How to Write a College Essay: Step-by-Step Tips

In order to write an essay correctly, you should understand that an essay is a short prose composition with a free structure on a given topic. The topic can be any occasion, the author’s attitude to some event, reflection on a problem. As a rule, the author of an essay talks about his personal experiences, impressions, feelings, impressions or expresses himself figuratively, emotionally and frankly on some occasion. Often, an essay contains colloquialisms, aphorisms and expressions. The exception is essays for scientific conferences, public speeches at scientific councils and other scientific events.

Of course, in order to write such a paper, you need to be knowledgeable about the subject about which an opinion will be presented, so you need to know exactly what an essay is and how to write it correctly. The small size of an essay text implies brevity, conciseness and clarity of the author’s thoughts. Whereas a composition presupposes freedom in presentation, an essay “keeps” the author within two to five pages of typewritten text. In this article, we will describe the main steps to writing a college essay.

Distinguishing features of the essay genre:

  • the topic is always concrete. Unlike a composition, where the range of issues can be extensive, an essay has a narrow focus;
  • an essay presupposes the expression of an individual, i.e. subjective opinion of the author, so there are no conclusions, generalisations or statements about the subject of the description;
  • personal characteristics of the author are important for the essay genre because an essay expresses the opinion of a particular person on a particular issue.

Examples of essay topics can vary from philosophical to literary-publicistic, historical including biographical essays and others. By the way, fiction also refers to an essay when the author’s subjective opinion is used to describe an event.

Step-by-step tips

  • Think of a title for your essay – it will give food for thought and encourage you to write the first sentence. Writing the first sentence is the most difficult task.
  • Make an outline that you will stick to in writing your essay. It will help you to present your thoughts in a structured way.
  • Think what aphorisms, quotes from classics could be appropriate in your essay. They will make the essay original and aphoristic.
  • Start writing your essay by starting with the point in the outline that seems easiest to you. Follow this principle and you will not find working on your essay exhausting.
  • If in the process of writing the essay you want to change its structure, feel free to do so. Writing an essay is a creative work and there are no strict rules for it.
  • Try to find factual material, statistical data that will give your essay solidity.
  • Write honestly, frankly, emotionally, use the author’s turns of phrase, keep your personality in essay writing.
  • Use literary means to make the essay interesting: use analogies and parallels, use epithets, metaphors, symbols, allegories, comparisons and associations. Imagery and aphorism should be your main helpers in writing the essay. Try not to make sentences too long and crowded with various punctuation marks and unnecessary synonyms.
  • Remember that the essay should be dynamic. The narrative in an essay cannot be monotonous and predictable. Use unexpected plot moves and original couplings. Let the conclusions you draw in the course of presenting your thoughts be logical and predictable only for you.
  • After the work is done, carefully check it for all kinds of errors – spelling, punctuation, lexical. Proper writing is half the battle in writing an essay.

For your essay to be interesting, engaging, and original, dilute serious musings with humor and irony, if they are appropriate. Remember that your essay is a reflection of your personal thoughts and views, which is why you should not copy someone else’s thoughts. Think about what you would like to say with your work, what thoughts and observations are you willing to share? If, after writing the essay, it seems to you that the title does not quite reflect the essence of the essay, change it to a more intriguing and original one. 

We hope that our article has given you comprehensive answers about college essay writing topics. Remember, the most important thing is to get started. Just get to work on your essay and see how quickly and correctly you will write it, for example in philosophy, social studies or history. And if the muse never visited you and you need an essay urgently and immediately, you can order an essay writing service at more on the website. There you can find out the college essay writing service cost and use this service. If writing an essay is a problem, there is no point in wasting your personal time. It is much more convenient to give this task to professionals who will write a great paper for you for a low cost. 

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