15+ Essay Format Templates – PDF
Writing papers whether it is assigned for AP history class in senior high, a contest with a theme about the crisis and fiasco of politics and society as a whole or for a grueling college admission, would make up a big chunk of your life in the academy and probably beyond it when you take up writing as a career or refuse to let go of it as one of your life’s passions.
But there’s more to writing essays than that elementary 5-paragraph essay about your pet or the composition you submitted, talking senseless about the authors who influenced your love for writing or any aspect of your life for a scholarship grant or ivy league school admission.
Academic Essay Structure
writing.umn.eduASD Essay Structure
vu.edu.auBasic Essay Format
crestmont.eduEssays
For ambitious students or any individual who likes the idea of writing as the best way of exercising the freedom of expression, writing essays are a great chance to showcase subject expertise, academic flair, originality of argument and thought with topnotch writing skills using the English language. The best students in high school and college welcome and even relishes the task of writing essays as a worthy challenge because it’s also the best chance of practicing academic research paper and develop intelligent arguments as well as the creativity that comes with the use of language.
Compelling essays would count as prose in literature and it’s where you get to use figures of speech and hone communication and research skills, both of which, would be very useful in applying for any type of job, especially if you want a career in the academy or in writing. Essays allow an individual to show his knowledge, understanding and creativity with relative freedom but definitely not ease. You may also like scholarship essay templates.
You may think it’s easy to express yourself which is mostly true until you actually try to put your thoughts into words in a way that people would not only understand but also feel for, but find out you just can’t, because your thoughts could be in a mass of haze. It’s easy to think of what you want to say. It’s a different story to be able to tell it exactly the way you want it told. Plus the fact that not all of us have neither flair nor passion for telling stories.You can also like extended essay templates.
Essay As a Writing Task
You may have been indifferent to writing essays about topics you wanted to avoid, topics that you really don’t feel strongly about but they’re the best way to form arguments and challenge them in the process. One way or the other, you’re going to be required to write an essay in school and wherever life takes you after school so it is important, especially of you have big dreams, to learn all that you can in coming up with an essay that may not be compelling enough for the history books but at the very least, worth reading.
Then again, if you have every chance of making it a work of art, you shouldn’t let anything keep you from doing so. And while essay writing can be such a dreaded, daunting task when you’re asked to write about something that doesn’t interest you in the slightest, you just have to go back to some fundamentals to get it written right and maybe add some sophistication taking a leaf from your favorite author’s books to end up with a brilliant one. You may also see literary essay templates.
Basic Essay Outline
tacoma.uw.eduBasic Essay Structure
www2.port.ac.ukEnglish Literature Writing Guide
ed.ac.ukBack to Essay Basics
Practice the art of going back to the basics which means you have to understand the purpose of essay-writing and what it’s meant to test and what your professors or evaluating panel are going to look for when they read your piece. Even though it may require hard work and a compelling research to get a brilliant essay done, there are ways in which you can break it to manageable parts and the right structure you could follow to provide you a road map and organize your writing better. You may also notice analysis essay templates.
Lots of people can also be answering the same essay question, so you’re going to have smart goals to make yours stand out from the rest by writing a brilliant essay. Regardless of a student’s academic level, essays are written to test many things:
1. Knowledge
Essays test and allow you to combine what you’ve learned and read from your research efforts, what you remember from reading books in the past and even from your personal experience, making them an important aspect of the learning process, especially for courses in humanities and the liberal arts. You may also like college essay templates.
2. Comprehension
Writing essays test the ability to explain complex ideas, issues, current events of great importance to the society and make sense of them.
Essays also test your ability of understanding the question being asked and develop a considered, excellent response from it. They also evaluate your ability of absorbing and consolidating information read or taken from various sources, which would result in accomplishing a lot of material in a limited time, in which case you’ll also have the need to decide which materials are useful and which are not. Essays, in this case allows you to filter the type of information or content you absorb, where you get to choose the most relevant ones to your the question you are answering or the subject you’re tackling. You may also check persuasive essay templates.
Essays test your ability in writing an informed, objective, coherent and intelligent argument that consider different sides or points. Essays are a great opportunity to show level of language and communication skills in the written form. They also challenge your time management since essays become part of your workload as a student or professional, and must be written with a plan proposal, prioritized and exercised taking in the high standards it requires, with a deadline at hand.
