• Features for Creative Writers
  • Features for Work
  • Features for Higher Education
  • Features for Teachers
  • Features for Non-Native Speakers
  • Learn Blog Grammar Guide Community Academy FAQ
  • Grammar Guide

How to Make Your Essay Better: 7 Tips for Stronger Essays

Krystal Craiker headshot

Krystal N. Craiker

How to make your essay better

Essay writing doesn’t have to be intimidating. With a few tips, you can improve your writing skills for any type of academic essay.

How to Write Better Essays

7 tips on how to make your essay better, how to become a better essay writer.

The best way to sum up how to write better essays is, “Make sure you’re answering the question.”

This sounds obvious, but you would be surprised how many students struggle with this.

From not understanding the prompt to poor research skills to off-topic body paragraphs, it’s easy for an essay to derail.

We’ve got seven tips for writing better essays that will help you avoid common mistakes and craft the best essays possible.

7 tips for imrpoving your essay

Here are our top tips for improving your essay writing skills.

Understand the Prompt or Research Question

The first step in your writing process is to fully understand the essay topic. If your professor gave you a prompt for your academic essay, spend some time analyzing it.

First, take note of whether you’re writing an expository or persuasive essay. The tone, structure, and word choice will differ between essay types.

Pay close attention to the wording of the prompt.

If your teacher wants you to “analyze” the effects of new technology in World War I, but you turn in a descriptive overview of the technology, you are not answering the question.

If they have given you a topic but no prompt, you’ll need to create a guiding question for your research.

Be specific in what you are trying to research, or you’ll end up overwhelmed with a topic that is too big in scope.

“Symbolism in modern literature” is too broad for a term paper, but “How does F. Scott Fitzgerald use symbolism in The Great Gatsby ?” is an achievable topic.

Improve your essay tip

Take Excellent Notes

Once you understand exactly what your essay is about, you can begin the research phase. Create a strong note-taking system.

Write down any idea or quote you might want to use. Cite every note properly to save time on your citations and to avoid accidental plagiarism.

Once you have gathered your research, organize your notes into categories. This will help you plan the structure of your essay.

You’ll likely find that some of your research doesn’t fit into your essay once you start writing. That’s okay—it’s better to have too much information to support your argument than too little.

Write a Strong Thesis Statement

Possibly the most important step in essay writing is to craft a strong thesis statement. A thesis statement is a brief—usually single-sentence—explanation of what your essay is about.

The thesis statement guides the entire essay: every point you make should support your thesis.

A strong thesis is specific and long enough to address the major points of your essay.

In a persuasive or argumentative essay, your thesis should clearly establish the argument you are making.

Make an Outline

Once you have all your research, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. How do you turn the information into a cohesive essay?

Rather than writing an essay with no roadmap, an outline will keep you on track. An outline helps you organize your thoughts, plan your arguments, and sort your research.

A good outline saves you time, too! You can compile the relevant evidence in your notes before writing, so you don’t have to find that specific quote in the middle of essay writing.

An outline will also stop you from reading your finished essay and realizing you went completely off track.

With an outline, you can avoid finding paragraphs that don’t support your thesis right before you submit the essay.

Improve your essay tip

Craft a Great Introduction

An academic essay needs a strong introductory paragraph.

The introduction is the first impression of your essay. It prepares the reader for what’s coming and gets them excited to read your paper.

A good introduction has three things:

  • A hook (e.g. insightful statement, quote, interesting fact)
  • Brief background information about the topic
  • A thesis statement

Using this formula will help you write a strong introduction for your essay.

Have Original Ideas and Interpretations

The best academic writing advice a professor ever gave me was, “You’ve shown me what other people have said about the topic. I want to know what you think about the topic.”

Even a fact-heavy or data-heavy essay needs original ideas and interpretations. For every piece of information you cite, whether you quote or paraphrase it , offer original commentary.

Focus on insights, new interpretations, or even questions that you have. These are all ways to provide original ideas in your essay.

Proofread for Readability

A good essay is a proofread essay.

Readability, or how easy something is to read, has many factors. Spelling and grammar are important, but so is sentence structure, word choice , and other stylistic features.

Academic essays should be readable without being too simple. In general, aim for a readability score that is close to your grade level in school.

There are several ways to check readability scores, including using ProWritingAid’s Readability Report.

ProWritingAid's readability report

The quickest way to increase readability is to fix grammar and spelling mistakes . You can also raise the readability score by using more complex and compound-complex sentences.

ProWritingAid can offer suggestions on how to improve your essay and take it to the next level.

Our free essay checker will check for spelling and grammar errors, plus several other types of writing mistakes.

The essay checker will offer you suggestions on sentence length and passive voice.

It will help you trim the excess words that bog down your writing by analyzing your sticky sentences and overused words.

The essay checker is here to help you turn in an error-free essay.

Want to improve your essay writing skills?

Use prowritingaid.

ProWritingAid for Students

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Krystal N. Craiker is the Writing Pirate, an indie romance author and blog manager at ProWritingAid. She sails the seven internet seas, breaking tropes and bending genres. She has a background in anthropology and education, which brings fresh perspectives to her romance novels. When she’s not daydreaming about her next book or article, you can find her cooking gourmet gluten-free cuisine, laughing at memes, and playing board games. Krystal lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, child, and basset hound.

Get started with ProWritingAid

Drop us a line or let's stay in touch via :

how to make an essay better

  • SUGGESTED TOPICS
  • The Magazine
  • Newsletters
  • Managing Yourself
  • Managing Teams
  • Work-life Balance
  • The Big Idea
  • Data & Visuals
  • Reading Lists
  • Case Selections
  • HBR Learning
  • Topic Feeds
  • Account Settings
  • Email Preferences

A (Very) Simple Way to Improve Your Writing

  • Mark Rennella

how to make an essay better

It’s called the “one-idea rule” — and any level of writer can use it.

The “one idea” rule is a simple concept that can help you sharpen your writing, persuade others by presenting your argument in a clear, concise, and engaging way. What exactly does the rule say?

  • Every component of a successful piece of writing should express only one idea.
  • In persuasive writing, your “one idea” is often the argument or belief you are presenting to the reader. Once you identify what that argument is, the “one-idea rule” can help you develop, revise, and connect the various components of your writing.
  • For instance, let’s say you’re writing an essay. There are three components you will be working with throughout your piece: the title, the paragraphs, and the sentences.
  • Each of these parts should be dedicated to just one idea. The ideas are not identical, of course, but they’re all related. If done correctly, the smaller ideas (in sentences) all build (in paragraphs) to support the main point (suggested in the title).

Ascend logo

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

Most advice about writing looks like a long laundry list of “do’s and don’ts.” These lists can be helpful from time to time, but they’re hard to remember … and, therefore, hard to depend on when you’re having trouble putting your thoughts to paper. During my time in academia, teaching composition at the undergraduate and graduate levels, I saw many people struggle with this.

how to make an essay better

  • MR Mark Rennella is Associate Editor at HBP and has published two books, Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Leaders and The Boston Cosmopolitans .  

