The Basics of Writing an Academic Essay

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Academic essays are a significant part of the high school and university curriculum. They are most useful for showcasing students’ research and presentation skills and demonstrating their mastery of a subject. In this tutorial from our essay writing experts, we’ll guide you through the basics of writing an academic essay, the options you have for composing a high-quality academic essay, and explain how to pick the type of academic essay that’s best for you.

What is an Academic Essay?

An academic essay is a specialized essay that is required of students in high school, undergraduate school, and graduate school as an essential component of their individual educational programs. The two most common goals of this kind of writing are;

• Introducing readers to new information.

• Utilizing facts and knowledge to convey predetermined ideas.

Students can show what they’ve learned and learned how to do while being challenged to think of new ways to express their thoughts through this form of essay writing.

Characteristics of a well-written Academic Essay

Essays are a relatively brief form of academic writing that relies heavily on the author’s personal perspective in support of a central thesis. Remember the following aspects of a properly formatted academic essay:

• Briefness — essays, typically, are between 200 and 500 words long.

• Subject Since essays are typically quite brief; the ideal subject matter should not be overly general.

• Text that is well-organized and follows standard academic paper format is essential, although essays are often regarded as among the least formal forms of writing.

• Every academic essay you write must have a solid, clear thesis statement (i.e., thesis statement).

• Motivation stems from within; unlike other forms of writing, essays frequently give the impression that the authors have a vested personal interest in the topics they cover.

• Although essays may present the author’s opinions and ideas, they should be backed up by solid reasoning and relevant examples.

Academic essay writing is a skill that will serve you well throughout your life, so it’s best to get a head start on it as soon as possible. Those who excel at academic essay writing are likely to have strong communication skills and confidence in public.

Academic Essay Types

There are four distinct types of essays used in academic settings, each with its specific purpose (though some essay types share common structures). Therefore, there are four distinct academic essay types: narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive.

Narrative Essay

The author must tell a captivating story about anything in this genre. It’s a novel in miniature. This essay encourages learners to be innovative. Thus, powerful adjectives are required. They help essay writers paint a vivid image and improve audience understanding. This style of essay is more than just telling a good narrative. A good narration has a “written between the lines” point. The text should communicate clearly. Hidden messages intrigue readers and encourage them to finish the paper.

Descriptive Essay

This essay explains a specific thing, experience, emotion, or idea. This style demands subjective, imaginative writing, like narrative. Like a narrative essay, the author must paint a picture for the reader. A descriptive essay’s success depends on word choice. This essay should make the reader feel something about the topic. Finally, the paper should simplify the topic. You know you wrote a great descriptive essay when the reader grasps the topic.

Expository Essay

Expository essays provide facts to assist readers in grasping a topic. This essay format requires the author to back up all claims with evidence. Opinions are not allowed in explanatory essays. A good expository essay uses factual analysis. The author uses reasoning and facts to inform and educate.

Persuasive Essay

Salesmanship is needed to write a persuasive paper. You can express an opinion, project, or concept and persuade your readers. Your logic should be impenetrable, convincing readers that what you’re saying is the only truth. To avoid being overbearing, carefully choose your words and conceal your sales pitch. Depending on your argument, you can use logic, passion, or both to defend it.

An Essay Basics’ Guide to writing an Academic Essay Writing

Knowledge acquisition comes first in any study. If you have to write an essay for school, the title will likely be a question. Finding what is expected of you should be your first and foremost priority.

Don’t give up at the first hoop; instead, take your time to think about what the assignment is asking. Identify the underlying question.

The “STOP method” is a good way to consider your academic essay title.

These four points are often specified in essay briefs in one way or another, and locating them can help you narrow your research.

Sources

How should we acquire this information? Is there a citation to a source? Is there a suggested reading list?

Topic

Where does the essay’s focus lie? Is it a broad or narrow statement? Is this just recently discovered, or has it already achieved widespread recognition?

Orientation

How should one approach this? Could it be too one-sided? Should you maintain your neutrality?

Purpose

Is there an argument here? Is that what you want it to do, convince? Is it evaluating something or just making a statement?

