Essay Contests for Students

Essay Contests: A Tool to help students improve their writing skills

Essay Contests
Essays form an important part of English literature. With the recent advancements in
digital technology, students are hardly exposed to writing skills except in schools. Students
perceive writing essays as boring and pointless. Consequently the contribution by students to
modern literature is on the decrease. In order to encourage students to improve their writing
skills, the educational institutions often come up with creative ideas to promote writing
among students. Although essay contests cannot be exactly called as a creative idea, this tool
has proven to be effective in encouraging writing skills among high school students. This
article gives a brief overview of what an essay is and the different types of essays.
Types of Essays
Writing a good essay requires a good understanding of the structure of an essay. An
essay generally consists of introduction, body and conclusion. In literature, an essay is
defined as a short write up on the author's opinion, recollections, reflections, criticism and
arguments. There are different types of essays such as persuasive, argumentative, expository
and analytical essays. Persuasive essays are aimed at convincing the readers to accept the
authors opinion on an issue. Argumentative essays are more like persuasive essays. The only
difference being that the author also argues against others opinions. Expository essays are
aimed towards explaining a theme, concept or issues. Analytical essays are aimed at
analysing, examining and interpreting the results.
Conclusion
In a fast changing world, it is imperative for the young students to understand the
importance of writing. The Students can conveniently and freely express their ideas and
opinions through essays. But proper writing skills need to be developed among the students

as the digital era decreases their dependence on hand written literature. Essay contests
conducted in schools, organisations and as part of scholarship tests, help the students to
develop those essay writing skills.