Partner Center

logo (1)

Tips for Online Students , Tips for Students

How To Write An Essay: Beginner Tips And Tricks

How To Write An Essay # Beginner Tips And Tricks

Many students dread writing essays, but essay writing is an important skill to develop in high school, university, and even into your future career. By learning how to write an essay properly, the process can become more enjoyable and you’ll find you’re better able to organize and articulate your thoughts.

When writing an essay, it’s common to follow a specific pattern, no matter what the topic is. Once you’ve used the pattern a few times and you know how to structure an essay, it will become a lot more simple to apply your knowledge to every essay. 

No matter which major you choose, you should know how to craft a good essay. Here, we’ll cover the basics of essay writing, along with some helpful tips to make the writing process go smoothly.

Ink pen on paper before writing an essay

Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

Types of Essays

Think of an essay as a discussion. There are many types of discussions you can have with someone else. You can be describing a story that happened to you, you might explain to them how to do something, or you might even argue about a certain topic. 

When it comes to different types of essays, it follows a similar pattern. Like a friendly discussion, each type of essay will come with its own set of expectations or goals. 

For example, when arguing with a friend, your goal is to convince them that you’re right. The same goes for an argumentative essay. 

Here are a few of the main essay types you can expect to come across during your time in school:

Narrative Essay

This type of essay is almost like telling a story, not in the traditional sense with dialogue and characters, but as if you’re writing out an event or series of events to relay information to the reader.

Persuasive Essay

Here, your goal is to persuade the reader about your views on a specific topic.

Descriptive Essay

This is the kind of essay where you go into a lot more specific details describing a topic such as a place or an event. 

Argumentative Essay

In this essay, you’re choosing a stance on a topic, usually controversial, and your goal is to present evidence that proves your point is correct.

Expository Essay

Your purpose with this type of essay is to tell the reader how to complete a specific process, often including a step-by-step guide or something similar.

Compare and Contrast Essay

You might have done this in school with two different books or characters, but the ultimate goal is to draw similarities and differences between any two given subjects.

The Main Stages of Essay Writing

When it comes to writing an essay, many students think the only stage is getting all your ideas down on paper and submitting your work. However, that’s not quite the case. 

There are three main stages of writing an essay, each one with its own purpose. Of course, writing the essay itself is the most substantial part, but the other two stages are equally as important.

So, what are these three stages of essay writing? They are:

Preparation

Before you even write one word, it’s important to prepare the content and structure of your essay. If a topic wasn’t assigned to you, then the first thing you should do is settle on a topic. Next, you want to conduct your research on that topic and create a detailed outline based on your research. The preparation stage will make writing your essay that much easier since, with your outline and research, you should already have the skeleton of your essay.

Writing is the most time-consuming stage. In this stage, you will write out all your thoughts and ideas and craft your essay based on your outline. You’ll work on developing your ideas and fleshing them out throughout the introduction, body, and conclusion (more on these soon).

In the final stage, you’ll go over your essay and check for a few things. First, you’ll check if your essay is cohesive, if all the points make sense and are related to your topic, and that your facts are cited and backed up. You can also check for typos, grammar and punctuation mistakes, and formatting errors.  

The Five-Paragraph Essay

We mentioned earlier that essay writing follows a specific structure, and for the most part in academic or college essays , the five-paragraph essay is the generally accepted structure you’ll be expected to use. 

The five-paragraph essay is broken down into one introduction paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a closing paragraph. However, that doesn’t always mean that an essay is written strictly in five paragraphs, but rather that this structure can be used loosely and the three body paragraphs might become three sections instead.

Let’s take a closer look at each section and what it entails.

Introduction

As the name implies, the purpose of your introduction paragraph is to introduce your idea. A good introduction begins with a “hook,” something that grabs your reader’s attention and makes them excited to read more. 

Another key tenant of an introduction is a thesis statement, which usually comes towards the end of the introduction itself. Your thesis statement should be a phrase that explains your argument, position, or central idea that you plan on developing throughout the essay. 

You can also include a short outline of what to expect in your introduction, including bringing up brief points that you plan on explaining more later on in the body paragraphs.

Here is where most of your essay happens. The body paragraphs are where you develop your ideas and bring up all the points related to your main topic. 

In general, you’re meant to have three body paragraphs, or sections, and each one should bring up a different point. Think of it as bringing up evidence. Each paragraph is a different piece of evidence, and when the three pieces are taken together, it backs up your main point — your thesis statement — really well.

That being said, you still want each body paragraph to be tied together in some way so that the essay flows. The points should be distinct enough, but they should relate to each other, and definitely to your thesis statement. Each body paragraph works to advance your point, so when crafting your essay, it’s important to keep this in mind so that you avoid going off-track or writing things that are off-topic.

Many students aren’t sure how to write a conclusion for an essay and tend to see their conclusion as an afterthought, but this section is just as important as the rest of your work. 

You shouldn’t be presenting any new ideas in your conclusion, but you should summarize your main points and show how they back up your thesis statement. 

Essentially, the conclusion is similar in structure and content to the introduction, but instead of introducing your essay, it should be wrapping up the main thoughts and presenting them to the reader as a singular closed argument. 

student writing an essay on his laptop

Photo by AMIT RANJAN on Unsplash

Steps to Writing an Essay

Now that you have a better idea of an essay’s structure and all the elements that go into it, you might be wondering what the different steps are to actually write your essay. 

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Instead of going in blind, follow these steps on how to write your essay from start to finish.

Understand Your Assignment

When writing an essay for an assignment, the first critical step is to make sure you’ve read through your assignment carefully and understand it thoroughly. You want to check what type of essay is required, that you understand the topic, and that you pay attention to any formatting or structural requirements. You don’t want to lose marks just because you didn’t read the assignment carefully.

Research Your Topic

Once you understand your assignment, it’s time to do some research. In this step, you should start looking at different sources to get ideas for what points you want to bring up throughout your essay. 

Search online or head to the library and get as many resources as possible. You don’t need to use them all, but it’s good to start with a lot and then narrow down your sources as you become more certain of your essay’s direction.

Start Brainstorming

After research comes the brainstorming. There are a lot of different ways to start the brainstorming process . Here are a few you might find helpful:

  • Think about what you found during your research that interested you the most
  • Jot down all your ideas, even if they’re not yet fully formed
  • Create word clouds or maps for similar terms or ideas that come up so you can group them together based on their similarities
  • Try freewriting to get all your ideas out before arranging them

Create a Thesis

This is often the most tricky part of the whole process since you want to create a thesis that’s strong and that you’re about to develop throughout the entire essay. Therefore, you want to choose a thesis statement that’s broad enough that you’ll have enough to say about it, but not so broad that you can’t be precise. 