How to use the Internet to research for your Academic Essay?

To put it bluntly, academics are snobs, but there are also valid reasons for a hierarchy of prestige regarding secondary sources. Not all information found online is created equal.

The pecking order goes like this:

• Publications in peer-reviewed journals are the gold standard.

• Books and book chapters are generally accepted (especially those with multiple authors and at least one editor).

• Videos produced for academic purposes, letters, newspapers, and class notes are sometimes allowed.

• Blogs, publicly accessible websites (like Wikipedia), and unpublished materials (like conversations) are generally not appropriate.

How to make use of your research results for your Academic Essay?

One of the primary considerations in the basics of an essay is appropriately utilizing your research. The answer to this question, which naturally comes from the topic of how to read, is as easy as ABC:

• Abstract

• Bite

• Cite

You should be able to extract an abstract (a bullet-point summary of the gist, including debates), multiple bites (direct excerpts pulled from the text, with page numbers), and a citation (the full reference for the article you are reading) from every piece of reading material you encounter.

If you write down all three of those things as you read, your time spent reading will be well-spent. Referencing should be done throughout the work, not only for the conclusion. It takes more time than it should and could cause you to miss your deadline, and you’re almost guaranteed to lose a valuable reference permanently.

Remember that you need to respond to a question. The more intricate and interesting the issue, the more likely you are to get sidetracked, but you need to get back on track since you have work to accomplish. Each note you take as you read must contribute to the final analysis of the materials you are analyzing.

Putting it all together, the last step in the planning process

While writing an academic essay, the planning phases can be most time-consuming. You’re getting close to being ready to write. The last step in preparation is to construct an argument.

Develop your case as you read your primary and secondary sources. Assuming you’ve followed the quality practices we just discussed, the argument should arise on its own. However, sometimes you must untangle your snakes in a box and pull out a logical argument.

The Narrative Approach works well for these kinds of pieces. This method will give the impression that you are keeping a diary of your earliest efforts. As mentioned at the outset, this is where you put your ideas to the test for your essay. The body of your essay, according to the Narrative Method, looks like this:

• The background of the problem and any contentious aspects of it.

• Key figures and concepts at the center of the debate.

• The historical context, ongoing discussion, and nuanced nature of the subject.

• The current status of the problem in its historical setting.

• What do you see as the problem, and how do you propose to solve it?

The Narrative Approach not only helps you organize your thoughts into a coherent whole (the framework of your academic essay), but it also requires you to maintain a critical stance throughout your writing, an exercise in higher-order thinking that is essential to your academic achievement.

If you put your thoughts in this order, you should be able to figure out how to solve the problem.

How to begin writing your Academic Essay?

If you are a regular essay writer, you should know that it is always good to create an outline for your essay before you begin writing. An essay outline will help you put your research, ideas, and arguments in a sequence that you want to flow in your essay.

Outlining your Academic Essay

The outline of a well-written essay shall consist of three main components; Introduction, Essay Body and Conclusion.

Writing an Introduction

Whenever writing an introduction for your academic essay, ensure these three sub-components;

• Hook Statement – for instance, Police brutality killed nearly 2,000 individuals in 2019.

• Context –  for instance, Police brutality is when police employ excessive, unnecessary, and often illegal force. Assault, torture, and murder have occurred in the US and elsewhere. Statistics show that police violence is not related to violent crime in the US. That’s why police brutality is now a major media topic.

• Thesis Statement –  Unwarranted use of force is a serious issue that affects how people view their society and must be addressed to prevent additional unhappiness and violence.

Useful Tip for Academic Essay Writing Basics: The introduction and conclusion to a longer essay are essential components. These paragraphs should be something other than purpose statements but summaries of your entire case.

These two sections, which bookend the main body, establish the context and clarify the argument. If they don’t convince you, it’s not because of how you introduced your case. It will only improve much throughout the major body if it seems strong here. That’s why it’s such a good gauge of quality.

The introduction, however, should be rewritten once you fully grasp the rest of the essay.