Essay Outline Worksheet
tacoma.uw.eduEssay Structure
westernsydney.edu.auEssay Writing for Beginners
kent.ac.ukWhat Does It Take To Write a Brilliant Essay?
Now that we have covered the purpose and importance of essay-writing, how then, do we come up with an eloquent, impressive essay? Those who are evaluating your essay may have their own biases and things they personally look for, before they mark the essay as outstanding, but let’s try looking at a number of the best pieces’ most irrefutable characteristics. You may also like descriptive essay templates.
1. Originality
Originality is the highlight of a compelling essay. But while your essay needs to be written in an original approach, you don’t have to form theories and concepts from scratch. Most of the discussion you’ll have in a subject from the humanities would have been tackled already from many different angles which means you already got the depth of people’s arguments. To write a winning essay, you have to tackle it in depth, from a different perspective and come up with your own insights-that is, intelligent essays from a source or material that may not be included in the reading list assigned. You can also see interview essay templates.
2. In-depth Knowledge
Obviously, a brilliant essay should demonstrate mastery if not a strong knowledge in the discussion of a subject or an issue as well as sound understanding. The essay should be able to demonstrate the ability to form educated arguments and present relevant facts as their basis. It would cover a broad range of material and considers different angles, relatively using and quoting various sources. You may also like leadership essay templates.
3. Intelligent Debate with an Organized Structure
The general essay as a whole, provides coherent writing, discussing both sides of an argument or story and coming up with a conclusion that evaluates the evidence you’ve managed to cover and also with added effort and thinking, offers an intelligent take on how the topic should be viewed based on the evidence covered.
4. Avoids Superfluous Information
Every part of an essay serves a greater purpose and that is to educate and convince or persuade. Incoherent ramblings and going off point should have no room in your writing. No beating around the bush and stick to your point, otherwise, you’ll confuse the readers and waste their time in the process. This is why it’s important, to base arguments on relevant facts and shy away from irrelevant sources including those that would expose your failure to grasp the real “conversation” or hear of the matter. Don’t lose focus and go back to your fundamentals if you feel like you’re already going off-point. You can also see reflective essay templates.
5. Excellent use of English
Play with words, but let them flow effortlessly, smoothly and you’ll have the reader’s confidence and trust that they’re in good hands, that they matter in your writing, because sentences and phrases should never be read twice for the reader to understand them. Practice smooth transition from one paragraph to the next. Grammar should be flawless and make sure that you don’t commit any spelling errors so check for typos and correct them before submission otherwise it could ruin the chances of ending up with an informative essay.
Essay Writing Structure
sydney.edu.auFormat Basic Essay
canadacollege.eduGeography Essay Writing Handbook
massey.ac.nz6. Know what you want to say
Before the writing process even starts, you’ve got to have a clear idea of what you want to say in your essay even if you’re still grasping as to how you will tell and construct your message. This is probably the oldest advice in writing but it’s importance is still evident because without knowing what you want to say, you will struggle in structuring your arguments well. The easiest way through this is through writing an essay plan or outline first.
The essay outline wouldn’t take too much of your time because it will just serve as a guide to better organize your writing and will save you a lot of time and brainstorming later on when you get to the actual writing. An outline would also map out your essay, allowing you to break it down from the introduction, a body of paragraphs that builds up your argument instead of just writing with the tendency of jumping from one topic and point to another.
7. Answer the question you’ve been set, not the question you want to answer
One of the most common errors and problems with students trying to complete an essay is that they tend to focus too much on answering the essay question and set that question to their topic preference since it’s obviously the easy way out. After all, who wouldn’t prefer to write about something they’re more comfortable with? But you have to make sure not to get into the same pitfall. While you could still end up writing an impressive piece, you may evade the actual argument or question and this time, no matter how topnotch your use of language and the written word is, it wouldn’t be enough to save your paper. You may also like narrative essay templates.
8. Provide a balanced argument
The best essays takes both sides of an argument essay into consideration, presenting information without bias and tackles the argument from different points of view. You may be given free reign with the topic, but one sided arguments rarely impress because you need to show that you’ve given your materials, knowledge about the subject and corresponding evidence some serious thinking. You may have been asked to write an essay about the history of the United States culture or society from the late 1800s up to the early 1900s but that’s going to be a very broad topic.
