10 Basic Steps in Writing an Academic Essay

Before you can send your essay over to academic proofreading, you obviously have to write one. If it’s the first time you’re writing an essay or have faced obstacles when writing one, our 10 steps will help you out.

What is an Academic Essay?

An academic essay aims at solving an academic problem for which you’ll get a grade to complete your degree. In some cases, the essay can also be about a particular subject matter. It’s supposed to demonstrate that you’ve understood the subject matter and can apply everything you’ve learnt during your lectures. Such essays often go a little deeper into the subject matter you’ve discussed at your lectures. Thus, you’re supposed to get your hands dirty and dig into it.

Throughout your studies, you will have to write quite a few essays. Their main purpose is to prepare you for the final piece you’re going to write for your degree. Of course, you’re also internalizing your subject matter when you’re writing an essay. Usually, an essay is about five to ten pages long. In most cases, this would be a bachelor’s degree or at least a diploma. Master degrees and dissertations for your doctor’s title can follow your bachelor’s thesis.

That’s all good and well, but how do you write an essay? One thing is for sure though: you’ll require proofreading services.

#Step 1

The first step of writing an essay is to find a topic if your professor hasn’t given you a list to choose a topic from. At university, professors do sometimes give out lists with four or five topics. You can pick one of those provided. Should this not be the case, you have to find a topic yourself. At best, your topic should be about something that interests you personally. In this manner, you can keep up your motivation. Try not to choose a topic that’s too broad to cover across up to ten pages. For example, writing about World War 2 would be too general and too vast. You’d have to narrow it down to something like  ‘Navy operations in the Pacific during World War 2’.

#Step 2

Do your research. Research is probably the most time-consuming step for your essay. Don’t use wikipedia as you’ll have to cite sources for your essay at the end. Wikipedia is, at best, only a good start for your research to find corresponding literature. You’ll also have to check academic databases, journals and your library. Don’t solely rely on the internet as there’re still things called books. Take notes of your research and create some excerpts of the important text passages. You don’t have to forward the notes to proofreading services later. Learn all there is about your topic and become an expert at it.

#Step 3

Analyse your findings. You may find opposing views about your topic when you’re doing research. That’s good though. Take them all into account to create an argumentation of points for or against what you’re trying to find out with your essay. Try to find a lack of reason as well as logical conclusions of your research findings. Take notes of this as well, which you neither have to forward to proofreading services.

#Step 4

Which insights have you gained from your research? If you can’t come up with any yet, try to write down questions about your topic and answer those based on your research.

#Step 5

Come up with a key point you’re trying to make in your essay. It could also serve to narrow down the topic you’re writing about.

#Step 6

Put down the structure of your essay. With a structure at hand, it will be easier for you to write the essay. Give your paragraphs a title that’s not longer than a single line. Take advantage of bullet points for a rough overview of what you’re going to write about in each paragraph. You can add additional paragraph titles at a later point. Check if your structure makes sense or if you have to switch some paragraphs around.

#Step 7

Now that your structure is in place, you can start to write an introduction. It should grab any reader’s attention, not only the attention of proofreading services. Explain the issue or academic problem and make it an intro for your thesis.

#Step 8

Start writing the main part of your essay and progress from one paragraph to the next. Each paragraph should only be about what its header says. Provide evidence of your arguments as you’ve found them during your research. Write your essay from your point of view as if you were talking to the reader.

#Step 9

Now it’s time for your conclusion. Shortly sum up your research results. Wrap up your essay with your thoughts about your findings.

#Step 10

You’re almost done. Leave the essay for a day or two to take another look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. Check for consistency and if you’ve stuck to your golden thread. Make changes where applicable and also check for grammar mistakes. Then your essay is ready to go to professional proofreading services.

You may wonder why you’d still have to forward your essay to professional proofreading services. There is grammar checker software out there or not? And you already proofread it yourself. The thing is that you easily read over your own mistakes. It’s like not seeing the entire forest for all its trees. The software you can use for free is not exactly reliable at finding all typing mistakes and grammar errors. It fails miserably at the context and only checks every single word for its correctness. There’s nothing like a human proofreader who can easily recognize context. At best, you’ll have your essay returned with only minimal corrections.

Of course, you can use AI technology for your first proofreading, but it only serves as an initial check. You can eradicate your first mistakes. Some proofreading services may reject essays that are covered in mistakes.