How to Write an Essay: 10 Easy Steps

Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write
something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it.
-- Jesse Stuart

Why is writing an essay so Learning how to write an essay

frustrating? doesn't have to involve so much trial
and error.
Learning how to write an essay can
be a maddening, exasperating
process, but it doesn't have to be. If
you know the steps and understand
what to do, writing can be easy and
even fun.

This site, "How To Write an Essay:

10 Easy Steps," offers a ten-step
process that teaches students how
to write an essay. Links to the
writing steps are found on the left,
and additional writing resources are
located across the top.

Brief Overview of the 10 Essay Writing Steps

Below are brief summaries of each of the ten steps to writing an essay.
Select the links for more info on any particular step, or use the blue
navigation bar on the left to proceed through the writing steps. How To
Write an Essay can be viewed sequentially, as if going through ten
sequential steps in an essay writing process, or can be explored by
individual topic.

1. Research: Begin the essay writing process by researching your topic,

making yourself an expert. Utilize the internet, the academic databases,
and the library. Take notes and immerse yourself in the words of great
thinkers.

2. Analysis: Now that you have a good knowledge base, start analyzing the
arguments of the essays you're reading. Clearly define the claims, write out
the reasons, the evidence. Look for weaknesses of logic, and also
strengths. Learning how to write an essay begins by learning how to
analyze essays written by others.
3. Brainstorming: Your essay will
require insight of your own, genuine
essay-writing brilliance. Ask yourself
a dozen questions and answer
them. Meditate with a pen in your
hand. Take walks and think and
think until you come up with original
insights to write about.

4. Thesis: Pick your best idea and

pin it down in a clear assertion that you can write your entire essay around.
Your thesis is your main point, summed up in a concise sentence that lets
the reader know where you're going, and why. It's practically impossible to
write a good essay without a clear thesis.

5. Outline: Sketch out your essay before straightway writing it out. Use one-
line sentences to describe paragraphs, and bullet points to describe what
each paragraph will contain. Play with the essay's order. Map out the
structure of your argument, and make sure each paragraph is unified.

6. Introduction: Now sit down and write the essay. The introduction should
grab the reader's attention, set up the issue, and lead in to your thesis.
Your intro is merely a buildup of the issue, a stage of bringing your reader
into the essay's argument.

(Note: The title and first paragraph are probably the most important
elements in your essay. This is an essay-writing point that doesn't always
sink in within the context of the classroom. In the first paragraph you either
hook the reader's interest or lose it. Of course your teacher, who's getting
paid to teach you how to write an essay, will read the essay you've written
regardless, but in the real world, readers make up their minds about
whether or not to read your essay by glancing at the title alone.)

7. Paragraphs: Each individual paragraph should be focused on a single

idea that supports your thesis. Begin paragraphs with topic sentences,
support assertions with evidence, and expound your ideas in the clearest,
most sensible way you can. Speak to your reader as if he or she were
sitting in front of you. In other
words, instead of writing the essay,
try talking the essay.

8. Conclusion: Gracefully exit your

essay by making a quick wrap-up
sentence, and then end on some
memorable thought, perhaps a
quotation, or an interesting twist of logic, or some call to action. Is there
something you want the reader to walk away and do? Let him or her know
exactly what.

9. MLA Style: Format your essay according to the correct guidelines for
citation. All borrowed ideas and quotations should be correctly cited in the
body of your text, followed up with a Works Cited (references) page listing
the details of your sources.

10. Language: You're not done writing your essay until you've polished
your language by correcting the grammar, making sentences flow,
incoporating rhythm, emphasis, adjusting the formality, giving it a level-
headed tone, and making other intuitive edits. Proofread until it reads just
how you want it to sound. Writing an essay can be tedious, but you don't
want to bungle the hours of conceptual work you've put into writing your
essay by leaving a few slippy misppallings and pourly wordedd phrazies..

You're done. Great job. Now move over Ernest Hemingway — a new writer
is coming of age! (Of course Hemingway was a fiction writer, not an essay
writer, but he probably knew how to write an essay just as well.)

