A Step-By-Step Essay Writing Tutorial For Freshmen

College freshman may experience a wake-up call when it comes to essay writing. You may notice quickly the requirements for an essay and the type of content expected is different from high school. You may follow a different format you are not used to. You may even have a rude awakening as far as your writing skills from your instructor. You may think your writing skills are up to par but your instructor will have higher expectations than you realize. The following points are areas to be aware of with college essay writing you should work to improve throughout your academic career.

• Review guidelines. As a freshman you are expected to provide more in-depth information for your writing assignments. This is why it is imperative to follow guidelines carefully as you can lose points on your work or miss details you should have included.
• Topic selection. You should have a good idea of what topic to write about based on personal interests. Subject matter you know well can give you an advantage on creating well-written essays. Brainstorming can help you find a suitable topic.
• Research materials. If your essay requires research you should make a list of reputable sources to use for your assignment. This may be a variety of options from government websites to reference books and magazine publications. Think about sources that provide update information on a regular basis.
• Outline creation. You may be introduced to the aspect of planning your work with the use of an outline. You can create an outline from scratch or use a sample to help you. This helps break up your work into smaller portions to help you understand where your information should appear and what points you need to define for your topic.
• Writing rough drafts. You should take time to write a rough draft before finalizing your content. It is recommended to write 2 or 3 drafts to understand how your findings and notes come together. You can access your content from a logical perspective and make changes before writing your final draft.
• Make revisions. Writing rough drafts help you understand your content but you need to revise your work to ensure the message you want to send gets across to your audience. Review sentence and paragraph structure. Reorganize content for clarity and improved readability.
• Proofread and edit. Use spell check and review grammar, punctuation, and word usage.