Students are taught essay writing in primary schools but very few of the students become the pros of essay writing. If you want to improve your essay writing skills so you first need to know what these skills are. This post will help you in this regard Essay Writing Skills and also some of the most effective tips and tricks will be shared.
The Most Essential Essay Writing Skills
Essay writing skills include:
-
Exceptional Command over Writing
Having exceptional writing skills is a must-be requirement for essay writing. Students must know how to structure and format the essay, which type of language should be used, what should be sentence and paragraph length and how to make clear statements.
Also, you should be perfect in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. All these components show your command over the rules of writing. Students who lack these basic writing skills usually take help from professional essay writers to complete their academic essays.
-
Knowing the Difference between All Essay Types
Some of the most common types of essays students are usually assigned are argumentative essays, persuasive essays, descriptive essays, expository essays, narrative essays, compare and contrast essays, reflective essays, critical essays. So, essay writing skills involve a dense knowledge of all these types. Students should know the difference between the writing styles of all these types of essays (masteressaywriters, 2019).
-
Presenting Arguments
How you present your arguments in your essays is another essential essay writing skill. To write your academic essays you should have a firm grip on argumentation. You must learn how to build good and strong arguments. Also, you need to strengthen your claims with clear evidence. These skills can be improved with a little practice and interest.
-
Research and Referencing
Essay writing also involves good research skills. These skills become more important at the higher levels of education when students are assigned critical research-based essays. To know how to collect authentic data, facts, and figures to add to your essays is also a significant part of essay writing skills. Students should have complete knowledge about what are the most credible research sources and how to carry out thorough research.
However, where there is research, there is referencing. You must have to cite and reference each source you use in research. Also, referencing validate your essays and increase their worth. For this purpose, you should know all the referencing styles such as APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, etc.
-
Editing and Proofreading
Editing and proofreading also come under the essay writing skills. No matter how proficiently you write your essays, still would be a need for keen editing and proofreading for the removal of minor flaws.
Most of the students submit their essays without editing and proofreading. The quality of such essays is highly-comprised because there can be several errors in terms of grammar, structure, format, relevancy, context, readability, and referencing, that ruin the whole effort. So, essay writing skills are incomplete without the expertise of editing and proofreading.
-
Time Management
Time management skills can be considered the root of enhanced essay writing. Your essay writing skills are of no use if you are poor in time management. Because, no matter how excellent your essay writing skills are if you can’t manage your time, you cannot cope with your frequently assigned essays, especially when you have short deadlines. Due to the lack of time management skills, many students buy essay online USA based, to submit their essays on time.
Best Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Essay Writing Skills
Following are some of the useful tips and tricks that can help you improve your overall essay writing skills and ace your academic essays.
-
Read Excessively
Reading is the key to gaining more knowledge and enhancing your writing skills. When you read different texts and go through different types of write-ups, you get to know diverse writing styles. Also, it improves your vocabulary and understanding of complicated topics.
There are no specifications for which types of books you should; it can be fiction, non-fiction, mystery, anthology, or anything. Even your coursebooks are a great source of reading that can help you in this regard.
-
Learn Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a smart way to plan your essay. It means you should first gather all the ideas that you have in your mind related to your essay and note them on paper. Then plan your essay according to these ideas. This brainstorming will also help you to build your essay outline that will make your work organized and in this way, you can proceed with your essay with a swift flow.
-
Set Daily Essay Writing Targets
To improve your, you should practice it regularly. Set daily targets for yourself. Decide how many paragraphs you can and will write in an hour. Make a schedule and dedicate your whole effort to writing. It will increase your writing speed and help you learn time management skills.
-
Use PEEL Method for Argumentation
The best way to present arguments in your essays is to use the PEEL method (Gibbons, 2019), i.e. Point, Evidence, Explanation, and Link. This method is used to write body paragraphs. It means:
- You first make a claim or point
- Then you give evidence to support it
- Explanation means you need to elaborate the connection between the point and evidence and relate them to the topic of the essay.
- The last sentence of each paragraph links it to the next paragraph.
By including this method in your daily practice plan, you can improve your argumentation skills for better essay writing.
-
Take Guidance from Professionals
Taking guidance from the professional of the essay writing domain is always a good option. They can provide you with new and unique ideas that you can add to your essays. Further, their guidance will help you write better essays, and gradually, your essay writing skills will be improved.
EndNote
Essay writing seems simpler as compared to the other academic tasks such as research papers and dissertations but it is not that easy. It requires several skills that should be learned by the students to write proficient essays that can get them good grades.
References
MEW. 2019. How to write an essay – the ultimate guide. Online Available at <https://masteressaywriters.co.uk/blogs/how-to-write-an-essay-the-ultimate-guide> [Accessed on 16th March 2022]
Gibbons, S., 2019. “Death by PEEL?” The teaching of writing in the secondary English classroom in England. English in Education, 53(1), pp.36-45.