Struggling with how to conclude an essay? Here are our academic essay writing tips that will help you write a clearer, more concise compositions!
Essays are among the most common challenges posed by teachers once you hit secondary school, which means the sooner you get used to writing them, the better! Of course, if you’re not particularly fond of writing, that’s easier said than done.
Fortunately, essay writing is a skill that can be practised and honed over time. Among other things, knowing the different types of essays and learning how to structure for them can help a great deal.
To that end, we’ll provide you with academic essay writing tips that can help you conquer this part of your education. With our guidance, you should learn how to produce essays that not only get your thoughts across but also consistently impress your teachers.
First things first: it helps to learn about the different types of essays you’re typically asked to write in secondary school. Broadly speaking, we can split them up into these six types:
Remember these six essay types and the notes provided for them, because it can help you throughout the rest of this guide and your own writing! Teachers typically specify which essay type they want, anyway, which is a great start for any writing assignment.
Now we can move on to the tips that you can apply in planning or structuring your essay according to requirements. Below are the most important ones:
This is one of the most important academic essay writing tips. Before you even start drafting anything in a document, start by organising your ideas!
The idea is to brainstorm the key points, outline how they lead to or support each other, and then put all of that in a logical plan that you can refer to. Why? Because it helps you ensure that the foundations of your composition are sound and keeps you from meandering midway.
The best part about this tip is that it works no matter which essay type you’re using too. In fact, whether you’re looking for expository essay tips or reflection essay ones, you’ll usually find this as a recommendation.
This is where understanding the differences between the essay types comes in handy again. If you know which type you’re supposed to write for a class, you have a better idea of how to structure it.
For instance, let’s say you’re doing a discursive essay. These tend to work best with a straightforward presentation. That means you will usually compose your essay like this:
But if you’re doing a narrative essay, your structure can easily take a very different shape. The introduction in a narrative essay doesn’t need to be a formal presentation of a topic – it can be the start of an event or even an in medias res leap into a tale!
In the same way, you don’t typically expect supporting arguments and concrete examples for a thesis to pop up in the body of a descriptive essay. Instead, you’d see those in things like argumentative essays, so they only become part of your work then.
Vocabulary, sentence structure, and tone can be matched to specific essay types as well.
For instance, formal or scientific language is expected for discursive and argumentative essays. It’s less effective in reflective or personal recount essays because it distances the writer from the reader and makes the writing seem less intimate.
Yet in discursive or argumentative essays, the same writing style and tone helps to add gravity to what’s being discussed. It makes the reader feel like the writer is maintaining a healthy distance from a topic, enough to view and analyse it fairly.
Writing, like many other skills, is something you get better at by doing it more often. Practice can actually make a big difference to the quality of your compositions, for instance.
You can ask teachers or even family members for simple topics or prompts. You can also guide your practice by studying others’ work and even attempting to emulate it, e.g. by looking at good samples of essay writing from various reference articles and resources.
Look at areas you struggle with to see how others deal with them. For example, how do they end their essays? That can tell you how to conclude an essay yourself!
Finally, analysing other essays is a particularly good way to get a better idea of the various parts that hold together different essay types. For instance, if you have several samples of discursive or argumentative essays, challenge yourself to locate parts like the topic or thesis sentence, the examples and evidence, and the application sections.
The tips supplied above should help you improve your essay writing. If you feel like you need even more help, however, don’t fret – simply reach out to us at Aspire Hub.
Our English programme covers essay writing and has tutors who can help you break down every essay type’s requirements while honing your writing skills. We can even give you personal feedback and guidance for more directed support.
To get started, enquire about our programmes now!
Essays are among the most common challenges posed by teachers once you hit secondary school, which means the sooner you get used to writing them, the better! Of course, if you’re not particularly fond of writing, that’s easier said than done.
Fortunately, essay writing is a skill that can be practised and honed over time. Among other things, knowing the different types of essays and learning how to structure for them can help a great deal.
To that end, we’ll provide you with academic essay writing tips that can help you conquer this part of your education. With our guidance, you should learn how to produce essays that not only get your thoughts across but also consistently impress your teachers.
First things first: it helps to learn about the different types of essays you’re typically asked to write in secondary school. Broadly speaking, we can split them up into these six types:
Remember these six essay types and the notes provided for them, because it can help you throughout the rest of this guide and your own writing! Teachers typically specify which essay type they want, anyway, which is a great start for any writing assignment.
Now we can move on to the tips that you can apply in planning or structuring your essay according to requirements. Below are the most important ones:
This is one of the most important academic essay writing tips. Before you even start drafting anything in a document, start by organising your ideas!
The idea is to brainstorm the key points, outline how they lead to or support each other, and then put all of that in a logical plan that you can refer to. Why? Because it helps you ensure that the foundations of your composition are sound and keeps you from meandering midway.
The best part about this tip is that it works no matter which essay type you’re using too. In fact, whether you’re looking for expository essay tips or reflection essay ones, you’ll usually find this as a recommendation.
This is where understanding the differences between the essay types comes in handy again. If you know which type you’re supposed to write for a class, you have a better idea of how to structure it.
For instance, let’s say you’re doing a discursive essay. These tend to work best with a straightforward presentation. That means you will usually compose your essay like this:
But if you’re doing a narrative essay, your structure can easily take a very different shape. The introduction in a narrative essay doesn’t need to be a formal presentation of a topic – it can be the start of an event or even an in medias res leap into a tale!
In the same way, you don’t typically expect supporting arguments and concrete examples for a thesis to pop up in the body of a descriptive essay. Instead, you’d see those in things like argumentative essays, so they only become part of your work then.
Vocabulary, sentence structure, and tone can be matched to specific essay types as well.
For instance, formal or scientific language is expected for discursive and argumentative essays. It’s less effective in reflective or personal recount essays because it distances the writer from the reader and makes the writing seem less intimate.
Yet in discursive or argumentative essays, the same writing style and tone helps to add gravity to what’s being discussed. It makes the reader feel like the writer is maintaining a healthy distance from a topic, enough to view and analyse it fairly.
Writing, like many other skills, is something you get better at by doing it more often. Practice can actually make a big difference to the quality of your compositions, for instance.
You can ask teachers or even family members for simple topics or prompts. You can also guide your practice by studying others’ work and even attempting to emulate it, e.g. by looking at good samples of essay writing from various reference articles and resources.
Look at areas you struggle with to see how others deal with them. For example, how do they end their essays? That can tell you how to conclude an essay yourself!
Finally, analysing other essays is a particularly good way to get a better idea of the various parts that hold together different essay types. For instance, if you have several samples of discursive or argumentative essays, challenge yourself to locate parts like the topic or thesis sentence, the examples and evidence, and the application sections.
The tips supplied above should help you improve your essay writing. If you feel like you need even more help, however, don’t fret – simply reach out to us at Aspire Hub.
Our English programme covers essay writing and has tutors who can help you break down every essay type’s requirements while honing your writing skills. We can even give you personal feedback and guidance for more directed support.
To get started, enquire about our programmes now!
