Learning Skills
Essay Writing
The essay writing process
Step 4: Write
- Refer to the section on essay structure
- Follow your plan
- Make use of headings if this helps you. Sometimes turning a heading into a question helps students keep to the point. Remove them from your final draft if traditional essay format is wanted.
- Take care if you change terms used in the question. For example, if the term used in your question is 'success' and you substitute this with the term 'achievement', the meaning may be quite different.
- Remember to pay attention to your topic sentences. Make it clear to the reader what point you are making in each paragraph and why. You know what you mean but did you tell the reader?
- Relate the points you are making to the question/your thesis.
- Do not use first person, such as 'I think..', 'I believe..', In my opinion…', unless you are permitted or asked to do so,
- Do not use any colloquial phrases or cliches such as:
The union representative was a thorn in the side of the manager.
Brown (2004) stuck to his ideals
Smith's (2000) analysis was spot on. - Use full sentences to communicate your ideas.
- Always reference other people's ideas whether you paraphrased or directly quoted their work and
- Remember this is a draft. Come back later and edit out minor errors.
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