The first step to write an excellent essay is to plan, understand the question, research and gather relevant information and come up with a skeleton plan. You should also have in mind about the word limit you intend to write. In this article, you will learn on the guidelines for writing essays and the common mistakes you need to avoid.

Structuring Essay

To make an excellent essay, you need to write it in a natural manner where all your sentences flow logically. Besides, you will also need signposts that will guide the audience. For an essay to be complete, it has the following format:

1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Conclusion
4. References

1. Introduction

The role of this introduction is to ensure you introduce the subject. Here, you will explain the way you understand your question and therefore describe the way you plan to deal with it.

You can start where you define essential terms, provide a brief history, personal context when appropriate and the significance of the subject. You should avoid lengthy introduction because it will limit the available number of words for the assignment.

The best introductions are short and brief. They should be one or two paragraphs that are brief to the point. You will find some people starting with a provisional introduction and then rewrite after completing their first essay draft. So that you can write a tentative selection, you will ask yourself whether your audience wants to know so you can follow the subsequent discussion.

2. Body

An excellent essay will generally be a blend with researched evidence and comment. Some essays require a catalog of factual sources or summaries of other people’s viewpoints, philosophies, attitudes, and thoughts.

Besides, other people will express only their personal opinions and therefore lacking or little evidence. They might also take essay examples from other writer and support their views. The essential thing to do is to balance between your analysis and other researchers on the subject. It is, therefore, necessary if you back up your points from your experience and findings from other writers and researchers.

When you are writing other peoples researches, you will need to cite them. What is important is that you will need to illustrate or quote the material by providing evidence to the points you make and depends on the essay type.

Avoid using quotations to substitute your words. For a quote, let it be an explanation using your words and show the significance to the argument. When citing another author’s test, ensure you indicate your evidence in the reference. When done, provide a full list of your references at the end.

Conclusion

When you complete an essay, you need to write a short conclusion. The conclusion should sum up your argument or comparison of your viewpoints. You should what you accomplish or learned and also mention the questions that you have left open. You should not summarize your argument entirely.

References

In a different page, you will need to include a list of references or bibliography. When you don’t reference correctly, then you will get the accusation of plagiarism. When you indicate another author’s text, then you will need to show where you get your evidence in a reference. Besides, even other documents that you read so that you can contrast your argument, ensure you reference them too.