Further, you cannot, or should not, just sit down and write from start to finish and call it finished. In this “essay” I am going to cover many of the important points of how to construct and complete your essay. A well-written essay includes formulating your thesis statement and using it as an outline, establishing topics for your body paragraphs and developing them, determining a meaningful and interesting introductory paragraph and writing a conclusion that will tie the entire essay together, as if it were a bow. (This is my thesis statement.) I hope that you will adopt my “suggestions” as points will be attached to your ability to do so. I will also cover some miscellaneous issues that are incredibly important.
Formulating a solid thesis statement can be quite simple if you utilize the prompt you have been given. Utilize the prompt, which is generally given in a question by rephrasing it as a statement. Imagine that the prompt I was given was: “How does one write a well-written academic essay?” Please notice in my statement that I have three topics, but you can have as many as you need. The first one is the one I am covering in this, my first body paragraph. The wisdom of doing these in the same order as you have stated them in your thesis statement, is to assist your reader in following your essay and aiding you in the structure of your paper. (P.S. Please don’t underline your thesis and tell me that it is as I did for you. I should not need it.)
An introductory paragraph should be thought of as your “movie trailer”. You are inviting and/or enticing the reader to take the time to read it. Try using a catchy anecdote, (brief story about the object of your essay), or a startling statistic if applicable. Avoid using a question. This is poor
Title (optional, but preferable)
A well-written academic essay is not necessarily something you can do in one sitting.
writing and is nothing short of trite. Your thesis statement should be in the last one or two sentences to be really effective. Further, wait until you have developed your body paragraphs before writing the introduction, it will help you more than you can imagine.
It is helpful to take each of the points you have included in your thesis statement in the same order when writing your body paragraphs to help the reader follow your stream of thought. Address each topic and use evidence from the text to support your writings. When you directly quote the text, utilize quotation marks and cite with (pg. xx); when paraphrasing you do not need to use quotation marks, but you must still cite the information in the same manner as a direct quote. Use good transition statements to move from one body paragraph to the next, until you arrive at your conclusion.
The conclusion should truly wrap up everything you have covered in your essay. Oftentimes, an effective and interesting conclusion is merely your introduction in reverse. Start with your thesis statement and then work backward from there. There are two caveats you must remember: First, never introduce new information in your introduction. If you think of something, go back and work it into the appropriate body paragraph or leave it out altogether. Second, NEVER start your conclusion with the phrase: In conclusion. It should be unnecessary and is very juvenile writing.
Some of the miscellaneous items you must consider when writing an academic essay are: If you are writing about a book, such as Gone With the Wind you must always use italics when you write the name. Additionally, you must always capitalize all the important words in the title. Notice what I capitalized and what I did not. Words, such as articles can be left in lower case. Another point is that when you are typing your essay (which is imperative in a well-written academic essay), your punctuation must immediately follow the word with a space after the
punctuation. Do NOT do this: Punctuation is important ,because it helps the reader understand .It is poor writing. The use of contractions is not considered optimal academic writing. Avoid using contractions such as can’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t, etc. The same applies to abbreviations. Write out the words, it does not take that long and it elevates the tone of your writing. You should use standard fonts and sizes. For this assignment you must use Times New Roman, at a 12 point font size. You must also single space your heading, but double space your essay. Do not leave more than one space between your heading and your title or your title and the body of your paper.
By following the guidelines of formulating a good thesis statement to use as an informal outline, utilizing the topics of it as the topics for your body paragraphs, determining an interesting introductory paragraph, as well as compiling your conclusion paragraph, while observing the imperative miscellaneous items will assist you in preparing and submitting a well-written, academic essay.