Pick a focal point and narrow it down to something more specific because you’re not writing a book. You would probably have a word count to comply with and a broad topic would typically require a lot more pages to present your points clearly. If you can choose your topic, brainstorm and list down your ideas, then filter it to the one you think you’re most well-versed with and can present comprehensively. You can also like expository essay templates.
9. Context
If you can show that you have a good understanding and knowledge of the context of the topic you’re trying to write, or asked to write about, this will be a telling sign that you’ve given enough consideration on possible influences or references that may have been responsible for shaping a work or an issue. It will also show that you didn’t just took the question for what it is and answered accordingly but that you have the ability to think outside the box and give contribute an argument that lies beyond the obvious or beyond what has already been told in previous writings of the same subject. You may also like microsoft word essay templates.
It takes great skill to look at the bigger picture and would therefore raise you higher than other students in your class since too many people can’t see the greater “conversation” and have very limited focus when it comes to essay-writing, unable to offer or contribute anything new and useful. For example, if you’re a literature student, your essay about an author’s work should be written in a way that’snot isolated to the piece as a whole but in the context of what happened in history and the type of thinking that shaped the period in which the author’s works were written. You may also see essay plan templates.
You can’t do an essay about Shelley’s poetry without some understanding and discussion of the political turmoil in England in the Romantic period that made him into the most radical writer of his time and without consideration of his works in their historical, social and political context.
How to Structure Your Paper
depts.washington.eduIntroduction to Essay Writing
gettingstarted.unsw.edu.auFormat
Aside from writing in impeccable English, you should follow a format (even a basic one can work) for presenting your argument in a clear and organized manner. Typically, a well-thought essay follows a simple format through answering these important questions:
- What?
This is the first question you should expect from the reader. If you are writing a topic of your choice, you should have a basis for what makes it such an important subject to tackle. Also, what sort of factual evidence backs your arguments? In answering the question, you must check the evidence you collected from research or analysis of your sources and material, thus making your claim true. The “what” and presentation part should come early on in the essay and usually already given in the introduction. Since in some way, you’re reporting your observations regarding the thesis question or issue, this is where you’d get to say more when you start your writing process. Just be careful not to let it take up a very big part of your final piece, otherwise it may lack balance, coherence and it could also result in a weak conclusion. You can also like evaluation essay templates.
- How?
Your audience will also want to know whether not the claims you’ve made regarding the topic are true on all points which should aim to answer the “how”of what you’ve written. How does the argument stand up to the challenge of a counterargument? How does the new material or sources presented impact the points you’re making? The essay would have to include at least one part for the “how”. You can consider it complication since you’re trying to anticipate the educated reader’s complex questions. Most of the time, this part comes after your “what” but it’s important to remember that an essay could complicate its original point many times depending on how long it is and the opposing point alone may be found anywhere in the essay. You may also see biography outline templates.
- Why?
Your audience or professors would also want to know what makes your arguments so important and what makes you take on a particular topic different as well as why it should matter to anyone else. Your “why” answers the greater part of your essay question. It gives readers the opportunity to understand the points you’re trying to make, in the larger context because in answering this question, your essay already presents its significance. In short, this is your the turning point of your writing and you should do what you can to make it count. You can also like formal outline templates.
The greater “punches” of your claims or the complete answer to the why should be located towards the end of the essay although you may be discussing the question in passing at the beginning or introduction. This is the part that you shouldn’t miss because you’ll risk having an essay with no end point to it, something that makes it incomplete and will lose its significance altogether.
Paragraph and Essay Structure
batchelor.edu.auStructure of an Essay
sta.hcdsb.orgMapping Your Essay
Organizing your essay based on the audience or reader’s knowledge or logic requires examination of your topic and the arguments you presented as well as anticipating what the readers need to know. Take note that one of the most important purpose of writing is educating the readers; telling them what they need to know as opposed to focusing on what they want to know and in what order to so that they can have a good grasp of the topic and be convinced by your point as your whole argument develops. You can also like college essay templates.
The best way to do this is to outline the essay’s ideas and break them down by way of written narrative essay. This will then provide you with an initial record of the ideas and will give you a better opportunity in reminding yourself at each transition of the reader’s need in getting your points to them.
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