My Promise: The Rest of This Site Will Really Teach You How To Write
an Essay

For half a dozen years I've read thousands of college essays and taught students
how to write essays, do research, analyze arguments, and so on. I wrote this site in
the most basic, practical way possible and made the instruction crystal clear for
students and instructors to follow. If you carefully follow the ten steps for writing an
essay as outlined on this site — honestly and carefully follow them — you'll learn
how to write an essay that is more organized, insightful, and appealing. And you'll
probably get an A.

Now it's time to really begin. C'mon, it will be fun. I promise to walk you
through each step of your writing journey.

LEXIS-NEXIS

JSTOR

 ERIC (EBSCOHost)
 Oxford English Dictionary
 Project Muse
 Sociological Abstracts
 WorldCat
As you research your topic, you will naturally be analyzing the arguments of
different authors. In contrast to more popular reading, in the academic
world, authors must supply copious amounts of evidence and nuanced
reasoning in order persuade other scholars of their ideas. To enter the
scholar's "gladiator arena," you will need to understand the principles of
argument. Both analyzing an argument and coming up with your own will
require careful thought.

Identify the argument

An argument consists of two main components: a claim, and reasons for

that claim. Neither a claim without reasons, nor reasons without a claim, is
an argument. Only when one leverages particular reasons to make a claim
from those reasons do we say that an "argument" is taking place.

When analyzing an argument of any text, or creating one of your own, first
identify the main claim and then locate all the reasons for it. The claim is
the controversial, debatable assertion of the essay, while the reasons offer
the explanations and evidence of why the claim is true. It is helpful to map
this reasoning out:

CLAIM = ________________________________________

 Reason 1: ____________________________
 Reason 2: ____________________________
 Reason 3: ____________________________

Assess the reasoning

Once you have the argument mapped out, assess the reasoning. Ask
yourself the following questions to help you identify weaknesses of logic:

(1.) Is there an alternative explanation that is possible? An alternative

explanation is a different reason for the same claim. Probing the alternative
explanations or reasons for a claim is an excellent way to open up
weaknesses in the author's logic.

 Example: "John was late because he obviously doesn't care about

the class." (An alternative explanation for John's lateness could be
that he got in a car wreck, and therefore couldn't make it on time to
class, not that he doesn't care about it.)

(2.) Is the evidence presented sufficient? Evidence refers to the support given
for a claim. This support may be in the form of facts, statistics, authoritative
quotations, studies, observations, experiences, research, or other forms of proof.
  Example: "John was late because he has Alzheimer's disease, and
according to the American Medical Association, Alzheimer's patients
frequently forgot who and where they are" (Jones 65). (The writer has
given evidence in the form of research for his or her reasoning.)

(3.) What assumptions do the reasons rest on? An assumption is what one
takes for granted to be true, but which actually may not be true. All
arguments rest on some common assumptions. This common ground
makes it possible for two people to have a dialogue in the first place, but
these assumptions, because they are based on groundless ideas, make for
a "sweet spot" of attack in argument.

 Example: "John was late because his previous class is on the far side
of campus." (The assumption is that it takes a long time to get from
the far side of campus to class. If John walked the same speed as
the one presenting the argument, the assumption would be a shared
one. However, it may be the case that John actually walks much
faster than assumed, and that he was late for another reason.)

Either/Or: Narrowing the options to just two extremes when in actuality

more options exist.

o Example: Either John was late because he forgot where the

class was, or because he didn't want to come. (Actually, John
may have been late for another reason not listed here. Maybe he
fell down a manhole.)

o Example: Either spend the entire night proofreading your paper

or you will get an F in the course. (Actually, you might ask the
teacher for a one day extension so that you don't have to kill
yourself with an all-nighter. The point is that there aren't just two
options.)
Non Sequitar: The conclusion/claim doesn't follow from the reasons.

o Example: I saw John talking to a pretty girl this morning.

Therefore, he is late to class because he's probably eating lunch
with her. (It doesn't follow that talking to a pretty girl would lead to
a truant luncheon.)

o Example: Some cars drive recklessly along the roads where

pedestrians walk, endangering them. Therefore, we should ban
pedestrians from walking down some roads. (It doesn't follow that
you should punish the pedestrians instead of the cars.)

