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Sometimes students may find writing college essays as a daunting task, but it does not have to be an overwhelming undertaking. Break the process into a series of steps, and everything becomes easier. The first thing you do is to read your prompt carefully, then start compiling your research concerning the topic. In most cases, admission essays are mostly personal as opposed to more academic college essays, and they require scholarly sources. Before commencing the writing process, you have to engage in careful and extensive research on your topic so that you are able to avoid tangents. Once you have finished writing, you have some little work you have to do.
Remember to revise and proofread your work so that you are submitting one of the best college essays. When you compare college essays with high school essays, you will find out that they are more detailed and follow a predefined format of reference as per the instructions of the professor. In college, a student is supposed to write many academic papers and must learn to deal with the unique demands that come with college essays. Most importantly, professors are looking out for certain aspects that make a piece one of the best college essay. Other college essays are mandatory especially when the student is seeking admission in a given institution of higher learning. As such he must know how to go about the process of coming up with an excellent college admission essay.
So how do you come up with excellent college essays?
For you to come up with the best college essays, you need to consider the following process:
In the preliminary stages, you need to:
Ensure that you have reviewed the prompt to understand the instruction clearly if you want to have a successful writing process. Beware of the keywords like “analyze” “explain” as well as “compare and contrast.” Such words will help you to know what the essay needs to achieve. For instance, “analyze” means to pull apart. If you are analyzing a poem, you are simply being asked to divide the poem into specific elements and explain their functionality.
The college essays assignment may include a breakdown of how your work will be graded. In other words, you may get some marks based on how you organize your work, excellent spelling, and grammar or the strength of the sources you use. Should you find that the instructions do not include the grading criteria or they are no clear, you can consult your instructor to explain their grading rubric.
All college essays are academic pieces that require on to support claims with relevant evidence. You can utilize the library and the internet for credible sources regarding your topic. You are likely to have primary sources as well as secondary sources. The secondary sources ought to be cited if they back your argument. More so, you can mention sources that help you to counter-argue with the claim of the author. If you have problems tracking down sources for your college essays topics, you can consult the librarian or even your professor. Most importantly, your institution may be a subscriber to some of the best academic research databases, and as such, your library website can be a good starting point to get good sources.
After you are done with your research, you can put together some ideas for your college essays. Brainstorming can help you in coming up with ideas that can help you to write one of the best college essays. You can identify one idea from the ones you have come up with instead of keeping them in your head. You can write down the major ideas or keywords in clouds or bubbles. Draw some lines between the concepts that connect and make small bubbles for terms that connect to larger ideas.
You could also have a bullet point list to get a bird’s eye view of your material. If you are dealing with literary analysis, you can have a list of examples for categories like literary devices. You can also try free writing to get your creativity flowing. In this case, feel free to write what you know about the topic for 15 to 20 minutes without censoring your ideas.
Since you want to come up with one of the best college essays, you can review your prompt, brainstorm materials and research notes. Write down a few main ideas that you want to deal with, then revise them into an assertion that responds to the essay prompt. You can try to get an overarching argument or idea that includes all the major points you want to address in your paper.
Remember that college essays are academic papers that need to have a solid thesis statement. You can refine your argument into a clear and concise thesis statement for your essay. This will help you stay in track as during the writing process. Remember that your thesis statement is subject to change as you progress in your writing process. Your thesis statement will come at the end of your college essays introduction. It lets the audience know what the essay is trying to prove. One important thing to note that since college essays are academic papers, the thesis statement should never be subjective. In other words, you are not supposed to start your thesis statement with “I will prove that” or “It will be shown that.”
The earlier stages of coming up with the best college essays demand you to come up with a working thesis statement because you will still have to adjust it as you write the essay.
After you have gathered all the evidence in light of your topics well as sources, it is time for you to write the first draft of your college essays to achieve that, you need to:
You can start by writing your thesis statement at the top of the page, then use Roman numerals or alphabet letters for the body paragraphs or sections. For every paragraph, you can add a section or the main idea, use numbers or bullet points under the section, then fill in the supporting details next o these numbers. The outline also allows you to put in the sources and citations against the sections or numbers that indicate where you are going to use them.
(Read: How to cite a research essay using APA format?)
If you have an outline, the process of coming up with college essays will be much easier. You only need to follow the structure that you have created, and you are less likely to veer off the topic.
Depending on the assignment, you can start with a topic sentence that grabs the attention of the reader. However, most academic essays tend to be straight to the point and put the thesis front and center. The sentence after the thesis maps out the rest of the write-up. This way, the writer can know what to expect in the coming paragraphs. The roadmap ought to mention the evidence you will use to prove your thesis.
There are those who prefer to write the introduction of their college essays before they can write the outline. The good thing about the writing process of college essays is that you can do whatever works for you, so long as you produce one of the best college essays. The outline ought to help you in structuring your introduction, or the same introduction may lay a good roadmap for you the outline of your college essays.
This is where the discussion in college essays takes center stage. You can work section by section as you put together the pieces of your argument. Transitions are important in this instance to ensure that the paragraphs and sections of your college essays have a logical arrangement. You must have an idea of writing a 3-paragraph essay you got back in high school. This structure might not work if you have an argument that is broad and requires a more complex structure.
In some sample college essays, you will find that it is not necessary for a counter-argument to make your thesis more convincing. Once you build your argument, you can mention the opposing point of view and explain the way that school of thought does not measure up or fails to prove your point wrong. The best way to address a counter argument is by reputation. In this case, you have to provide evidence in you a college essays that poke holes in the opposing perspective. You can also offer rebuttal where you use evidence that shows the strength of your argument.
Just like other academic papers, the best college essays must have strong conclusions that transcend the repetition of the introduction’s content in different words. As you restate your thesis statement and remain the audience about the evidence, you also need to give them a resolution. Give an insight, the broader implication or your argument or a more practical way to apply the information that you have given them.
After finishing the writing process of the college essays, you are still not you of the woods yet. Several steps are necessary for making your paper excellent. They include the following:
If you want to have one of the best college essays free of mistakes, you can start by reading it aloud. As you do that, listen to awkward phrasing, convoluted sentences, and abrupt transitions and so on. You can mark the spots that are odd or off to the ear, then revisit them later. As you read our college essays, consider if each of the body paragraphs supports your thesis statement.
Once you read aloud, you can take a break from work before revising it with a fresh perspective.
You can formulate a reverse outline for college essays as you read. For instance, you can pull and summarize the topic sentence in every paragraph, then write the major supporting ideas as bullets points for every topic sentence. This will help you in getting a better sense of the structure and is essential in helping you to come up with excellent ways of improving the entire paper. For instance, when you see your college essays in outline form, you will realize there is a better flow if you change the order in which the main points appear.
Find out if you have overused any words in your college essays and make more variety. Additionally, look for occasions where you can replace a word with a stronger alternative. Ensure that you have used strong and clear verb and double check to ascertain if you have used the active voice.
You have to do a final close reading of your college essay correcting any errors that you find. You can take a break before doing it because it is easy to miss errors when your eyes have already become too familiar with the text. Spellcheck with your brain instead of the computer because it is bound to skip a mistake. For instance, it might not correct, “wear” appearing in place, meant for “where.”
You can fine-tune your college essays by letting someone else proofread your work. He or she will notice some things you overlooked easily. Ask them to give you feedback on your argument and point out any spots that are unclear or under-developed. After that, revise your piece because you have made it one of the best college essays ever written.
(Must Read: Advance steps of writing a college essay)
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