Essay writing is part and parcel of most academic subjects. It requires overall good English skills and an ability to articulate your ideas concisely, convincing the reader that you know what you’re talking about. Whether it’s your first time writing an essay or you’re just looking to brush up on your writing skills, here are some tips that we’ve put together, with help from a prep school in Surrey. Continue reading to learn how to improve on your essay writing skills.

Read The Question Carefully

Sounds simple enough but an easy mistake to make! It’s surprisingly easy to go down a rabbit hole when completing an essay question and stray away from the intended subject (or even misunderstand it completely). 

To save you the heartbreak of having to re-do an essay, always dissect your questions so that you clearly understand what it is that you need to write about. Highlight any command words that you can see such as “explain”, “identify”, “analyse” and so on as well as any key themes mentioned. 

You should also make it a habit to refer back to the question while writing, to not only show the marker that it’s being answered but also yourself. Teachers are very helpful too and should be able to offer guidance on what they’re expecting from you so that you know that you’re on the right lines.

Read Model Answers

Knowing where to start is often the trickiest part of writing an essay. It can be a big undertaking and having an idea of how to go about it can help you to overcome this obstacle. Other essay examples can be a great source of inspiration, especially if you’ve not written one before. They can help you to gauge an understanding of what yours should look like in terms of structure, the kind of language to use and so on. 

Read, Read and Read Again

Proofreading is essential for writing any form of literature. When writing from the top of your head, your main priority is to write down all that you can remember and not your spelling (or any part of SPAG for that matter). It’s only when you go back and reread, that you’re horrified by what you’ve written. Doing so will give you the opportunity to correct any mistakes and fine tune your work to make it less wordy and easier to read.

Even so, there is still the risk of mistakes slipping through the net as when we read our work back, we tend to do so the way that things should be written. Having friends and family (or even a proofreading tool) look over your work can help to make sure that everything is fine on the grammatical front for that added piece of mind.

Use Active Voice as Opposed to Passive Voice

While we’re on the topic of “wordiness”, using active voice in your writing can help to make it more concise and less complicated for readers. Fewer words are also used which gives you more to work with if you’re running short on them. Here’s an example:

Sentence 1: The cat was chasing the mouse. 

Sentence 2: The mouse was being chased by the cat.

Sentence 1 uses active voice and, as you can see, communicates what it needs to with the fewest words.

Good Vocabulary Makes for Great Essays

Having varied vocabulary throughout your essay can help to make it more engaging, your words more impactful and communicate what you need to in the most effective manner. A thesaurus can help with this, although it's important to not just throw in big words for the sake of it. You may find that your sentences lose their meaning entirely and don’t make sense.

Plan

Structure is just as important. It helps to create flow and takes the reader through a journey. If this isn’t quite right, jumpy and things aren’t in the right order, they will end up confused. Once you have an idea as to what you’re writing about, create a plan/skeleton that you can use to map out your points. This will ensure that no important points are missed and that your essay is easy to follow.

Leave the Introduction for Last

It’s a strange concept to get your head around but it can help you to create a powerful introduction as you will know exactly what you’re introducing. It can also save you time. As mentioned before, the hardest part is often starting and not having to create an introduction can take some weight off so that you can focus on the actual substance.

Evidence

Finally, an essay is a piece of writing that aims to convince its readers to think a certain way. It’s recommended to have lots of different arguments for this reason to strengthen your case. This can’t be done without good evidence, which takes research and analytical skills to gather from various sources. Remember, not all evidence is good evidence. To make your point clearly and effectively, choose the strongest pieces to go with and consider their validity.

Do you have any other essay writing tips? Let us know in the comments below.