Slippery Slope: Exaggerating the consequences.

o Example: If John is late to class, he'll miss the material and do

poorly on the test. When his father sees his bad grades, John will
be whipped and then he'll run away and join the circus. (Actually,
John may do fine on the test even though he missed class.)

o Example: Students who arrive late to class will receive low

grades, which will then prevent them from declaring their majors.
If students can't declare the majors they want, they'll lead
miserable lives fulfilling careers they hate until they finally commit
suicide. (Actually, even if students receive a low grade, it doesn't
mean they won't be able to bring up their other grades in other
classes and still declare the majors they want.)

Fallacy of Authority: Accepting for truth what is claimed simply

because someone said so.

o Example: John was late to class because his the school

psychologist said John was having bouts of depression and may
not attend class. (Actually, what the psychologist said may be
wrong. Maybe John even lied to her.)

o Example: John Grisham, an expert in law, says law is a tedious

yet exciting practice. So it must be the case that law is a tedious,
exciting practice. (Actually, what Grisham says may not be true.
He hasn't supplied any reasoning for his assertion, and he's a
popular fiction writer rather than a lawyer.)
 Faulty Cause and Effect: Attributing the wrong cause to the effect.

o Example: John was late to class because he went to the dentist

yesterday and had a root canal. (Actually, John may be late for
another reason.)

o Example: The horses are acting strange because there's a deep

storm brewing. (Actually, the horses may be acting strange
because they're hungry.)

Hasty Generalization: Generalizing from a sample that is too small.

o Example: John was late to my physics class all last semester.

Therefore John is just an unpunctual, late person. (Actually, last
semester John may have had difficulty getting to physics, but no
trouble getting to his other classes.)

o Example: I conclude from the several pleasant, hard-working

AUC students I met this morning that all AUC students are
pleasant, hard-working students. (Actually, you may have just met
the only three nice students on campus.)

Select a fallacy above to see an explanation of it in this window.

(4.) Does the writer commit any logical fallacies? Fallacies are commonly
committed errors of reasoning. Being aware of these fallacies will help you
see them more abundantly in the texts you read. Although there are
probably at least a hundred different fallacies, the following six are the most
common:
 Practice with Analysis (Reasoning)
Instructions

The following examples are from Anne Thomson's Critical Reasoning. Each
of the passages contains weak reasoning. After identifying the argument,
consider what alternative explanations or reasons might also be possible.
Only click on answer after struggling with the question for a good period of
time.

1. Men are generally better than women at what psychologists call 'target
directed motor skills', but what the rest of us call 'playing darts.' Many
people would say that this is not due to innate biological differences in the
brain, but is due to the fact that upbringing gives boys more opportunities to
practise these skills. But there must be some innate difference, because
even three-year-old boys are better than girls of the same age at target
skills.

Answer

2. Allowing parents to choose the sex of their children could have serious
social costs. There would be a higher percentage of males who were
unable to find a female partner. Also, since it is true that 90 per cent of
violent crimes are committed by men, the number of violent crimes would
rise.

Answer

3. When people live in a house for a long period of time, they develop a
strong commitment to the local neighbourhood. So the continued fall in
house prices may have a beneficial effect. The middle classes will become
enthusiast campaigners for better schools, and against vandalism, traffic
congestion and noisy neighbors.

Answer

4. If the money has been stolen, someone must have disabled the alarm
system, because the alarm easily wakes me if it goes off. So the culprit
must be a member of the security firm which installed the alarm.

Answer

5. The campaign to eradicate measles has been so successful that many

doctors have never seen an actual case. Ironically, this puts those few
people who do contract the disease in greater danger than they would have
been before. The disease can cause serious complications, and it is difficult
to diagnose without previous experience because the symptoms are similar
to those of several other diseases.

Answer

6. There is a much higher incidence of heart attack and death from heart
disease among heavy cigarette smokers than among people who do not
smoke. It has been thought that nicotine was responsible for the
development of atherosclerotic disease in smokers. It now seems that the
real culprit is carbon monoxide. In experiments, animals exposed to carbon
monoxide for several months show changes in the arterial walls that are
indistinguishable from atherosclerosis.

Answer

7. Patients on the point of death, who either died shortly afterwards or were
revived, have often reported visions of places of exquisite beauty, intense
feelings of peace and joy, and encounters with loved ones who had
predeceased them. These experiences clearly suggest that there is life
after death. Skeptics often claim that such phenomena resemble certain
altered states of consciousness that can be induced by drugs or organic
brain disease. This objection fails, however, because most of the patients
whose experiences of this nature have been reported were neither drugged
nor suffering from brain disease.

