The Five Steps of Writing an Essay, what to write an essay on.

Vincent Hazat / PhotoAlto Agency RF Collections / Getty Images

You've almost finished. The last paragraph of your essay is your conclusion. It, too, can be short, and it must tie back to your introduction.

• America Needs Better Health Care Now
• The Use of the Mentor Archetype in _____
• Who Is the She-Conomy?
• Why DJ Is the Queen of Pedicures
• Melanoma: Is It or Isn't It?
• How to Achieve Natural Balance in Your Garden
• Expect to Be Changed by Reading _____

Write a paragraph about each of these key points, using the information you've pulled from your notes. If you don't have enough for one, you might need a stronger key point. Do more research to support your point of view. It's always better to have too many sources than too few.

Introduction

Do you love gardening? Sports? Photography? Volunteering? Are you an advocate for children? Domestic peace? The hungry or homeless? These are clues to your best essays.

Choose the top three ideas and write each one at the top of a clean page. Now go through your notes again and pull out supporting ideas for each key point. You don't need a lot, just two or three for each one.

Echo / Cultura / Getty Images

Your best essays will be about things that light your fire. What do you feel passionate about? What topics do you find yourself arguing for or against? Choose the side of the topic you are "for" rather than "against" and your essay will be stronger.

Once you’ve chosen your topic, brainstorm all the different supporting ideas that you can talk about for the topic. Start with the basic facts about your idea, asking questions such as what, where, who, when, why, and how.

Sometimes, you will already have an assigned essay type or topic, so that will save you one step. If these were not assigned to you, you have to think of possible topics that you can write on. This will also help determine the type of essay you will be writing.

After you have brainstormed and researched, write down your thesis statement. A thesis statement consists of one or two sentences that sum up the primary subject or argument of your essay.

Once you have your thesis statement, you can start to prepare your outline. Many people skip the outline process, thinking it’s a waste of time.

1. Decide on your essay type and topic.

• Narrative Essay: The narrative essay shares information in the form of a story and from a clearly defined point of view.
• Expository Essay: This type of essay explains, illustrates, or clarifies a topic. This also includes instructional pieces with step-by-step directions.
• Descriptive Essay: Descriptive essays do exactly what their name implies: they describe an event, phenomenon, or any other subject in detail.
• Persuasive Essay: This type of essay aims to convince the audience to adapt a certain perspective or idea.
• Compare and Contrast Essay: This type of writing pinpoints how similar or different two or more things are from one another.
• Problem-Solution Essay: This essay highlights an issue, influences the reader to care about it, suggests a solution, and tackles possible objections.

When editing, pay attention to the words you use: remove all unnecessary words and work on using strong verbs in place of weak ones.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a wordsmith, you don’t have to be intimidated by essays and writing assignments. When you learn the basic steps and the most common structures, you will find that it becomes easier to write down your thoughts on any given subject.

All college application essay topics below are categorized by essay prompt type. We’ve identified six general types of college essay prompts:

Many different kinds of college application essay topics can get you into a great college. But this doesn’t make it any easier to choose the best topic for you.

Once you’ve got an essay topic picked out, follow these six steps for turning your topic into an unforgettable personal statement:

The very best college essay topics are those that hold deep meaning to their writers and have truly influenced them in some significant way.

Change and Personal Growth

You might fail to directly answer a prompt by misinterpreting what it’s asking you to do, or by answering only part of it (e.g., answering just one out of three questions).

If at any point you get stuck and have no idea what to write, revisit steps 1-3 to see whether there are any important details or ideas you might be omitting or not elaborating on enough to get your overall point across to admissions officers.

For instance, say you want to write an essay about the first time you went snowboarding. Instead of just describing the details of the experience and how you felt during it, you could juxtapose your emotions with a creative and humorous perspective from the snowboard itself. Or you could compare your first attempt at snowboarding with your most recent experience in a snowboarding competition. The possibilities are endless!

Essays can come in many different forms. The most common types include the following:

• Narrative Essay: The narrative essay shares information in the form of a story and from a clearly defined point of view.
• Expository Essay: This type of essay explains, illustrates, or clarifies a topic. This also includes instructional pieces with step-by-step directions.
• Descriptive Essay: Descriptive essays do exactly what their name implies: they describe an event, phenomenon, or any other subject in detail.
• Persuasive Essay: This type of essay aims to convince the audience to adapt a certain perspective or idea.
• Compare and Contrast Essay: This type of writing pinpoints how similar or different two or more things are from one another.
• Problem-Solution Essay: This essay highlights an issue, influences the reader to care about it, suggests a solution, and tackles possible objections.

• Elaborate on each of your main ideas with at least one paragraph each. If your main ideas will require more than one paragraph each, feel free to write more.
• For anything point that takes up two paragraphs or more, it helps to have a brief introductory paragraph.
• Stay as concise as possible.
• Include anecdotal examples if it will help you make your point more clear.
• If you are writing a formal academic essay, avoid using first-person pronouns.

Next, use the proper citations. Plagiarism does not only constitute copying the idea verbatim, but you also have to reference the source of the idea itself, if possible. Depending on your teacher’s preferences, you can use the APA in-text citation style or the MLA style.

What Are the Different Types of Essays?

Sometimes, you will already have an assigned essay type or topic, so that will save you one step. If these were not assigned to you, you have to think of possible topics that you can write on. This will also help determine the type of essay you will be writing.

To avoid plagiarism, be sure to paraphrase any ideas you collect from your research instead of copying them word for word. If you do use them as is, put them in quotes.

• What is something I’m passionate about?
• What is one thought or idea I want to share?
• Is there any misconception I want to correct?
• What is the best way to present this topic of information (with regard to the types of essays)?

• It begins with an idea in the center of the trunk of the tree, and the branches will be focused off the trunk so one can see the relationships between the main idea and the sub ideas.
• Write the central idea

  --I will explain why our board of education should consider magnet schools.—

  -- Having a close friend to talk to is very important—. This is a broad statement.

  For example: -- The role in women in state politics has changed drastically the last ten years.—

  Step III: Setting Up the Essay

  

  Evie Lopez (author) from Sunny Florida on February 26, 2012:

  Evie Lopez (author) from Sunny Florida on April 30, 2012:

  Do you have an essay to write and do not know where or how to begin? Before you get started, there are a few things you must know about writing an essay. Forming and structuring an essay are necessary for a well developed essay. Here are the steps to do this.

  • Avoid a conclusion that is out of proportion to the rest of your essay. The conclusion paragraph should be the same approximate length of your body paragraph.
  • Avoid a conclusion that is not suited to your audience, purpose, or thesis.
  • Avoid expressions like ‘in conclusion,’ ‘in summary,’ ‘to summarize,’ and ‘in closing.’ These are completely unnecessary for the conclusion.