet-point list of every goal you have to meet within the assignment (proper grammar, a page limit, the correct amount of sources, the sort of topic, etc...), which you can use as a checklist at the end.
3. Identify who your target audience is, and ask your professor if it is not identified in your instructions.
4. Figure out what your professor wants you to learn from or accomplish by the assignment, something which much be figured out by subtext or asked directly.
5. Summarize the sort of essay you plan on writing, and get feedback from your professor if possible.

Tip 2: Pick a sophisticated topic and a fun twist.
So you have to write an essay; and you may or may not have a specific topic that you have to write about. Either way, if you want a good grade, you'll pick a topic that seems sophisticated, like maybe the life of the puritans during the colonial era of America, or some other topic that you find boring. Well guess what, your professor/teacher likely doesn't want to read some boring and crappy student essay any more than you want to write it … unless you perform the extravagant feat of making it fun! “But Blake” you say, lifting your index finger at the computer with a thoughtful expression, “I've seen your idea of fun, and it involves evil cats, pop-culture references, and time traveling blackbears.” Indeed, young padawan, it does, and a report on those topics would get me an “F” or “D-” for effort. The solution? Pick a sophisticate topic (like Puritan Life in colonial America) and put a fun twist on it! The result is the difference between the dull aforementioned topic before and “Encounters between Puritans and Bears in Colonial America”. And though my own essays tend to be on the edge of absurd, you can pick any topic and twist that happens to interest you. With professors who had less patience for my tomfoolery, for example, I would simply tie the topics they wanted me to write about, into the sort concepts which interested me (like connecting my class on Hassidism, to eastern meditation). Because, the best chances are that if you have fun writing it, your professor will have fun reading it. Not only that, but you should use every possible opportunity to grow and learn in the areas of life that are most important to you, even if the task at hand is not particularly enjoyable in and of itself.

Tip 3: Research with impressive sources.
Next, you need to begin working on research. Likely, you have the basic guidelines of having to look up “sophisticated” sources that do not include Wikipedia the Great; because, great as it is, schools do not smile upon the use of encyclopedias. Still, Wikipedia is a great place to begin your research. Not only is it a helpful tool to begin understanding your topic before you write the paper, but it will frequently have links at the bottom of the page that will direct you to academic journals, books, and research that your professor will actually approve of. You can also use Wikipedia to find keywords for your research; I might not know much about the conflict between Puritans and Bears, for example, but through Wikipedia I can find out about Harold Bearstrangler--the famous Puritan Bear wrestler--who I can then research through more academically accepted resources. Using the keywords that you find through Wikipedia, you can then use resources like your library or its digital collection, and get the books and articles that apply to your topic. Keep in mind that though you are looking for articles involving bears and puritans, you may not need strictly sources that involve both. You can use books on the social habits and migration patterns of bears, alongside the geographical locations for puritan settlements. After that, gradually move deeper and deeper into the internet in your attempt to find more specific information. Avoid using websites (other than those that are marked ".edu"), and avoid dictionaries and encyclopedias--all of which will make your professors faces turn funny colors. As you research, save everything of any relevance. If you cannot find enough research in existence that is relevant to your essay, you may need to modify the topic of your paper at this point (if for example, there is not enough information about bear and puritan encounters but lots of encounters between puritans and alligators, you may need to switch over).