Answer

8. The growth in the urban population of the USA has put increasing
pressure on farmers to produce more food. Farmers have responded by
adopting labour-saving technology that has resulted in a further
displacement of population to cities. As a result, the farm population,
formerly a dominant pressure group in national politics, has lost political
power.

Answer

9. Human being shave the power either to preserve or to destroy wild plant
species. Most of the wonder drugs of the past fifty years have come from
wild plants. If those plants had not existed, medicine could not have
progressed as it has, and many human lives would have been lost. It is
therefore important for the future of medicine that we should preserve wild
plant species.

Answer
10. Thirty years ago the numbers of British people taking holidays in foreign
countries were very small compared with the large numbers of them
traveling abroad for the holidays now. Foreign travel is, and always has
been, expensive. So British people must on average have more money to
spend now than they did thirty years ago.

Answer

Sample Outline
The following is a sample outline one might write of an essay comparing
the logical and rhetorical effectiveness of two contrasting texts. The Roman
numerals refer to paragraphs ("I" is paragraph one, "II" is paragraph two,
and so on).The bullets refer to points to be covered within that paragraph.

I. Introduction (150 words)

 give background of Collier and Fuentes

 briefly summarize their texts and why they are important
 present thesis: In addition to using personal experience to connect
with her audience, Collier uses sound reasoning, clear statistics, and
her personal authority as a judge to convince her audience.

II. Personal Experience -- Collier's personal experience connects with

audience.(200 words)

 example of Collier's use of guardian experience

 why personal experience is rhetorically strong (speaks to lay
audience)
 counterarguments to accusations of personal exp. being a hasty
generalization
 Fuentes' lack of personal experience in j. crime weakens her
persuasiveness

III. Good Reasoning--Collier's argument rests on good reasoning overall

(200 words)

 Collier's "different juveniles need different system"--explain why this

is sound.
 Collier's "adult crime deserves adult time"--explain why this is sound.
 examples of Fuentes' poor causal reasoning
o adults don't necessarily reject youth due to having social
security
o adults don't necessarily resent youth because of job
competition
 o zero tolerance policy is result, not cause, of increased j.
violence
o that adults think poorly of youth is not cause of increased j.
violence

IV. Statistics -- Collier uses statistics in straightforward, easy to

understand way (200 words)

 examples of Colliers' straightforward use of statistics

 examples of Fuentes' unclear, contradictory use of statistics (making
issue fuzzy)
 why manipulation of statistics endangers truth
 comparison of statistics with actual Dept of Justice source

V. Authority -- Collier has authority from working in legal process (200

words)

 explanation of Collier's authority (judge, gaurdian, law school

background)
 why authority is important for convincing the audience
 counterargument to accusation of Collier's bias from authority (judges
choose justice)
 why Fuentes' background makes her lose authority through partiality
to children

VI. Conclusion (50 words)

 brief summary of main points (importance of personal experience,

causal fallacies, use of statistics, credibility)
 the need to guard against biases and predispositions when judging
issues
 tendencies to overlook evidence b/c of personal emotion; advice on
overcoming it
 memorable one-line quotation from supreme court justice about need
to adjust laws to fit the changing people

Notice how each of the headers and bullets makes the point in a
condensed, brief way. Also, each bulleted point develops the focus (in bold)
of that paragraph. The four topics announced in the thesis are carried
through in each paragraph. Finally, the entire outline fits on one page.
 Reading
Reading is the only real way to learn to
write well. As you read page after page
of exquisitely written prose, you will
naturally incorporate the same style,
rhythm, and grammar into your own
writing. We learn to speak in much the
same way. What should you read? The
classics, of course, beginning with Homer and then Chaucer and
Shakespeare and Milton, etc. However, if you want some lighter,
more fun reading, try these online links:

The New Yorker. High class literary magazine addressing current

issues. Read by all elitist New Yorkers.

The New York Times. Premier American newspaper for current

events. Coverage is reliable, well-written, and constantly updated.

Snopes. Urban legend site telling you the truth about a host of
unreliable stories you may have heard.