Write Your Outline

Armed with your research, brainstorming sessions, and your thesis statement, the next step is to write an outline. 

In the outline, you’ll want to put your thesis statement at the beginning and start creating the basic skeleton of how you want your essay to look. 

A good way to tackle an essay is to use topic sentences . A topic sentence is like a mini-thesis statement that is usually the first sentence of a new paragraph. This sentence introduces the main idea that will be detailed throughout the paragraph. 

If you create an outline with the topic sentences for your body paragraphs and then a few points of what you want to discuss, you’ll already have a strong starting point when it comes time to sit down and write. This brings us to our next step… 

Write a First Draft

The first time you write your entire essay doesn’t need to be perfect, but you do need to get everything on the page so that you’re able to then write a second draft or review it afterward. 

Everyone’s writing process is different. Some students like to write their essay in the standard order of intro, body, and conclusion, while others prefer to start with the “meat” of the essay and tackle the body, and then fill in the other sections afterward. 

Make sure your essay follows your outline and that everything relates to your thesis statement and your points are backed up by the research you did. 

Revise, Edit, and Proofread

The revision process is one of the three main stages of writing an essay, yet many people skip this step thinking their work is done after the first draft is complete. 

However, proofreading, reviewing, and making edits on your essay can spell the difference between a B paper and an A.

After writing the first draft, try and set your essay aside for a few hours or even a day or two, and then come back to it with fresh eyes to review it. You might find mistakes or inconsistencies you missed or better ways to formulate your arguments.

Add the Finishing Touches

Finally, you’ll want to make sure everything that’s required is in your essay. Review your assignment again and see if all the requirements are there, such as formatting rules, citations, quotes, etc. 

Go over the order of your paragraphs and make sure everything makes sense, flows well, and uses the same writing style . 

Once everything is checked and all the last touches are added, give your essay a final read through just to ensure it’s as you want it before handing it in. 

A good way to do this is to read your essay out loud since you’ll be able to hear if there are any mistakes or inaccuracies.

Essay Writing Tips

With the steps outlined above, you should be able to craft a great essay. Still, there are some other handy tips we’d recommend just to ensure that the essay writing process goes as smoothly as possible.

  • Start your essay early. This is the first tip for a reason. It’s one of the most important things you can do to write a good essay. If you start it the night before, then you won’t have enough time to research, brainstorm, and outline — and you surely won’t have enough time to review.
  • Don’t try and write it in one sitting. It’s ok if you need to take breaks or write it over a few days. It’s better to write it in multiple sittings so that you have a fresh mind each time and you’re able to focus.
  • Always keep the essay question in mind. If you’re given an assigned question, then you should always keep it handy when writing your essay to make sure you’re always working to answer the question.
  • Use transitions between paragraphs. In order to improve the readability of your essay, try and make clear transitions between paragraphs. This means trying to relate the end of one paragraph to the beginning of the next one so the shift doesn’t seem random.
  • Integrate your research thoughtfully. Add in citations or quotes from your research materials to back up your thesis and main points. This will show that you did the research and that your thesis is backed up by it.

Wrapping Up

Writing an essay doesn’t need to be daunting if you know how to approach it. Using our essay writing steps and tips, you’ll have better knowledge on how to write an essay and you’ll be able to apply it to your next assignment. Once you do this a few times, it will become more natural to you and the essay writing process will become quicker and easier.

If you still need assistance with your essay, check with a student advisor to see if they offer help with writing. At University of the People(UoPeople), we always want our students to succeed, so our student advisors are ready to help with writing skills when necessary. 

Related Articles

Privacy overview.

Article type icon

12 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Academic Essay Writing Skills

#scribendiinc

Written by  Scribendi

Anyone can learn to produce an academic essay if they begin with a few basic essay-writing rules. 

An academic essay must be based upon a solid but debatable thesis, supported by relevant and credible evidence, and closed with a succinct and thorough conclusion.

By adhering to the best way to write an essay, you can create valuable, persuasive papers even when you're under a time crunch!

What Makes a Good Essay?

As previously noted, the foundation of any good academic essay is its thesis statement. 

Do not confuse your thesis with your opening sentence. There are many good ways to start an essay , but few essays immediately present their main ideas.

After you draft your thesis, you can begin to develop your essay around it. This development will include the main supporting points of your essay, which will scaffold its main body. 

Essays also typically include a relevant and compelling introduction and conclusion.

Learn How to Write a Great Thesis Statement .

Good Ways to Start an Essay

Understanding How to Write a Good Essay

When writing an academic essay, you must take a number of qualities and characteristics into careful consideration. Focus, development, unity, coherence, and correctness all play critical roles when it comes to distinguishing an exceptional essay from one that is less than perfect.

The following essay-writing tips can help writers organize, format, and support their essays in ways that fit their intended purpose and optimize their overall persuasiveness. Here are 12 essay tips for developing and writing your next academic paper.

1. Know What You Are Going to Write About Before You Start Writing

While untrained writers might just sit down and start typing, educated and experienced writers know that there are many steps to writing an essay.

In short, you should know what you want to say before you type a single word. The easiest way to narrow down a thesis and create a proper argument is to make a basic outline before you begin composing your essay.

Your outline should consist of rough notes that sketch out your introduction (including your thesis), the body of your essay (which should include separate paragraphs that present your main supporting points with plenty of evidence and examples), and your conclusion (which ties everything together and connects the argument back to your thesis).

2. Acquire a Solid Understanding of Basic Grammar, Punctuation, and Style

Before getting into more refined essay-writing techniques, you must have a solid grasp of grammar, punctuation, and style. Without these writing fundamentals, it will be difficult to communicate your ideas effectively and ensure that they are taken seriously.

Grammar basics include subject and verb agreement, correct article and pronoun use, and well-formed sentence structures. Make sure you know the proper uses for the most common forms of punctuation. Be mindful of your comma usage and know when a period is needed.

Finally, voice is tremendously important in academic essay writing. Employ language that is as concise as possible. Avoid transition words that don't add anything to the sentence and unnecessary wordiness that detracts from your argument.

Furthermore, use the active voice instead of the passive whenever possible (e.g., "this study found" instead of "it was found by this study"). This will make your essay's tone clear and direct.

3. Use the Right Vocabulary and Know What the Words You Are Using Actually Mean

How you use language is important, especially in academic essay writing. When writing an academic essay, remember that you are persuading others that you are an expert who argues intelligently about your topic.

Using big words just to sound smart often results in the opposite effect—it is easy to detect when someone is overcompensating in their writing.

If you aren't sure of the exact meaning of a word, you risk using it incorrectly. There's no shame in checking, and it might save you from an embarrassing word misuse later!

Using obscure language can also detract from the clarity of your argument—you should consider this before pulling out a thesaurus to change a perfectly appropriate word to something completely different.

