The Most Important Skills for Essay Writing

Unlike what most people think, writing an essay is quite simple albeit time-consuming. But, if you want, you can complete whatever you’re writing before the deadline.

Nonetheless, in that case, you will need to set a basic structure for the essay first. Doing so can help you write in an organized manner, henceforth completing the article quickly.

However, writing an essay will require a few specific skills that you need to acquire along the way. Keep reading to know more regarding the same.

Skills Needed for Essay Writing

When it comes to reading an essay, most markers tend to look for answers to questions like:

• Is the article addressing the set task it has been asked to do?
• Has it used relevant sources to back the statistics it has provided?
• Is it presenting a strong, supported position?
• Is the style of writing appropriate?
• Does the expression seem formal or is it too informal for an academic write-up?

Hence, when you are writing, your aim should be to ensure that the answers to these questions reflect in your essay. Here are some skills that can help you out with it.

1. Analytical Skill

Most academic essays focus on a specific question or two.

And, as your essay needs to address them, your first step must always be to evaluate the query in front of you. So, make sure that you know what you are going to talk about.

Usually, an essay question will have three components to assess, including the following:

• The Content Term: The key concept that you have to focus on while doing the task.
• The Limiting Term: The core scope of the topic.
• The Directive Term: What you must do to write the essay, e.g. analyze, discuss, etc.

Here is an example of the aforementioned breakdown.

• Question: Analyze the significance of light in the gothic architectural style.
• Content Term: Gothic architectural style (the basic concept of your write-up).
• Limiting Term: The significance of light (you can talk about the other attributes of gothic architecture, as that would deviate you from the core question of the essay.)
• Directive Term: Discussing the importance of light (in this case, you will only have to denote the benefits of light in gothic architecture and offer your own opinion on it.)

If you don’t analyze the entire thing well enough, it will be nearly impossible for you to write what has been asked of you. So, always begin your journey by assessing the question first.

2. Argumentative Skill

Once you have deciphered what the essay should be all about, you can start your research in a content-specific manner. Firstly, you will need to find out more about the topic and write your own opinion on it. Then, you should check what another person is saying about the same.

Once you find an answer that is countering your viewpoint, you may start comparing them and jot down:

• How are these two outlooks different?
• Why do you think that your opinion is correct?
• Where do you think the opposing point is lacking context?

For example, when discussing the significance of light in Gothic architecture, you might find the following argumentative statements:

“The architectural usage of light in the Gothic Sanctuaries can physically embody the gravity of luminosity in medieval theology.”

Or,

“In the Gothic-inspired cathedral of Cologne, the light was used to accentuate the ritual centrality and authority of the priest.”

Both of these opinions differ in their academic and oppugnant structure. Thus, no matter what you are choosing, you have to ensure that you are countering the other opinion.

3. Reasoning Skill

Only countering the other opinion isn’t going to be enough for you when you are jotting down an essay. Apart from that, you will also need to do three things, including –

• Providing evidence: This will help you put down concrete information to support the claim you are making through your article. It will typically feature facts, quotations, or examples to validate your point. Sometimes, using illustrations can be helpful too.
• Scholarship: It will be used to showcase how your argument is relating to the topic. It is mostly used as a part of the evidence you have offered to back your discussion. But, it can also be applied as a part of your reasoning to support the argument.
• Reasoning: It connects whatever evidence you have gathered and aligns it with your argument. This way, you won’t have to cite evidence like a specific shopping list. And you can show how it is supporting your point of discussion accordingly.

Some Other Tips for Essay Writing

Besides these, you’ll also have to focus on some other aspects of essay writing.

In this case, the first thing that you need to know about the core components of an essay. It, in essence, comes with three different parts, which are –

• Introduction: The purpose of the introduction of an essay is to introduce the topic and discussion material to the reader. It should be written in the following order –

• • A general yet clear statement about the essay topic to provide some context for the argument you’re presenting.
  • A thesis statement that’ll showcase your argument. In this case, it’ll be crucial for you to use some explicit lead-ins, like – ‘This article points out…’
  • A clear roadmap of the essay. This will let the reader know how the article will develop the entire argument and present the same properly.
• The body, on the other hand, will help you develop the content. It’ll primarily discuss the arguments of the essay and present the same in an elaborate manner. You will need to work on this section carefully and break it into paragraphs. Furthermore, using the right annotations and statistics while adding sources beside them will be important too.
• Finally, the conclusion will not offer any new material. However, it’ll present the same argument in a summarized manner, and can also tell the reader about the –
  • Importance of your finding and implication of the conclusion accordingly.
  • The link between your topic and a wider context.
  • The other factors are related to the base topic but aren’t written in the essay.

The Bottom Line

Do you think that writing an essay is really something that you can do? Well, in that case, it’s better to opt for a service, such as Fresh Essays, to help you out. Drop a mail and give them a call to get more information about how they work or their charges regarding the job.