Writing An English Essay
The Final Steps
Outlining your English essay is like preparing a skeleton using your ideas, opinions, pointers and anything that is in the “raw” or hasn't been organized yet. This part can be changed later, if and when you get better ideas, but try not to overdo it and don’t keep coming back too much. Since an outline is what you will base your essay on, try not to revise or change it more than once or twice.
Write down the ideas and points you feel will work well for your essay here. You begin to organize your ideas basically when outlining. The important parts to remember here are the introduction, body and summary.
The introduction should begin with an interesting sentence that compels your readers to read further. It can be factual information, a statistic or even a question if it is interesting enough. The first sentence can be something like “Wildlife in Australia has a vast number of species, with 450 different species of mammals, 2,000 species of spiders and 100 different species of sharks.”
Follow the above sentence with the thesis statement you’ve framed. Next, use at least one sentence giving an idea about each body paragraph that will follow. Finish your paragraph with a final statement that represents the summary.
So, if you have 3 body paragraphs, you have an introductory paragraph with:
1 opening sentence + 1 thesis sentence + 3 body sentences + 1 summarizing sentence = 6 sentences.
Forming the body of your English essay should be an exercise in expanding the points you already have.
Remember the outline? Yes, now is the time to actually use those ideas you brainstormed and saved for your essay’s body earlier. See how outlining makes it simpler and clutter-free?
Your body can have 3-4 paragraphs. Each paragraph will have the same structure but different main points. Create sentences from your outlined points. If you have “Australian kangaroos” for a topic, you might want to elaborate on the different types, like the red kangaroo, its characteristics and other details.
Next, you need to support your main idea. Statistics, facts and figures, logical reasoning, etc. can be used here. Finally, elaborate with more sentences on your main idea with further discussion or description.There you go; you have nicely structured short and concise body paragraphs now.
Summarizing is concluding your work. It is the final say on your main idea. You can have a summary of 3 to 4 sentences. Be careful not to repeat the same words used in the introduction. Toward the end of the summary re-state your thesis statement and finally have a futuristic say as a last statement. If you are talking about the species, you can say something like “At this rate, the Eastern Barred Bandicoot species of in Australia will face total extinction”.
Finally, revise your work. Check if you have used strong verbs and not weak ones like “I think…”, “I guess…” Be firm while expressing an opinion. Avoid apologizing since it is your opinion. Check for grammar and do a spell-check. Look out for punctuation errors since even a misplaced comma can change a sentence’s meaning.
That’s about it. You’ve finally finished your piece. Read it, flaunt it, show it to your friends and class-mates. Have a great time writing your English essay!
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