The main part of your academic essay; Essay Body

You have your material and have organized it into a coherent argument. The following is what most people call the writing, but it could be easily called the formatting. You aren’t contributing anything new; you’re just polishing the presentation. This is why we invest so much time in planning.

Let’s now discuss how to organize paragraphs in the body of your academic essay.

Paragraphs in academic essays should have a clear thesis statement supported by relevant evidence and insightful analysis of that evidence.

It’s also helpful to add the following:

• The first sentence of the body paragraph should be the topic sentence, as it should introduce the paragraph’s main idea.

• Use adverbs like “similarly” and “conversely” as signposts to guide the reader toward your intended meaning.

• Deixis is a repeated, often shortened reference to the main idea in the topic sentence. For example, “this theme” replaces “The theme of Apple’s culture of always upgrading products.”

• Progression – Paragraphs should build upon one another, with the last phrase setting up the next paragraph’s thesis.

Concluding your Academic Essay

An academic essay requires a powerful introduction and an even more compelling conclusion. By the time they get to the end of your work, the reader has already forgotten the subject of your first paragraph. As a result, you should remind them. In general, the elements of a strong essay conclusion are:

• A brief restatement of the main ideas made in the thesis and supporting paragraphs. (Only applicable if you’re composing a piece of informative, descriptive, or argumentative writing)

• Why is this information important to you personally or to society at large? Making such a link public demonstrates the topic’s broader significance and contemporary relevance.

• Use this final sentence to wrap up your work and make a strong last impression. It is polite to answer a rhetorical question posed at the outset if you have done so. Please paraphrase any printed quotations into your own words. It’s crucial to leave viewers with a powerful message that stays with them.

So far, we have covered almost all of the basics of writing an academic essay; there is still more to it than the subject matter and the format. The element of style needs to be added here.

The discipline known as English for Academic Purposes, or EAP, came into being to instruct students on how to write in this particular form.

It’s like learning a new language for some kids, while it’s like discovering buried riches for others. Whatever the situation, it is considerably different from the language most of us use daily.

Writing in the Academic English

As the adage goes, “practice makes perfect,” similarly, Academic English is something you develop during an academic career.

The field of academic English is enormous and inherently multifaceted, far too large to be adequately covered here. The next five sections, however, provide a good place to begin because of the immediate impact they can have:

• Terms specific to a given field of study. The audience for your article will be other professionals in the same sector as you. Talk like a pro by using appropriate industry terminology. Nutritionists, for instance, should talk about “macronutrients” rather than “food categories.”

• Formalization into a noun In academic writing, we avoid using active verbs for various reasons. To avoid confusion, we use “debate” instead of “debating” and “analysis” when we mean “analyzing” and “pose a challenge” instead of “challenging” something.

• A Formality and Dispassion. Typical colloquialisms such as “isn’t,” “stuff,” and “crappy” are not used in formal English; instead, “is not,” “features,” and “ineffective” are used. Longer sentences and embedded clauses are standard, and the syntax is generally more intricate.

• Using precautions and a conservative attitude. You should use frequent ‘hedges,’ or qualifiers, to emphasize that you don’t consider your ideas absolute facts. Rather than the whole “is,” try using terms like “seem to suggest” or “could be perceived” to convey your meaning.

• Exactness and clarity. In academic writing, using language that deviates from Standard English is inappropriate. In every scenario, proofreading is going to be essential. Just as “eschewing grandiose phraseology in the interest of comprehension” is less clear than “using clear English.”

Academic English is a skill that develops over time as one reads more scholarly works, gets more criticism, and practices writing and speaking in an educational setting.

Stay calm if your initial attempt does not exactly mirror the tone of scholarly writing in your field; try your best to write in that style. As time goes on, you’ll find yourself doing it automatically.

We hope you can write academic essays like a pro using the information we’ve provided here. Keep in mind that the goal of any academic essay is to communicate your thinking and thesis. The ability to express yourself confidently in writing and speech is directly tied to honing your academic essay-writing skills. If you need more simplified information or guidance on the basics of writing an essay for kids, you can always head over to our blog section to find all the details you need to know to write a perfect essay.

Do You Need Assistance in Writing Your Academic Essay?

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