4. Understand the Argument and Critically Analyze the Evidence

While writing a good essay, your main argument should always be at the front of your mind. While it's tempting to go off on a tangent about an interesting side note, doing so makes your writing less concise.

Always question the evidence you include in your essay; ask yourself, "Does this directly support my thesis?" If the answer is "no," then that evidence should probably be excluded. 

When you are evaluating evidence, be critical and thorough. You want to use the strongest research to back up your thesis. It is not enough to simply present evidence in support of an argument. A good writer must also explain why the evidence is relevant and supportive.

Everything you include should clearly connect to your topic and argument.   

Research Databases

5. Know How to Write a Conclusion That Supports Your Research

One of the most overlooked steps to writing an essay is the conclusion. Your conclusion ties all your research together and proves your thesis. It should not be a restatement of your introduction or a copy-and-paste of your thesis.

A strong conclusion briefly outlines the key evidence discussed in the body of an essay and directly ties it to the thesis to show how the evidence proves or disproves the main argument of your research.

Countless great essays have been written only to be derailed by vague, weakly worded conclusions. Don't let your next essay become one of those.     

6. Build a Solid Thesis to Support Your Arguments

A thesis is the main pillar of an essay. By selecting a specific thesis, you'll be able to develop arguments to support your central opinion. Consider writing about a unique experience or your own particular view of a topic .

Your thesis should be clear and logical, but it should also be debatable. Otherwise, it might be difficult to support it with compelling arguments.

7. Develop an Interesting Opening Paragraph to Hook In Readers from the Get-Go

No matter how you begin your essay, you must strive to capture the reader's interest immediately. If your opening paragraph doesn't catch the eye and engage the brain, any attempt at persuasion may end before the essay even starts. 

The beginning of your essay is crucial for setting the stage for your thesis.

8. Always Remember to Edit and Proofread Your Essay

Any decent writer will tell you that writing is really rewriting. A good academic essay will inevitably go through multiple drafts as it slowly takes shape. When you arrive at a final draft, you must make sure that it is as close to perfect as possible.

This means subjecting your essay to close and comprehensive editing and proofreading processes. In other words, you must read your paper as many times as necessary to eliminate all grammar/punctuation mistakes and typos.

It is helpful to have a third party review your work. Consider consulting a peer or professional editing service. Keep in mind that professional editors are able to help you identify underdeveloped arguments and unnecessarily wordy language, and provide other feedback.

Get Critical Feedback on Your Writing

Hire an expert academic editor , or get a free sample, 9. when developing your essay's main body, build strong and relevant arguments.

Every sentence in the main body of your paper should explain and support your thesis. When deciding how much evidence to include in an academic essay, a good guideline is to include at least three main supporting arguments.

Those main supporting arguments, in turn, require support in the form of relevant facts, figures, examples, analogies, and observations. 

You will need to engage in appropriate research to accomplish this. To organize your research efforts, you may want to develop a list of good research questions . 

10. Choose the Format of Your Essay before Writing It

The final shape that your essay takes depends a great deal on what kind of format you use. Popular college essay format types include the Modern Language Association of America ( MLA ), American Psychological Association ( APA ), and Chicago Manual of Style ( Chicago style).

These formats govern everything from capitalization rules to source citation. Often, professors dictate a specific format for your essay. If they do not, you should choose the format that best suits your field.

11. Create Clear Transitions between Your Ideas

Although unnecessary transition words are the enemy of clarity and concision, they can be invaluable tools when it comes to separating and connecting the different sections of your essay. 

Not only do they help you express your ideas but they also bring a cohesive structure to your sentences and a pleasant flow to your writing. Just be sure that you are using the right transition words for the right purpose and to the proper effect.

12. Always Include an Organized Reference Page at the End of Your Essay

As a key component of MLA, APA, and Chicago Style formatting, the reference or Works Cited page is an essential part of any academic essay.

Regardless of the format used, the reference page must be well organized and easy to read so that your audience can see exactly where your outside information came from. 

To produce a properly formatted reference page, you may have to familiarize yourself with specialized phrases and abbreviations, such as " et al ." 

FAQs

How to Write a Good Hook for an Essay

The key to a good hook is to introduce an unexplored or absorbing line of inquiry in your introduction that addresses the main point of your thesis. 

By carefully choosing your language and slowly revealing details, you can build reader anticipation for what follows. 

Much like an actual worm-baited fishing hook, a successful hook will lure and capture readers, allowing the writer to "reel them in."

How to Get Better at Writing Essays

You can get better at writing essays the same way that you improve at anything else: practice, practice, practice! However, there are a few ways that you can improve your writing quickly so you can turn in a quality academic essay on time.

In addition to following the 12 essay tips and guidelines above, you can familiarize yourself with a few common practices and structures for essay development. 

Great writing techniques for essays include brainstorming and tree diagrams, especially when coming up with a topic for your thesis statement. Becoming familiar with different structures for organizing your essay (order of importance, chronological, etc.) is also extremely helpful.

How to Write a Good Introduction for an Essay

To learn how to write a good essay, you must also learn how to write a good introduction. 

Most effective essay introductions begin with relatively broad and general subject matter and then gradually narrow in focus and scope until they arrive at something extremely specific: the thesis. This is why writers tend to place their thesis statements at the very end of their introductory paragraph(s).

Because they are generally broad and often relate only tangentially to an essay's main point, there is virtually no limit on what the beginning of a good introduction can look like. However, writers still tend to rely on somewhat cliché opening sentences, such as quotations and rhetorical questions.

How to Write a Good Conclusion for an Essay

Briefly put, a good conclusion does two things. It wraps up any loose ends and drives home the main point of your essay. 

To learn how to write a good conclusion, you will want to ensure that no unanswered questions remain in the reader's mind. A good conclusion will restate the thesis and reinforce the essay's main supporting points.

Take Your Essay from Good to Great

About the author.

Scribendi Editing and Proofreading

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing turn into a great one after the editing process. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained nearly 20 degrees collectively. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

Have You Read?

"The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing"

Related Posts

How Academic Writing Differs from Other Forms of Writing

How Academic Writing Differs from Other Forms of Writing

How to Master the 4 Types of Academic Writing

How to Master the 4 Types of Academic Writing

The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing

The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing

Upload your file(s) so we can calculate your word count, or enter your word count manually.

We will also recommend a service based on the file(s) you upload.

English is not my first language. I need English editing and proofreading so that I sound like a native speaker.

I need to have my journal article, dissertation, or term paper edited and proofread, or I need help with an admissions essay or proposal.

I have a novel, manuscript, play, or ebook. I need editing, copy editing, proofreading, a critique of my work, or a query package.

I need editing and proofreading for my white papers, reports, manuals, press releases, marketing materials, and other business documents.

I need to have my essay, project, assignment, or term paper edited and proofread.