Tip 4: Take notes using notecards.
At this point, it is necessary for me to address the mysterious and terrible devil-man that all your teachers warned you of, and yet specified little about in class because--like Voldemort--it may find you if you say its name. That's right, I'm talking about plagiarism. Plagiarism (don't say it three times in a row, notice that I stopped at two), as much as your teachers may go on about it, is actually a rather simple thing; it's when you use research in your writing and then don't give the author of that research credit, it's when you copy and paste something someone else wrote word for word without quotation marks, and it's when you don't change enough words in another person's sentence when rewriting it--even if you gave the original source credit. Now the first two are easy enough to avoid once you know what they are; but that last one can be a little tricky when the original is written so perfectly. When I first began to write essays and reports, it was tremendously difficult for me to sift through an overwhelming amount of information and then purposefully change the wording into something different enough as to not be considered plagiarism. Then I discovered a trick—I would look through my books and articles, and then begin to write down bullet-point summations of any quotes or facts I found useful, assorted by what resource I had gotten the information from so that it looked something like the following:
“Bear's diets include grubs, honey, and scavenged meat” -Bear Biography by Dr. Bearstein
“Colonists planted fish under their corn,” The Complete Puritan Guide to Farming -Dr. Pure Tannington
“Puritans like Betty Crocker raised bees for honey” -The Origins of Honey, Hunny -Farmer Bobbee
By assorting them in bullet points, the information was condensed and easy for me to replicate into full sentences without having to worry about purposefully rewording all the content. Also, I was able to split them up into piles organized by the topics that I wanted to address in my essay.

Tip 5: Create your outline.
“Aha!” you say, bright eyes, bushy tailed, and quite exuberant about your discovery. “This is starting to look like your tutorials about novel-writing. You and your bears, and your cats, and your Outlines.” Well, that is quite observant of you, gold star! Yes, the outline is of vital importance to the essay, just like it is for the novel. Because just like a novel, an essay is a collection of bits and parts—each of which serves a specific purpose. Sometimes your professor will even require an Outline, an attempt to get a correctly formatted essay instead of pages of rambling and pointless information. These will have their own specific requirements, based on what style you are using (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc...). I'm simply going to show you the generic requirements for the writing of a basic essay without any specific style. The following is an example outline and it's major parts, the title, the thesis statement, the points, the evidences, and the concluding statement--each of which I'll explain further down.

-O-

Title
"The Purely Unbearable Problem"

Thesis Statement: Thesis Statement: Bears caused lots of problems for Colonial Puritans in America; the conflicts between these two came from necessity, they occurred frequently, and they generally resulted in the bears coming out on top.

Point A: There was necessary conflict between bears and humans during the colonial era.

  Evidence 1: Humans and bears have similar nutrition needs.

  Evidence 2: Humans and bears shared the same land.

  Evidence 3: Humans made their supplies of food easily accessible to bears.

Point B: Colonists frequently encountered bears.

  Evidence 1: Betty Crocker's Honey was stolen by bears.

  Evidence 2: There existed a bear-fur trade in the Beartropolis Colony.

Evidence 3: There was a club for survivors of bear maulings.

Point C: Bears generally came out on top during conflicts.

  Evidence 1: Bears are stronger than people, and have claws, and very big teeth.

  Evidence 2: Colonial weapons were not strong enough to stop bears.

  Evidence 3: Occasionally the puritans cheated by using traps.

Concluding Statement: The conflict between bears and puritans really makes you wonder if and for how long we could stand against these majestic creatures, after the fall of civilization comes; perhaps the only way is to uncover the methods by which the Puritans survived.

-O-

Ultimately, your Outline will be your entire essay without any of the filler information, sentence structures, paragraphs, etc... This is important and will ultimately save you time for working on your novel, reading,
playing video games, thwarting your cats' attempts at killing you, and avoiding the Blackbear 4th Wall Boarder Patrol (the largest of my personal concerns). How? Well the majority of the time spent on essays, at least
for most people, is sitting there, wondering what to write next, and then later revising a ton of unformulated, unmatching data or having to toss their ideas because they discover that their essay doesn't work. The above outline can be filled out in about fifteen minutes, and then you have a guide by which you always know exactly what you are going to write next, along with the knowledge that your essay WILL work. Once you have completed your outline, assort all of your note-cards of research by where they will best fit into the outline, and get more research if needed.