Dave Barry. Humor columnist, best read late at night or during

times of frustration, when absurdity is needed.

Thomas Friedman. Pullitzer-prize winning American columnist for

the New York Times; almost always manages to put a positive,
insightful spin on current events.

Onion. Political and social satire -- sometimes risque, sometimes

ridiculously funny. At times slips into poor humor, but mostly good
reading. Read with caution.

How Stuff Works. Explains how the most complicated, arcane,

odd things work. Probably more interesting to the curious
engineering minds.

Tech News.com. An online newspaper covering information

technology issues with in-depth, interesting, articles. Good for
computer scientists and other technophiles.

The Drudge Report. Alternative newspaper linking to scores of

columnists and newspapers. Matt Drudge also presents his own
news, the non-traditional sometimes not presented by other
newspapers.

Al Ahram Weekly. English weekly of Cairo, giving the Middle

Eastern perspective on political issues. Well-written, long articles,
but sometimes one-sided and censored.

Cairo Times. English weekly based in Cairo, focusing on

environmental, cultural, political, and human rights issues.

The Straight Dope. "Cecil" tells you the answers to nearly

impossible-to-answer questions.

About.com. Learn about anything. Type in a topic in the about

searchbox and see what the different "about.com guides" have
collected on it.

Ehow.com. You know the Internet is about empowering

individuals with information. Okay, here is a site offering more
than 15,000 tutorials on how to do practically anything.

More Writing Resources. See this page to peruse other writing

websites that can be very helpful in writing essays and doing
other academic work.

Do you have a favorite site you read? Send me the link and I may
put it on this reading list.
Tom Johnson. tjohnson@aucegypt.edu. Last updated May 2004.
 Margins
Page margins should be one inch on each side. If your
computer's measuring system is set in centimeters, set each
side to 2.5 cm. To adjust the page margins, follow these 2
steps:

Step one. Press page setup under the file menu.

Step two. In the Page Setup dialog box, under the Margins
tab, set all your margins to 1" (or 2.5 cm). Make sure the
gutter is set at 0".
That's it.
 Tom Johnson. tjohnson@aucegypt.edu. Last updated May 2004.

Adjusting the Spacing

Your essay always needs to be doublespaced. Nothing is ever single
spaced in MLA format--not the Works Cited, nor your name and other
personal details, nor any quotations. To doublespace your document,
follow these two steps:

Step one. After highlighting your text (control + a), click on Paragraph
under the Format menu.

Step two. In the Paragraph dialog box, choose Double under Line
Spacing.
Voila!

References

 Brown, Mac H, Patsy Skeen & D Keith Osborn (1979): 'Young

Children's Perception of the Reality of Television',
Contemporary Education 50(3): 129-33
 Chandler, Daniel (1995): 'Children's Understanding of What is
"Real" on Television: A Review of the Research Literature'
[WWW document] URL
http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/realrev.html [Date accessed]
 Hodge, Bob & David Tripp (1986): Children and Television: A
Semiotic Approach. Cambridge: Polity Press
 Jaglom, Leona M. & Howard Gardner (1981): 'The Preschool
Television Viewer as Anthropologist'. In Hope Kelly & Howard
Gardner (Eds.): Viewing Children Through Television (New
Directions for Child Development 13). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass, pp. 9-30

Note re. reference list:

  After the initial author, the names of co-authors are not
reversed
 Link co-authors with an ampersand (&) rather than 'and'
 Italicize et al.
 Include the initials of the State in US references to place of
publication
 Use pp. only for chapters in books - not for journal page
numbers
 Include full names, where given, for authors
 Always provide both volume number and part number for
journal articles
 Where more than one reference is to a chapter in an edited
collection, list the collection as a separate reference, ending
the chapter reference with 'In [Editor(s)] [Date], op.cit., pp.
[page-range]'

Note that a 'bibliography' is not the same as a list of references.

A bibliography is a list of every written source which you read in
preparing your essay whilst references list only those cited
directly in the text. Many tutors require references rather than a
bibliography - check what is expected. It is generally unwise to
include general student textbooks as references - list only
specialist texts on the topic of the essay. Student textbooks are
useful to guide your studies but they are not in themselves
authoritative sources which should be cited in essays.