How to write an essay. Useful notes.

Imagine you already have a topic on an essay. What should you start from?

1. The first thing you should do before start writing it – is brainstorm on the topic, you have.

Task: Open page 82 and 102 of your textbook and read the tasks in the frames carefully. Imagine, one of them is your future ground you are going to base on.

2. In the first task (p.82) you can see a quotation, while the second task (p.102) presented as a question. So, my advice to you is to write down all your ideas, thoughts about given topics, which come into your mind, when you read the task. It’s not necessary for you to arrange them very carefully at this point. Just put your thoughts on a paper.

3. When you already have all your ideas written chaotically, you finally can start writing, using them and arranging properly in logical order.

4. You know, that almost any piece of writing usually starts from the INTRODUCTION (p.82). To write a successful introduction you should remember some important points:

Thesis statement – is the sentence (sometimes two), usually in the beginning of an essay, which contain the main idea of the whole text. So it tells the reader what the writing is going to be about. In other words, thesis statement gives a general picture of something written in the text.

Topic sentence – is the sentence, usually in the beginning or in the end of a paragraph, which summarize the idea of a paragraph. Generally, topic sentence it’s almost the same for every logical part of the text/paragraph, as thesis statement for the whole text/essay.

Thus, you can have 1 thesis statement in your essay and more than one topic sentences.

Key words – such significant words or phrases in a text, which describe the contents/the essence of the writing.

5. So, while you are brainstorming for ideas to write your essay, you should also think about keywords, which will become the most important points of your writing and will help you to build up your speech.

Task: Open page 82, read the task again. Then read the paragraph, given below and find the thesis statement and the key words of this introduction part.

Answer:

Thesis statement – “The expression “Blood is thicker than water” suggests that our relationships with family members are closer than relations we have with our friends”.

Key words: relationships, friends, family, family members, support, choice, network of friends, important part etc.

Task: Open page 102, read the task again. Then read the paragraph, given below and find the topic sentence and the key words of this introduction part.

Answer:

Topic sentence – “As far as governments are concerned, there are several good economic reasons for having policies that make citizens happy”.

Key words: governments, economic reasons, citizens, happiness, stimulating

6. Now, when you are finished with main points, you should widen your idea, which is given in the introduction.

7. In most cases, the theme of your writing allows you two consider the problem from two or more different points of view. You can think about advantages/disadvantages, pros & cons of a problem you would like to share in your essay. You can reflect upon two or more opposite opinions or to examine the topic from the point of view of different spheres of life (economics, politics, education etc.)

8. When you are strongly determined about the things, which will widen your main idea in your essay, you are to express them in your paper shortly in your introduction, usually just right after your thesis statement. (as you can see it on p.82 and p.102)

9. Remember one golden rule: everything you are going to speak about in the BODY of your essay, should be also somehow mentioned in the INTRO and in the CONCLUSION of it.

10. Next step – is the end of your introduction. It should be a sentence, containing the same idea as in the thesis statement, but expressed differently or some new info can be added.

Task: Find the conclusive sentence of the introduction (p.82)

Answer:

Conclusive sentence of INTRO – “ What is more important than being part of a family, is having a strong network of friends ”.

11. Thus, when you are finished with the introduction (thesis statement, key problems you are going to reflect upon in your essay), you can finally go further to the BODY of your writing.

12. As it’s generally accepted, the BODY usually consists of several paragraphs at least. Each of them conventionally covers the problem from one particular point of view, which were already mentioned in the INTRO.

13. However, do not remember to start each of BODY paragraphs with the topic sentence and finish it also with the conclusive sentence.

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