Section 2: Writing Your Essay

Tip 1: Come up with an awesome title.
First impressions are extremely important, as much with essays as with people and bears (okay, perhaps slightly more important with bears). So pick a title that correctly captures the feeling of your essay. For example, my writing professor absolutely HATED puns. So, given my somewhat eccentric personality and the eccentric and fun nature of my essays, I made it a point to include a pun in EVERY essay I wrote in my class that year. The result? I got a lot of displeased notes written in red ink, but he also thoroughly enjoyed my essays and the amount of effort I put into having fun with them and doing them well. By putting effort into your title, you show that the rest of your essay will likely have the same amount of effort in it. Feel free to hold off on naming your essay until you have finished writing a draft or two.

Tip 2: Create a structured Introduction.
Just like the Outline of topics in your paper, each paragraph should have a clearly outlined structure, beginning with your introduction paragraph. For the introduction, begin with a Hook. A Hook, similar to the hook of a novel, is a single sentence that is intimately connected to the theme of your paper, and intriguing enough that a reader wants to read more. Note how the following Hook sets the scale of the paper, creates an intriguing new perspective on the matter, and makes the audience curious as to how true my claims could really be.
Hook: You've likely heard of the French and Indian War, the Dutch Wars, and the Spanish Wars, but the most ferocious and constant of colonial wars were not any of these, but the wars fought against the bears.
Once you finish your Hook, you need about three sentences that expound upon your Hook, and set up your paragraph for your Thesis Statement. Your Thesis Statement will generally be the last sentence of your introduction paragraph, and with surmise all of the points in your novel.
Thesis Statement: Bears caused lots of problems for Colonial Puritans in America; the conflicts between these two came from necessity, they occurred frequently, and they generally resulted in the bears coming out on top.

Tip 3: Divide your points and evidences into segments of three.
Using the Outline that you already created, begin to write the body of your essay. Depending on the length requirements of your essay, your three “evidence” claims (each of which should be backed up by your research) can be divided into anything from a couple of sentences, to several paragraphs. You can even have sub-evidence and sub-sub-evidence. Just be sure to always divide each topic into segments of three: your Points divided into three evidences, your evidences divided into three sub-evidences, etc... The reason? Three is simply a good number of points for our attentions spans to keep in mind while remembering the overall point. Any fewer points feels like it is just a singular unit that does not merit being segmented, and any more will likely be too much to include without distracting your reader from the overall point you are trying to make. Obviously, there will be exceptions, but categories of three are the ideal. To purposefully make room for more content within your essay, simply break your smallest available concept into more basic points like the following:
Point A: There was necessary conflict between bears and humans during the colonial era.
  Evidence 1: Humans and bears have similar nutrition needs.
        Sub-evidence 1: They both require proteins
        Sub-evidence 2: They both require honey
        Sub-evidence 3: They both require a water source
  Evidence 2: Humans made their supplies of food easily accessible to bears.
  Sub-evidence 1: They stored honey in their pockets
          Sub-evidence 2: They wore fish as hats
          Sub-evidence 3: They drank water at lakes clearly marked "bears only"
  Evidence 3: Humans and bears shared the same land.
  Sub-evidence 1: In the Bearington colony
          Sub-evidence 2: In the Bearteeth colony
          Sub-evidence 3: In the Holycrapbears colony

Tip 4: Turn your points and evidences into uniform and structured paragraphs.
Begin each paragraph of your body with an introductory sentence that will basically act as a miniature thesis statement for that paragraph. You do this because you want to set up the purpose of the paragraph, right from the beginning, and then use the remainder of the paragraph to support and expound upon that statement. If, for example, you are trying to write an introductory sentence for Evidence 3 - Sub-evidence 1, "Humans and bears shared the same land - in the Bearington colony," it might look something like this:
When the Bearington colony was first settle by Puritans, they saw fields full of furry and large objects which they mistook for fuzzy moving boulders; they then built their colony unaware of the problems which lay ahead of them. (Professor Oak, pg 132)After the introductory sentence, follow up with about 3-4 additional sentences that serve to not only support your introductory sentence, but to lead to the concluding sentence. Make your paragraph more dynamic by creating a mixture of long sentences, short sentences, and compound sentences that are divided in varieties of ways (with parentheses, comma, colons, semi-colon hyphens, etc...). Your concluding sentence must end each paragraph and serve two purposes: it must finalize the point you were trying to make, and it must lead into the following paragraph. Continuing with the above example, a concluding sentence might look something like the following, which allows the essay to flow naturally into Sub-evidence 2:
Bearington colony survived their conflicts with bears, if only barely, and yet they did much better than the later settled Bearteeth Colony, (Doctor Octogonopus, pg 12).