I want to sound professional and to get hired. I have a resume, letter, email, or personal document that I need to have edited and proofread.

 Prices include your personal % discount.

 Prices include % sales tax ( ).

how to make an essay better

  • Tips for Reading an Assignment Prompt
  • Asking Analytical Questions
  • Introductions
  • What Do Introductions Across the Disciplines Have in Common?
  • Anatomy of a Body Paragraph
  • Transitions
  • Tips for Organizing Your Essay
  • Counterargument
  • Conclusions
  • Strategies for Essay Writing: Downloadable PDFs
  • Brief Guides to Writing in the Disciplines

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

  • Knowledge Base
  • Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks

Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

As you read, hover over the highlighted parts to learn what they do and why they work.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

upload-your-document-ai-proofreader

Table of contents

Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

  • Ad hominem fallacy
  • Post hoc fallacy
  • Appeal to authority fallacy
  • False cause fallacy
  • Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

  • Choosing Essay Topic
  • Write a College Essay
  • Write a Diversity Essay
  • College Essay Format & Structure
  • Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

 (AI) Tools

  • Grammar Checker
  • Paraphrasing Tool
  • Text Summarizer
  • AI Detector
  • Plagiarism Checker
  • Citation Generator

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

  • An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
  • Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
  • A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bryson, S. (2023, July 23). Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks. Scribbr. Retrieved February 21, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/example-essay-structure/

Is this article helpful?

Shane Bryson

Shane Bryson

Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

Other students also liked

How to write an essay introduction | 4 steps & examples, academic paragraph structure | step-by-step guide & examples, how to write topic sentences | 4 steps, examples & purpose, what is your plagiarism score.

Summer School at Yale is now open for ages 13 to 15. Find out more and secure your place now.

Other languages

  • How to Improve Your Essay Writing Quickly: A Step-by-Step Guide

About the Author Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of Fribourg.

Image shows the beautiful New York Public Library.

Whatever your brand of brilliance – whether you’re a physics genius, a sporting hero or (like me) a blinky, bookish type – there comes a point in most students’ academic careers when being good at life means being good at essays.

You should also read…

  • Focus and Precision: How to Write Essays That Answer the Question
  • How to Conquer Your Nightmare Subjects

As the subjects you study get more advanced and complex, you’re increasingly asked to think, evaluate, and have opinions where you once might have simply made calculations or learned definitions. In general, the further you progress through your education, the more rote learning will be replaced by the kind of analysis usually best demonstrated by essays. If by some miraculous feat you manage to avoid writing anything substantial at high school, it’s something you’ll almost certainly have to face at university – yes, even if you’re studying a science subject (although the essays won’t usually be quite as long). One way or another, essay writing comes to us all.

Image shows the silhouette of a runner against the setting sun.

The likelihood is that at some point in the not-too-distant future (unless you are both incredibly reluctant and startlingly resourceful) you will have to write an essay, either in exam conditions or in your own time, that will count towards a final grade in some way. If this is a scary prospect for you, there’s good news and bad news. The bad thing about essay writing is that it’s not something – like French verbs, or the ability to run long distances – that miraculously gets better on its own if you just keep having a go. To improve at essay writing, students often need a paradigm shift: to figure out exactly what isn’t working, and why, and to learn and apply a new way of doing things. The good news, on the other hand, is that the individual skills required to write a strong essay are things you can learn, practise and improve in. This article is all about pinpointing what those skills might be, and giving you some suggestions as to how you might develop them. Not all these tips will work for all of you, but being good at essay writing, like being good at any other school-related discipline, is all about trying different things, and devising your own way of doing things.

Getting organised

Image shows the wood-panelled old library at Merton College, Oxford.

Before you even start planning an essay, I’d recommend you sit down and have a quick think about how you want to do it. First, what resources will you need? The internet, or library books? This might affect where and how you decide to work: I have wasted a huge amount of time trying to find versions of articles on the internet that I knew were in books at the library, or procrastinating because I wanted to work at home rather than leaving the house. I would recommend taking yourself to a library ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Secondly, if you’re working from books or downloadable articles, can you afford to work somewhere without the internet? The absence of Facebook and Instagram will guarantee your concentration will be about a hundred times better, which will show in the quality of your work. Next, make a little timeline for your essay. Make a list of everything you want to read and try to get hold of all your material before you start. Think about how long you’re going to spend reading and researching, planning, and writing – leaving a day or two before the deadline to make any significant changes, or just in case things don’t go to plan. I’d recommend allotting 3 hours to read a 20-page article, and about a day to write 2000 words. This might sound like a silly amount of planning, but the point of it is this: hundreds of all-nighters have taught me that essay-writing becomes incredibly stressful and painful when you’re up against the clock, and a reader can tell immediately if something is rushed or dashed off at 2am on the day of the deadline. What’s more, you simply won’t have your best creative ideas under pressure. If you’ve got time, have a look at this – comically eighties and slightly cringey – video about creativity . A lot of what the speaker says about thinking and playfulness is, in my opinion, directly applicable to essay-writing.

Gathering information

Image shows rows of bookshelves in a library.

Some teachers set reading lists for essays, or make suggestions about where students should look for information; others ask you to find sources yourself. Even if your teacher does prescribe reading, it’s always worth seeing whether you can find something extra that will add breadth, depth or a fresh perspective to your argument. However, it’s important to think carefully about whether a source is reliable and valuable.

What sort of sources should I use?

The most appropriate sources will vary from subject to subject. Here are some common ones: – Academic articles: These are essays by scholars at universities, and usually published in journals or as books. They are always useful, and can be found by looking in the library (ask your teacher for recommendations!), having a poke around Google Scholar, or, if your school has a subscription, on the website JSTOR.org. Search for key words and phrases and see what comes up. – Newspaper articles: might be useful evidence for an essay in History, but may not be detailed or scholarly enough for Biology. If you use a newspaper article or opinion piece, think about the factors that might bias it and include your thinking in your essay! – Wikipedia: a very useful starting-point, and an increasingly reliable resource. However, avoid referencing it: a teacher or examiner might not like it and may take against your essay. Instead, look at the reference section at the bottom of the article and see where the writer has gathered their information from. – Online blogs: in general, stay away from these, as you don’t know who’s written them and how valuable their opinion is, or how reliable their facts. The exceptions are blogs by well-known experts.

How should I take notes?

Image shows rows of bookshelves in a library.

