Writing Skills - Essay Example

Name Course Number Tutors Name Day, Month, Year Essay writing skills An assay is a written piece of work that usually is a presentation of an argument, this kind of writing is usually analytical. Essays comprise of answers that are general to basic questions that ask whether the writer or the student agrees to a certain thesis or a normal stamen or disagrees. Essays also require one to critically discuss a certain issue, assess a certain statement or make a choice a lot of the given options and support the choice. Most of the University and college essays are arguments for or against certain suggestions and propositions. Almost all the areas of studies and learning process require the art of writing. The art of writing is as a great challenge to most of the individuals. Below are the guidelines that one is supposed to follow in order to write a good essay(Bensmaïa, 1987 pp. 34) What is the question asking you to do? The answer to this question is arrived at by a careful examination of the key words and the concepts that the question raises, this is arrived at vi paying close attention to the words that are commonly used such as compare, contrast, analyze, discuss, evaluate and other main word of the question. After the identification of the main word of the sentence it is vial to break it into smaller part as it enables the writer to understand it part by part. After the analysis of the question, an outline should be drawn from the segmented parts of the main questions. The outlines aid in the by ensuring that the written essay has a coherent and a logical structure. An outline is a plan that that facilitates the writer to know what to write by the preparations that includes the reading of the relevant materials, note taking and finally writing. After the outline is planned, one should be at the stage where the question should be considered in detail involved brainstorming (Peters, 2006 pp. 56). Brainstorming enables the writer to put down the useful ideas that can appear in the piece of work. Calculate the organization of your essay Due to the unlimited information that a single question can carry, most essay have limits in terms of number of pages and number of words, therefore it is vital to partition the introduction, the body and the conclusion in order to fit the number of words. After doing these sums then can you start your research on the topic. Check your lecture notes, and any other sources of relevant that are at hand such as the internet sources(John,2009 pp 12). Wide reading is essential if you wish to submit a good essay Order for one to have more information on the researched topic, wide reading is vital as it provides much information of the topic, in this information one id therefore able to pick the main points and leave he weak ones that have no supporting evidence, however, despite the wide reading, it is good to keep the outline in mind so as not to go out of topic. The following source of information are used, Specialized texts, Newspapers, General texts, Journal articles, news periodicals Abstracts, CD‐ROM, and Databases World Wide Web (though the web should be used cautiously and many lecturers do not support of the Wikipedia as a source of academic research (Dayde, 2010 pp. 33). Note taking As the outline is the basic part of the plan of an essay, its is good to deviate from photocopying the large readings as it tends to delay the hard work associated with reading and reasoning as this acts as a substitution for them. A good organization of the note taking process enables the writer to avoid mix up ideas which a times leads to repetition of ideas and facts. The second part of the essay writing procedure is the putting down of thread facts, ideas and opinion in form of writing(Warburton, 2006 pp 89). Writing, revising &presentation The essay should be written in a coherent and alogical aspect as most of the written assays are usuallyanalytical. The first thing to do is the answering of the set of questions in the main question; the second things include the presentation of a majorargument. This type of structure in an essay requires three segmentation in the writing namely the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The introduction is whereby the writer introduces the topic that is to be researched or discussed. This is a good predation of the mind of the person who is to red that essay; the introduction should only consist of a brief summary that indicated the points that are to be discussed in the main part of the paper and in detail. The thesisstatement is also presented at the introduction segment of an essay. The body of the essay is the place where major arguments are presented. The conclusion involves the restating of the key arguments and their implications. In the presentation of the major points of the essay that is in the body, the writer needs to describe a point or a point before giving the detailed analysis of the fact. The writer should only include as much description as is needed for the analysis to make a sensible relationship between the description and the analysis. Make sure that you do not deviate from the main subject and this is ensured by the referring of the outline throughout the essay. Answer the question only.Keep checking that you are always on track of the outline throughout the writing of the essay. If there’s something interesting that you come across in the reading of the materials and you want to include, but which is of doubtful relevance to the main argument or theme of the topic in the essay, you are require to put it in a footnote(Warburton, 2006 pp. 45). In writing any type of an essay, the writer is required to take his or her time and prevent rushing, this will enable that all the points in the outline are covered accurately. Some writers tend to focus on some points more than other points. The main reason that makes writers to rush in writing their essays is as a result of close deadlines that they need to meet and submit their work. The other main aspect to look at and avoid it at all cost the writing of any paper is plagiarism. This involves the copy pasting of some one else’s’ work and writing it as if it were your own work. Plagiarism is also present in case where the essay has no in text citations and references. This can result to heavy penalties or no marks awarded at all (http://www.howtowriteanessay.com/index2.html). Well presented ideas and facts about a topiccan lead to failure if the writer presents them in a horrible prose that lacks flow and poor sentence formation that are accompanied by grammatical errors. In writing an essay, a writer is not supposed to use superfluous words, phrases or sentences. If a sentence has he same meaning you should take the word out. The same case applies to whole phrases and sentences within the wider context of an argument in a paragraph. Use of words and phrases which don’t add any information on the topic to means that your examiners will have he following conclusions. First, you don’t have enough information that is required to support the described arguments and for that reason you are trying to reach the word limit and secondly, you are trying to hide this by means of a slow, monotonous and boring writing style that is professional neither is it academic(Lopate& Phillip, 1998 pp. 23). Referencing Referencing is a list of the source tat the information was got from. This is due to the fact that a writer can not write an essay from his or her own stand point. There are several ways that writers use to put down a referencing lists, the format that is used depends on the instructions that have the specific style of referencing to be used with them. The types of referencing styles that are accepted and acknowledged academically are the Harvard system, the MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. Revision of the paper After the final draft ofthe essay is through, you are required to keep it at least for a day and then revise it. This is done because it makes it easier to have a view of the paper in an objective manner. This enables the writer to see and point out the mistakes, gaps, punctuations, and other problems of the paper that were not evident while writing. The revision of the essay entails the thinking and rearrangement of ideas, reorganizing paragraphs to bring a better flow, refining the arguments once again, and paraphrase of sentences. It also aids in further reading during that period of time and as result one may require to develop the ideas in more detailed manner, give more supporting evidence to the facts and ideas, or delete material that is unnecessary in the essay. Reading out the paperis a fundamental technique of revising anessay as it is believed that it enables the mistakes that were unclear to appear. A second person should be presented with the essay so as to bring his or her opinion and if possible point out the mistakes that might be resent in the paper. This is necessary in cases where the writer feels that the paper is unclear or confusing. Finally, concentrate on the misspelt word and capitalization of necessary words(Louis, 1995 pp. 29). The final steps include the proofreading of the written and revised essay, after that it can be handed top the respective subject for marking or for presentation. References Bensmaïa, F. (1987). The Barthes Effect: The Essay as Reflective Text. Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress,. Dayde, K. (2010). Simon Fraser University CNS Essay Handbook. Available online at: http://www.sfu.ca/cns/PDF/CNS_Essay_Handbook.pdf Johns, G. (2009), The Lost Origins of the Essay. St Paul: Gray wolf Press, 2009. Lopate, R.& Phillips,G. (1998) .In Search of the Centaur: The Essay-Film”, in Beyond Document: Essay Nonfiction Film. Wesleyan University Press. Louis, A. (1995).“The Cinematic Essay”, in Godard and the Others: Essays in Cinematic Form. London, Tantivy Press Peters, R. (2006). Good essay writing: a social sciences guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warburton, P. (2006).The basics of essay writing,London: Rout ledge Zenra, P. How to write an essay: online tips, advice and resources. http://www.howtowriteanessay.com/index2.html Retrieved on 16th May 2011. Read More