Tip 5: Summarize the major points of your essay in the conclusion, and end strong.
The conclusion is your chance to go refresh your reader's memory on what they've read during the course of your paper. This is necessary because, even though you might have given the essay a perfect structure, your audience has lost track of how the paper came together as a whole. So write a sentence for each point, which re-establishes what they were and what their relevance to the thesis was. Once your have briefly reminded your readers of how the essay works together, end on a strong and provocative concluding statement. It may feel unnatural and perhaps even overly dramatic, but a bit too much flare at the end is preferable to ending on a dud sentence.
Concluding Statement: The conflict between bears and puritans really makes you wonder if and for how long we could stand against these majestic creatures after the fall of civilization comes; perhaps the only way we will survive is to uncover the methods by which the Puritans made it through.

Section 3: Editing and finalizing your essay.

Tip 1: Let the essay sit for at least one night.
I was a student once, and perhaps (meaning definitely, though you're not allowed to tell ANYONE) a student who had a wee bit of a tendency to procrastinate. Meaning that, as terrible as an idea as it is and as much as my grades suffered for it, I sometimes pulled all-nighters to get some essays in just before class. If you can, it's much better to sleep on it or even put a few days between writing your first draft and revising it, especially if it is an important assignment. If nothing else, write a draft the night/morning before it's due, sleep for three hours, and then wake up with enough time to revise it. Why? Just like with writing a novel, your brain will overlook mistakes and fill in the gaps in information if you try to edit immediately after writing. Just a few hours of sleep will make all the difference in the world when it comes to editing your essay.

Tip 2: Cite your sources, the easy AND correct way.
When I was in school, the website for citing your sources was easybib.com, though there are surely other, and perhaps better, ones. To use the website, you would write the name of the journal, article, website, video, interview, book, etc, that you were using as research; easybib would then fill in some of the information for you, and keep track of all the citations for you to copy and paste at the end. However, lots of my classmates made grade-destroying bibliographies that were terrible because they thought that you could just put in a link and that it would give you all the relevant citation data. IT DOES NOT! When filling out a bibliography, you need to manually go in and type all of the missing information. For very important papers, you need to also figure out the exact specific format that your professor requires, and then see that the website you use does not deviate from it (and fix it manually if it is different).

Tip 3: Use your bullet-point list of goals and objectives.
Remember that list of goals we made at the beginning that included things like target audience, rubric specifications, instructions, and the purpose of the assignment? Well now is the time to pull that bad boy out and start checking off everything that you've accomplished. Does your professor demand good grammar and spelling (almost definitely) check your paper and then check it off. Is it suitable for its intended audience? Does it successfully prove your thesis? Does it accomplish all the criteria that the instruction specified? Did you learn or accomplish what your professor wanted you to? Is there a bear standing behind you? Are there Puritans around to protect you and/or to use as bait while you run? No? Are you sure? A bear really could be standing behind the curtain or in your closet. You might want to abstain from making random comments about how you know you're fictional character, just in case.

Tip 4: Save your essay to the internet.
We've all been at that place where we've lost our essay, our computers crashed, or some bantha herder spilled water on our backpack. Don't leave the fate of your grade up to chance (or worse, have to REPEAT the same friggin essay). Email your paper to yourself or save it to a online storage cite like Google Drive or Dropbox, just in case the worse were to happen. That way you can print it off at the school, if need be, or at least show your professor that it's finished, alongside the dripping remains of what was once your essay.