In your middle school and high school days, you may have gotten away with a 400-word five-paragraph essay. When you are in college, your essays may require 10,000 to 20,000 words. That amounts to about 45 pages if you don’t boost the font size and play with the spacing. This is exactly why it can help to have some tips and tricks for writing academic essays. Not only that, but it can also be wise to get some essay help from an outside source, especially when it comes to proofreading. You don’t want to spend four months on a 40-page essay and then turn it in if it is riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Here are some academic writing basics for college students.
- Understand the type of essay before writing it. Before you write an essay, you want to pay attention to the type of essay that your professor wants you to write. Is it a persuasive essay? Are you trying to convince someone of a particular argument? Is it a critical essay exploring a topic from a neutral standpoint? The last thing you want is to turn in the wrong assignment.
- Do your research and mark down your sources. When you write an essay, there is a good chance that you will have a lot of research to do. The last thing you want is to do your research, acquire sources, but not create a record or bibliography of those sources. You could actually be cited for plagiarism, which could get you in a lot of trouble. Plus, your sources will support your argument.
- Be sure to proofread your essay. After you write your essay, you want to complete a preliminary read through. You also want to fix any mistakes on the way through your initial read. Of course, proofreading is essential if you want to catch major spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. You can think of this first read through as a primer, because you will have to go through the essay again and again. You won’t be able to catch all the mistakes in your first read.
- Recruit a friend to read your paper. After you give your paper a glossing over, you want to find your smartest and most patient friend to read the paper. Having a fresh pair of eyes on your paper is important for the sake of catching errors – both spelling and grammatical – but also to give you constructive criticism and feedback. If you want to have a few critical responses, you may want to recruit a few different friends. This will help make your essay the best it can be.
- Complete a final read through before turning the assignment in. On top of everything, you want to give your paper one more read through before you turn it in. You want to fix typos and you want to improve sentences to make them flow better. The better a paper reads, the higher your grade will be. In the end, an academic essay is the best when it flows.
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