It might feel like the world’s greatest faff, but taking good notes from your sources will save you a huge amount of time when you come to plan and write your essay: – Type out notes as you read, rather than simply underlining or highlighting – thus you’ll have a summary of the most important chunks of essays ready to use when you plan, rather than having to trawl through whole documents again looking for quotations. – For this reason, if you think you might want to quote something, copy it out in the exact wording of the writer. – Type notes in a different colour for each new source you read. In order to engage intelligently with what you’ve read, you’ve got to remember who said what, what they meant by it, who they were fighting against and whether you agreed with them or not. Colours are a really helpful visual aid to doing this. – At the end of each new essay or article, write a few lines summarising the author’s main points, and whether or not you agree with them. N.B. Your critical engagement with the scholars and authors whose work you’ve read will count for a huge chunk of marks. This does not mean listing a load of names and rehearsing their arguments; nor does it mean disagreeing with everyone for the sake of it. Instead, think about whether or not what they’re arguing holds true in your experience – or compare them to each other.

Image shows an old map, covered in pictures of monsters.

Planning is the single most important step in writing a good essay, and, frustratingly, also the step that’s most often rushed or neglected by students. If your essays often get criticised for having poor structure or unclear lines of argument, chances are you need to practise your planning. I use the following step-by-step process to turn my notes into a good plan; you can try it too, and see if it works for you. 1) Re-read your notes a couple of times, and underline anything you think is particularly important, interesting, or relevant to the area of the topic you want to discuss. As far as possible, try and organise your thoughts into sections, and see if you can link ideas together. Tip: It might be that you’ve got two or three different ideas for a topic, and you’re not sure which to go with: in this case, you can use a couple of different spider diagrams to see which works best. Where do the ideas link together most easily, or fall together into neat sections? Which question would you be able to answer most fully? 2) Sit back and look at your diagram(s), perhaps alongside your notes, and work out the main ‘point’ or conclusion you want to make in your essay. The best essays are characterised by a clear line of argument throughout – I don’t really buy the idea that essays should present both sides of a question. I always decide what I’m trying to say ; the point I want to conclude with, before I start. Now, the job you’ve got in writing the essay is to set this conclusion up. 3) Work backwards, using the links you’ve made on your spider diagram: what do you need to argue or show to make your point? Jot these ‘points’ down in a couple of words each. This forms the beginnings of a skeleton for your essay. 4) Start to fill out your skeleton with information from your notes, and any extra ideas you might have. If you’re writing a literature essay, it’s CRUCIAL that you include some close analysis of passages to support your argument. Jot down the sentences that link these in to the greater structure. 5) Fill out your skeleton more and more, until it’s essentially a rough draft in bullet points. Every twist or nuance of your argument should be in there; every introductory and concluding sentence for every paragraph, making it explicit how this paragraph answers your question.

Image shows a woman with her two daughters on either side of her, reading an essay that one of them is presenting to her.

6) At this point, it’s very helpful if you can get someone (a friend or a parent will do) to read over your plan and see if it makes sense. Does everything follow? Is it all relevant? Your plan should be so complete that the person who reads it will immediately be able to spot any flaws. Move things around, add or delete to incorporate their criticism: it’s much easier to change something in bullet-point format than when it’s all written out properly. Don’t expect this process to be quick or easy. For a 1500-word essay, I usually write a plan of about three sides, and spend at least three hours making sure that before I put pen to paper, every kink in my argument is ironed out. The pay-off of doing it this way is that the writing process is short and easy – a case of joining up the dots, polishing bullet-points into sentences – much better than coming up with ideas and organising thoughts at the same time as finding the words to express them. Get better and better: If you struggle with structure or clarity, practise your planning! Give yourself a limited amount of time (say, two hours), pick three previous essay questions from an exam or coursework paper, and plan your answers as thoroughly as possible. Get your teacher to look over your plans when you’re done.

The ‘actual writing’-bit can be the most daunting and stressful part of the essay process, and is where most students get stuck. Here are some tried-and-tested solutions to common writing problems:

I can’t get started

Image shows someone tapping a yellow pencil on a blank page.

It’s quite common to want your first sentence to be arresting, paradigm-shifting, to propel your reader headlong into your essay. However, this desire can be paralysing: one of the most stressful feelings in the world is that of staring at a blank page, thinking about the number of words you’ll need to fill it all up. The key to getting started is to just write something . Don’t worry about how good it is – get it down, and move on, and come back and change it when you’re well into your flow.

Writers’ block

Go back to your plan and make sure you know what you’re arguing. If you still can’t get the words out, try and write down what you want to say as simply as possible. Then move on to an easier section of the essay. Alternatively, you can try going for a walk, making a cup of tea or having a break.

It all feels a bit wrong…

Sometimes, in the process of writing, you’ll realise that you entirely disagree with two-days-ago you, and you don’t really believe in the argument you’re trying to make. If it is the case, go back to the drawing board. Don’t plough on regardless – a lack of conviction will show in your essay. Return to your plan, and see if you can use similar material but change the emphasis, and perhaps the odd bit of evidence, to produce a different argument.

Everyone has their own individual writing style: your might be as purple and flowery, or scientific and direct as you like (within reason). However you write, to get top marks, it’s crucial that you learn to be precise .

Style-wise, there are two poles of wrongness: vagueness, and over-complication. Of course, every subject has its particular vocabulary, and learning this will be crucial, and sharpen your analysis; but remember that little words are your friends too! Make sure that you know the exact meaning of each word you use. Crucially, make sure you know exactly what each word you’re using means, and think carefully about whether you’re applying it in the right context – remember that whoever is reading your essay will know better than you the meanings of zeugma, stagflation or symbiosis. Finally, don’t hide behind subject-specific vocabulary: make sure that you’re using terms to contribute to and develop your essay, and nothing of the flow is lost.

The boring stuff

– Get good at conventions like footnoting, and writing bibliographies. Examiners really do check these! – When you’ve finished, leave the essay for a day or two, and then re-read it. If possible, get someone to proofread for you. This way, you’ll avoid making lots of silly mistakes that threaten the clarity and flow of your essay.

Image credits: banner ; runner ; old library ; new library ; pens ; map ; parent ; tapping pencil ; egg . 

  • International edition
  • Australia edition
  • Europe edition

Always look out for flaws in arguments – and that includes your own.

How to write better essays: 'nobody does introductions properly'

Is Wikipedia really a no-go? Should you bother with the whole reading list? And how do you make a convincing argument? We ask the experts

A s the government begins its crackdown on essay mill websites , it’s easy to see just how much pressure students are under to get top grades for their coursework these days. But writing a high-scoring paper doesn’t need to be complicated. We spoke to experts to get some simple techniques that will raise your writing game.

Tim Squirrell is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, and is teaching for the first time this year. When he was asked to deliver sessions on the art of essay-writing, he decided to publish a comprehensive (and brilliant) blog on the topic, offering wisdom gleaned from turning out two or three essays a week for his own undergraduate degree.

“There is a knack to it,” he says. “It took me until my second or third year at Cambridge to work it out. No one tells you how to put together an argument and push yourself from a 60 to a 70, but once you to get grips with how you’re meant to construct them, it’s simple.”

The goal of writing any essay is to show that you can think critically about the material at hand (whatever it may be). This means going beyond regurgitating what you’ve read; if you’re just repeating other people’s arguments, you’re never going to trouble the upper end of the marking scale.

