The academic essay is the cornerstone of the study of the humanities. It is a format that you will have to master throughout the race (and the faster the better). Sure, there's always the old reliable option of throwing up a bunch of words the night before delivery or you may download free essays online. However, if you want to ensure a good grade, and more importantly, a good job, here are some tips.
It is worth mentioning that each teacher will have their ideas about what the essay entails that they expect from you. Some teachers look for few textual references to the primary source, others demand many, some expected more knowledge of secondary literature, others less. The first step is to pay attention to what is asked of you in the classroom when work is first assigned. If you are not sure ask a good teacher will usually want to help you.
1. Define the research question
When establishing the topic of your essay, it is important to define the research question, There are sites that care about this point like essayintl.com They decide what the essay will revolve around, for example, "Socratic Virtue in Plato's Protagoras ", but you also have to think about how you are going to use the number of words assigned to address the topic. In an academic essay, you can critically evaluate a concept, compare and contrast different approaches to a problem, analyze a critical approach to a topic, etc. Defining the question your essay seeks to answer (for example, "How does the Protagoras problematize the concept of Socratic virtue?") Will allow you to proceed more clearly and efficiently.
2. Plan
You will be familiar with the process of filling in a number of words shortly before the due date for the purpose of completing an assignment in high school. This method will not serve you (or at least it will not serve you well) during the race. Writing an academic essay involves much more than sitting down in front of an empty document and starting to write. A crucial step to ensure a good essay is to come up with a plan (if you like and think it might work for you, you can even schedule the steps in the process). In general, when writing an essay you should:
Determine the research question
Search for bibliography
Read and take notes
Start writing a draft
Review and edit the final version.
It should be mentioned that the way you approach each of these steps will be personal: there are those who write and edit almost simultaneously, for example.
3. Investigate
When preparing an academic essay, reading is equal to or more important than writing, you can download essays on essayintl.com to see the examples they offer and write something similar and search and locate relevant bibliography you can use, first of all, Google Scholar and the electronic resources of the university library. Of course you are not going to read all the articles (and less books) that seem remotely relevant. Examine the abstractand conclusion to see if it can serve you (they usually contain a summary of the arguments). Also check the bibliography: it can give you clues from other relevant sources for your line of research.
4. Structure
The success of your essay will depend on the way you present your arguments. Therefore, it is essential that you follow a logical structure. As you know, all text is made up of an introduction, body and conclusion. It is easier than you think to skip one of these parts: present arguments without introducing them or leaving them inconclusive. The easiest way to make sure you include all three parts of the essay is to think:
Introduction: say what you are going to say
Body: say it
Conclusion: say you said what you were going to say.
It is also important to ensure that the different parts of your essay (that is, each paragraph and sentence) flow and are coherent with each other. It is important to take the reader by the hand : it should be very clear why you go from one argument to another, why you mention an author, why you refer to a source, why you include a quote, etc.
5. Check
Finishing writing the final version of the essay minutes before the deadline ensures that more than one embarrassing finger mistake will slip through. The bottom line is that repeated words, missing prepositions, and flagrant spelling mistakes give your teacher the impression that you don't care about your work. Therefore, it is essential to allow enough time before delivery for a final review. It's particularly helpful to save this task until the day after finishing your writing assignment: a little time away from your work will make it easier to spot mistakes and errors.
As I mentioned before, You still can download free essays from essayintl.com if you don't have time for all this.