Essay Writing: How To Do It Better? Useful Tips for College Freshmen
Is there any other assignment besides an essay that causes much fear and stress in students? We don't think so. There's so much "special charm" around this assignment. However, essay writing is one of the most commonly practiced activities in educational settings. Children write essays in middle school and high school and do them during their undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate studies. Everything that changes is the complexity of topics.
The situation with essay writing in academic settings is disappointing. Students have no desire to do the essays and choose to pay for writing papers instead. And it's not the worst way to solve this problem. You find a reliable service with a good reputation, place an order, pay money and get a paper tailored to your needs and requirements. Not the worst way to save your mental health and get good grades. However, you can't order 100% of your papers and need your writing skills developed.
School essays are much easier to tackle: you can draw inspiration from the already written paper or just rewrite it. The topics aren't very complicated, and teachers' requirements aren't strict if compared to college. Applicants get accepted with grief in half, and then the next challenge waits for them: a lot of assignments and activities. And essay writing remains a triggering one.
Why Is Essay Writing Necessary For Students?
The most obvious reason for students' distaste for essay writing is the lack of understanding of the essence of this activity and its importance. Before we start our comprehensive guide to help freshmen adapt faster, we need to define what an essay is. Let's do it!
"Essay is a piece of writing on a particular subject."
It's the basic definition, but it doesn't make it clear to us, right? We hope you don't mind if we expand it a little. Essay writing is a composition up to 5 pages long (sometimes it can be even longer), and it usually represents the writer's point of view on a certain issue. This definition fits the descriptive essay, but let's not forget there are other types: persuasive, argumentative, analytical, etc. Regardless of the type, the basis remains – an essay is a piece of writing. Only the intent can change: an essay can describe, convince, analyze or review something.
The Importance And Benefits Of Essay Writing
It wasn't a whim of the Department of Education to make essays an obligatory part of the college and university curriculum. However, most students think so. If you belong to this category of people, why didn't you try to delve into this issue before and understand why essay writing is given so much importance yourself? We've already done it and are ready to present the answer.
- Boosts your communication skills. It only seems that writing has nothing to do with speaking. In reality, if one wants to be a good speaker, one must first become good at writing. Being able to communicate ideas in writing means you'll be able to do it orally. Regular writing practice will bear fruit.
- Improves writing capability. The obvious benefit but it is still worth to be mentioned. It's a kind of vicious circle for many students. They don't know how to write, refuse to do it, and therefore, can't get better at this activity. It's impossible to submit top-grade papers when you write them once or twice a year.
- Gives feedback to your professor. Let's not forget that faculty members assign essays not to burden you with another assignment but to understand that you've learned the material. An essay is a great form of assessment, and if you can cover the prompt you were asked – you can move to another unit in your syllabus.
- Benefits your background knowledge. The information given during your course will hardly be enough for you to craft a good essay. Your task is to interest your reader, and you won't be able to do it without some interesting facts and information that would be relevant to the topic. When you write, you study sources and find a lot of information.
- Teaches critical thinking. Essays often imply that you will analyze a certain issue and draw conclusions based on your analysis. And this process is called critical thinking. You can just choose a point of view, say it's yours, and finish your paper. A strong argumentation is what is necessary. And critical thinking is what helps you to provide it.
- Contributes to your future. Don't limit the uses of essay writing to your present and your study at college. Do you understand how it can be helpful in your professional career? Writing teaches you a set of different skills like researching, analyzing, and others you'll anyway need at work. Reports and other documents won't be a problem for you.
Finally, let's not forget that essay writing skills influence your academic success. Students who know how to write can count on better grades, better performance, and successful completion of the admissions process to the next academic level. Essay writing is unique because it's a skill that gives us a set of several skills at the same time if you want to succeed in college and then do it in your career, master this activity! But before we give you some insights, we would like to explain why it's difficult for freshmen.
A Few Words About Freshmen's Hardships With Essay Writing
Your negative experience probably causes the fear and anxiety you associate with essay writing. But what if we tell you that all writers are, to this or that extent, afraid to start writing each new paper, although they could have written thousands of similar ones? The reason is a fear of judgment: students are so scared to be graded low, whereas writers think their readers won't appreciate the effort.
These were reasonable fears that could easily be tackled. Let yourself admit you have a fear, practice writing regularly, and fall in love with what you do – it's the easiest coping strategy, isn't it?
Another difficulty is the distinction between college and high school approaches to essay writing. At school, students are required to focus on the details of the issue: all information is already given, and there's no room for creativity. College settings imply that students will find out the details of an issue by themselves and cover them entirely. Freshmen turn out to be unprepared for it.
Besides it, essay writing relies on the information students got in the class and presupposes that they'll analyze it. However, most of them get so stressed in class that remembering this experience is painful for them, and they write essays from scratch.
Finally, many of these hardships are caused by difficulties in the adaptation process. People get into new settings, get used to a new, more complicated schedule, and must keep up with the curriculum simultaneously. It's tough.
Top Essay Writing Strategies
We believe anyone can write a good essay regardless of their skills and abilities. Sometimes everything the student needs is a good set of tips or strategies or professional guidance. Finding the latter option is your duty, but we can assist you in collecting effective essay-writing tips.
Before we proceed with it, let us tell you what a good essay is. If you want your paper to be graded high, ensure it makes sense. You should organize your thoughts well, ensure a smooth transition between sections and paragraphs, and comply with the proper structure. Start with an introduction, present the main thoughts in body paragraphs and then draw conclusions in the corresponding section.
Do you want to get better at writing essays? Here are some tips or strategies you can imply. Use them, and you'll see that writing isn't as difficult as it seems.
- Take time to do an in-depth study of the assignment. Many problems are caused by the lack of understanding of what is required. So, you'd better analyze the assignment and requirements and start writing only when you understand 100% of what is stated. Don't hesitate to ask questions if something is unclear.
- Brainstorm first. Writing from scratch is a failing strategy, and any experienced writer will agree with it. When you're a freshman, the best way to cope with essay writing is to understand the topic. Brainstorm your own ideas based on what you already know. Maybe you already know a lot.
- Understand the purpose of writing. It doesn't seem like a strategy but like a task. Until you explain why this essay is necessary to you, you won't achieve success. We've discussed the benefits and importance of this activity for students, so you're supposed to deal with this step quickly.
- Be ready to write several versions of your essay. If you start writing and think that this version will be the one you'll submit, forget about it. On average, students need to write a draft, then edit and rewrite it many times to achieve perfection. Essay writing is tough work.
- Consider the vocabulary. It's quite easy to improve your paper by addressing the language side. Learn the transitions and introduce them into your paper to achieve a smooth flow of thought. Expand your vocabulary by using synonyms. It'll make your essay sound less boring and more professional.
- Pay attention to the introduction. It's the first part of the text your readers see, and it should be impeccable if you want to impress them. Catch the readers' attention with an interesting fact or something else unexpected. Maybe you'll need to spend more time on introduction writing, but it's worth it.
- Edit the paper after a while. If you're reading this post, you hardly consider yourself an excellent writer. That's why we suggest your paper needs some corrections. Trying to do it immediately after you finish writing is a road to failure. Let yourself have a rest of the writing and then come back to editing.
The Bottom Line
Of course, we would give you many other effective essay-writing strategies, but our goal was to create a comprehensive post that answers freshmen's questions and provides the necessary assistance. Judging by the result, we succeeded. Everyone can learn why essay writing is difficult for freshmen and gain an insight into the secrets of submitting a top-grade essay. We hope that college won't be a problem for you.