“You need to be using your higher cognitive abilities,” says Bryan Greetham, author of the bestselling How to Write Better Essays . “You’re not just showing understanding and recall, but analysing and synthesising ideas from different sources, then critically evaluating them. That’s where the marks lie.”

But what does critical evaluation actually look like? According to Squirrell, it’s simple: you need to “poke holes” in the texts you’re exploring and work out the ways in which “the authors aren’t perfect”.

“That can be an intimidating idea,” he says. “You’re reading something that someone has probably spent their career studying, so how can you, as an undergraduate, critique it?

“The answer is that you’re not going to discover some gaping flaw in Foucault’s History of Sexuality Volume 3, but you are going to be able to say: ‘There are issues with these certain accounts, here is how you might resolve those’. That’s the difference between a 60-something essay and a 70-something essay.”

Critique your own arguments

Once you’ve cast a critical eye over the texts, you should turn it back on your own arguments. This may feel like going against the grain of what you’ve learned about writing academic essays, but it’s the key to drawing out developed points.

“We’re taught at an early age to present both sides of the argument,” Squirrell continues. “Then you get to university and you’re told to present one side of the argument and sustain it throughout the piece. But that’s not quite it: you need to figure out what the strongest objections to your own argument would be. Write them and try to respond to them, so you become aware of flaws in your reasoning. Every argument has its limits and if you can try and explore those, the markers will often reward that.”

Fine, use Wikipedia then

The use of Wikipedia for research is a controversial topic among academics, with many advising their students to stay away from the site altogether.

“I genuinely disagree,” says Squirrell. “Those on the other side say that you can’t know who has written it, what they had in mind, what their biases are. But if you’re just trying to get a handle on a subject, or you want to find a scattering of secondary sources, it can be quite useful. I would only recommend it as either a primer or a last resort, but it does have its place.”

Focus your reading

Reading lists can be a hindrance as well as a help. They should be your first port of call for guidance, but they aren’t to-do lists. A book may be listed, but that doesn’t mean you need to absorb the whole thing.

Squirrell advises reading the introduction and conclusion and a relevant chapter but no more. “Otherwise you won’t actually get anything out of it because you’re trying to plough your way through a 300-page monograph,” he says.

You also need to store the information you’re gathering in a helpful, systematic way. Bryan Greetham recommends a digital update of his old-school “project box” approach.

“I have a box to catch all of those small things – a figure, a quotation, something interesting someone says – I’ll write them down and put them in the box so I don’t lose them. Then when I come to write, I have all of my material.”

There are a plenty of online offerings to help with this, such as the project management app Scrivener and referencing tool Zotero , and, for the procrastinators, there are productivity programmes like Self Control , which allow users to block certain websites from their computers for a set period.

Look beyond the reading list

“This is comparatively easy to do,” says Squirrell. “Look at the citations used in the text, put them in Google Scholar, read the abstracts and decide whether they’re worth reading. Then you can look on Google Scholar at other papers that have cited the work you’re writing about – some of those will be useful. But quality matters more than quantity.”

And finally, the introduction

The old trick of dealing with your introduction last is common knowledge, but it seems few have really mastered the art of writing an effective opener.

“Introductions are the easiest things in the world to get right and nobody does it properly,” Squirrel says. “It should be ‘Here is the argument I am going to make, I am going to substantiate this with three or four strands of argumentation, drawing upon these theorists, who say these things, and I will conclude with some thoughts on this area and how it might clarify our understanding of this phenomenon.’ You should be able to encapsulate it in 100 words or so. That’s literally it.”

Keep up with the latest on Guardian Students: follow us on Twitter at @GdnStudents – and become a member to receive exclusive benefits and our weekly newsletter.

  • Tips for students
  • Higher education
  • Advice for students

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

  • Writing Worksheets and Other Writing Resources

Nine Basic Ways to Improve Your Style in Academic Writing

About the slc.

  • Our Mission and Core Values

how to make an essay better

1. Use ACTIVE VOICE

Don't say:  "The stepmother's house was cleaned by Cinderella."  (Passive.)

Say instead:  "Cinderella cleaned the stepmother's house."  (Active voice.)

Passive voice construction ("was cleaned") is reserved for those occasions where the "do-er" of the action is unknown.

Example:  "Prince Charming saw the glass slipper that was left behind."

2. Mix it up in terms of PUNCTUATION

Here are a few commonly misused punctuation marks that a lot of people aren't sure about:

The  semi-colon (;)  separates two complete sentences that are complementary.

Example:  "She was always covered in cinders from cleaning the fireplace; they called her Cinderella."

The  colon (:)  is used...

a. preceding a list.

Example:  "Before her stepmother awoke, Cinderella had three chores to complete: feeding the chickens, cooking breakfast, and doing the wash." 


b. as a sort of "drum roll," preceding some big revelation.

Example:  "One thing fueled the wicked stepmother's hatred for Cinderella: jealousy."  


The  dash (--)  is made by typing two hyphens (-). No spaces go in between the dash and the text. It is used...

a. to bracket off some explanatory information.

Example:  "Even Cinderella's stepsisters-who were not nearly as lovely or virtuous as Cinderella--were allowed to go to the ball." 


b. in the "drum roll" sense of the colon.

Example:  "Prince Charming would find this mystery lady--even if he had to put the slipper on every other girl in the kingdom."  


3. Vary your SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Don't say:  "Cinderella saw her fairy godmother appear. She was dressed in blue. She held a wand. The wand had a star on it. She was covered in sparkles. Cinderella was amazed. She asked who the woman was. The woman said, 'I am your fairy godmother.' She said she would get Cinderella a dress and a coach. She said she would help Cinderella go to the ball."

Instead say: (there are multiple correct ways to rewrite this, but here's one)  "Amazed, Cinderella watched as her fairy godmother appeared. The woman dressed in blue was covered in sparkles and carried a star-shaped wand. Cinderella asked the woman who she was, to which the woman replied, 'I am your fairy godmother." The fairy godmother would get Cinderella a dress and a coach; she would help Cinderella get to the ball."

4. Closely related to this, avoid CHOPPINESS

Don't say:  "She scrubbed the floors. They were dirty. She used a mop. She sighed sadly. It was as if she were a servant ."

Instead say : (again, there are multiple ways to do this)  "She scrubbed the dirty floors using a mop, as if she were a servant. She sighed sadly."

5. Avoid REPETITION.

Don't say:  "The stepsisters were jealous and envious ."

Instead say :  "The stepsisters were jealous ."  (...or envious. Pick one.)

6. Be CONCISE

Don't say:  "The mystery lady was one who every eligible man at the ball admired."

Instead say :  "Every eligible man at the ball admired the mystery lady."

