How to Improve Your Essay Writing Skills

Updated: 16 Nov 2022

Are you wondering how to improve your essay writing skills? Are you worried about why you always get a lot of red marks on your essay? Worry no more; I will take you through all the necessary techniques you need to improve your essay writing skills.

Whatever essay you are writing, it's always best to understand the topic and the audience. Again, word choice is critical depending on whether it's a formal or informal report—additionally, it's best to read and write a lot. Let's look into the details of these essay writing techniques in this article.

1. Understand the Topic of the Essay

It will be easy for you to write well about a topic you know. Also, you will be familiar with various terminologies that relate to the topic, showing some expertise in the area. Additionally, you will be able to express yourself clearly and effectively.

For instance, in dealing with academic essays, there is a language or dialogue you should follow. So, background knowledge of the type of writing and the essay topic is important.

Additionally, it will help if you analyze your essay question in the following manner;

• Content words- tell more about your topic of the essay. For instance,' discuss the effects of ocean acidification in Eritrea.' The content word here is effects; it guides you on what to write in your essay.
• Instructional verbs–gives you a direction on how to approach your essay.
• Limiting words gives you a direction on what to focus on; in our example above, the word's limit of discussion is in Eritrea, not anywhere else.

2. Work on Your Grammarly skills

If you notice grammar issues, it's best to work on them. Check your subject-verb agreement, tenses, word order, and punctuation. When writing, you can still run a quick online check to confirm if a certain word or sentence is grammatically correct.

Some of the resources you can consider for grammar check include;

• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• Writing forward
• Daily Grammar
• English grammar 101
• Proper Punctuation

It will also help if you use correct punctuation. While proofreading your work, ensure your read it loud to check on awkwardness in the flow. Use commas in brief pauses and semi-colons between two related independent clauses.

• Always Write in Active Voice

Active voice is stronger and engages the reader than passive voice. Again, it makes the content clear to the audience. However, this guideline may not apply to all kinds of essays, for instance, scientific study essays.

This scientific study essay applies more of the passive voice. In the discussion, the study focuses more on the object than the subject, thus why scientific writing uses the passive voice.

• Check on Your Sentence Structure

Ensure your sentences have various lengths to avoid boredom. Create a good number of short, clear sentences and compound ones if you can't avoid them. This format will still ensure you have easy-to-read paragraphs.

• Use Formal Academic Language

Use clear and simple language to communicate to your reader. Avoid slang, contractions, and informal expressions. Also, avoid using conversational words like cool, pretty interesting, and more.

3. Create a Standard Outline of Your Essay

Creating an outline helps you organize your thoughts and content before you start writing. Most essays follow a similar format as follows;

• Introduction – is the initial part of an essay. The introduction should contain a hook, background knowledge of the hook, definitions, and thesis statement.
• Body – should have at least three paragraphs or more, depending on your discussion points. The paragraphs have one main point you present, supporting ideas, examples, and links to your evidence.
• Conclusion – gives a summary of your discussion and a call to action.

As much as you write quality content in the introduction and body, the conclusion is also important. You can have a presentable essay, but your conclusion is misleading your reader. So instead, end your essay with a thoughtful statement proving your credibility to the audience.

Restate the thesis statement in the conclusion and main ideas. Show the significance of your topic and the implications of your research.

4. Use Pieces of Evidence and Sources Appropriately

Link your work to credible sources of the data and facts you have used in your essay. It's a great way to prove your credibility. Also, it shows the reader that you are informed on the topic and have done thorough research. Again, it helps you prove a point to the reader that in normal writing, you can't.

Make sure you analyze your evidence for the reader to understand. Then, whatever you link should connect with your idea or point of discussion.

5. Use Multiple Research Sources

Using different sources of evidence to support your opinions makes your arguments stronger. People will believe in your arguments and will even take action. Depending on the essay topic, you can use web databases, books, journals, videos, and more. Again, ensure you write the correct quotations and follow the format of citations and references. You may use MLA, Oxford, and APA, depending on your academic discipline.

6. Follow a Drafting Process

This technique always works if you adhere to it keenly. There is a great difference between someone who writes an essay several times and one who writes once. While making several drafts, you can polish the initial one, thus improving your essay.

It will help if you take some time off, at least overnight, when you write your first draft. Then, go through your essay to ensure that you clearly express your points. In the process, you can still find ways to support your opinion. You will finally make a quality essay if you keep practicing this several times.

7. Get Someone to Proofread Your Essay

Before submitting your essay, always have an expert proofread it for you. Someone in the academic field can help identify if the format is correct, the language is formal, you have argued your points well, and the essay has flow and logic. Again, experts will still check on grammar, punctuation errors, and plagiarism. You can still find expert professional proofreaders for hire.

8. Read and Write A lot

Whatever you feed your mind while reading will help improve your writing process. Read work from great writers and learn how they organize their ideas. Then, you will learn how to handle the English language and essay writing process.

Therefore, consider reading volumes of work related to essay writing to learn the styles experts use. Also, get to understand how they convey their information to the readers.

Writing also helps to make your essays stand out. The more you write, your work becomes clear, interesting, and easy to understand. You learn to choose words that communicate and not confuse your audience.

Practice writing different types of essays to hone your crafting skills. Writing on different topics helps you feel confident and prepares you to handle a real essay. You can find various essay prompts online and have someone mark them for you and give feedback.

9. Consider Hiring Essay Writing Services

Seeking professional essay writing services would help you be free from essay writing issues. However, if you feel this is too much work, then essay bot is just a call away. We offer various essay writing services from our team of professional writers. Our rates are friendly, and we deliver timely and quality work.

Common Essay Writing Mistakes to Note

As an essay writer, it's good to note the mistakes many essay writers make and avoid them. Some of the mistakes include;

• Inappropriate of tense
• Bad syntax – ensure your sentences have a good structure and make sense.
• Wrong use of prepositions
• Wrong punctuations
• Insufficient proofreading
• Poor referencing techniques
• Making assumptions – always be mindful of exceptions. If you claim something that someone can dispute, ensure you use some evidence.
• Misquoting a well-known phrase – always use phrases that you fully understand.
• Be aware of the spell checker – though they facilitate the editing process, sometimes they can create issues. For example, they can confuse homophones or topic vocabularies.

So, it's also best to proofread the work without fully relying on the software. For instance, "its" instead of "it's" may go unnoticed. Again, ensure the spell checker settings has the correct English you need, UK or American.

• Ignoring grammar check – if a grammar check underlines a word, it means something is wrong grammatically. Take a moment to read the explanation so that you can understand. After, you will know whether to ignore the descriptions or not.

Conclusion

I hope this article will be of great help to you. By now, you have gathered some essay writing tips to help improve your essay writing process. However, it's best to keep practicing them since learning is a process, and you will become an expert in no time.

Remember that no one is perfect; always have time to proofread your essay. Make several drafts as you keep editing to polish the original copy. Where necessary, consider hiring a professional editor or essay writing services.

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