7. Use the VOCABULARY that you know.

Don't always feel you have to use big words. It is always better to be clear and use simple language rather than showing off flashy words you aren't sure about and potentially misusing them. This is not to say, however, that you should settle for very weak vocabulary choices (like "bad" or "big" or "mad").

8. But also work on expanding your VOCABULARY.

When reading, look up words you don't know. See how they're used. Start a list. Incorporate them into your writing as you feel comfortable and as they are appropriate.

9. Keep language FORMAL and avoid language of everyday speech.

Don't say:  "Cinderella was mellow and good. She never let her stepmother get to her ."

Say instead:  "Cinderella was mild-mannered and kind. She never let her stepmother affect her high spirits ."

So, essentially, when it comes to working on style, there are three things to remember:

Empower yourself with knowledge..

Learn to punctuate correctly, enhance your vocabulary, etc. Give yourself all the tools there are so that you are free to...

...Mix it up!

Avoid repetition of words and sentence structure. Variance promotes good "flow" and is more interesting for your reader.

"Write to EXPRESS, not to IMPRESS."

Above all, write actively, clearly, and concisely.

Amber Carini

Student Learning Center, University of California, Berkeley

©2002 UC Regents

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

3 Ways to Make Conflict Less Destructive

Two ropes pulling on a larger rope to shape its path

“Do you think you could sum up the essence of all you’ve learned in one sentence?”

That was the question my friend Jim Collins, the famed leadership author, suddenly asked me as we were hiking up a mountain a few years ago.

“You’ve been wandering around the world for the last 45 years,” he continued, “working in some of the world’s toughest conflicts from the Cold War to the Middle East, from strikes to boardroom battles. What can help us in these times of intense conflict?”

I am an anthropologist by training. If I were a Martian anthropologist looking at us now, I would say we live in a time of great paradox. Never before in human evolution have we enjoyed such an abundance of opportunities to solve the world’s problems and live the life we want for ourselves and our children. And yet at the same time, with the rapid changes and disruptions, we face a wave of destructive conflict that’s polarizing every facet of life from family to work to community to our world—and paralyzing our ability to work together.

How do we navigate this stormy time to be able to realize the enormous opportunities we have at hand? 

First, we need to be realistic: we can’t end conflict. Nor should we . In fact, we may actually need more conflict, not less—and by that, I mean the healthy conflict that allows us to engage our differences, grow, and change what needs to be changed. The choice we face is not to get rid of conflict but to transform it from destructive fighting into creative, constructive, collaborative negotiation.

So what do we need to transform our conflicts and navigate these tumultuous times?

Read more: The Science of Getting Along

I would suggest we need three things above all: a clear perspective, a way out, and lots of help from others.

Let’s start with perspective. When it comes to conflict, we are often our own worst enemies. The biggest obstacle to getting what I want is not what I think it is. It is not the difficult person on the other side of the table. It is the person on this side of the table—it is the person I look at in the mirror every morning. It is our natural, very human, very understandable tendency to react—often out of fear and anger. We humans are reaction machines. As writer Ambrose Bearce once quipped, when angry you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

What’s the alternative?

It’s to do the exact opposite and pause for a moment. It is to think about what you really want and how you can get there. Imagine yourself on a stage and then go to the balcony—a place of calm where you can keep your eyes on the prize and see the bigger picture.

In other words, start by stopping.

That sets us up for the next challenge to find a way out . In today’s tough conflicts, we need more than ever to be able to find a way out of the labyrinth of destructive fights.

The other side may be far from cooperative. They dig in and refuse to budge.They pressure, attack, and threaten.  

Their position, their mind, is far away from yours. There is a huge chasm in between where you are and where they are. That chasm is filled with fear, anger, doubt, unmet needs, distrust. Our challenge is to build a bridge over the chasm—not just an ordinary bridge, a golden bridge. In other words, create an attractive way out for them and for you. 

Instead of pushing, do the exact opposite: attract. Instead of making it harder for them, do the exact opposite. Make it easier for them, easier to make the decision you want them to make. Leave your thinking for a moment and start the conversation where their mind is. Listen to them, try to put yourself in their shoes, and figure out their needs and fears so you can address them while advancing your interests, too.

That leads me to the third point: get some help . In today’s tough conflicts, it’s not easy to go to the balcony or build a golden bridge. No matter how good we might be, we are going to need help—and lots of it. 

Here’s the very common mistake we make when things get rough. We reduce the conflict to two sides—it’s us against them, union against management, Democrats against Republicans. What we forget is that in any conflict there is always a third side — the people around us, the friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, allies, and neutrals.

The third side constitutes a huge untapped potential resource for transforming the conflict. It is like a container within which even the hardest conflicts can begin to give way to dialogue and negotiation. The surrounding community can help calm the people who are fighting. It can bring the parties together and help them communicate and understand each other better. It can help them explore a way out, a golden bridge.

When the conflict is really hard, we may need a kind of community intervention. I call this a “swarm ” —a critical mass of persuasive influence and assistance—that can help the parties find a way through their difficulties. We need to mobilize the third side—the surrounding community—and build a winning coalition for agreement.

After all these decades working in tough conflicts and wars, people often ask me: are you an optimist or a pessimist? I like to answer that I am actually a “possibilist.” I believe in our human potential to transform even the toughest conflicts from destructive fights into creative negotiations. I believe it because I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes—in coal strikes, bitter boardroom battles, family feuds, and wars around the world. I’ve watched people unlock their hidden human potential and make the seemingly impossible become possible.

Where there are obstacles, possibilists look for opportunities. It is a change in mindset.

Possibilists aren’t blind to the dark side of human nature. To be a possibilist means to look at the negative possibilities too, but then to use that perspective to motivate us to look for the positive possibilities that avert the worst and bring about the possible.

I have seen how conflict can bring out the worst in us, but it can also bring out the best.

So what was the single summary sentence I offered Jim on that memorable mountain hike? “The path to possible is to go to the balcony, build a golden bridge, and engage the third side.” 

No conflict, however difficult, is impossible. Conflicts are, after all, made by humans so they can be solved by humans. And if we can transform our conflicts, we can transform our lives. We can transform our world.

That is my dream.

More Must-Reads From TIME

  • Meet the 2024 Women of the Year
  • Greta Gerwig's Next Big Swing 
  • East Palestine, One Year After Train Derailment
  • In the Belly of MrBeast
  • The Closers: 18 People Working to End the Racial Wealth Gap
  • How Long Should You Isolate With COVID-19?
  • The Best Romantic Comedies to Watch on Netflix
  • Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

You May Also Like

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

How to use Copilot Pro to write, edit, and analyze your Word documents

lance-31.png

Microsoft's Copilot Pro AI offers a few benefits for $20 per month. But the most helpful one is the AI-powered integration with the different Microsoft 365 apps. For those of you who use Microsoft Word, for instance, Copilot Pro can help you write and revise your text, provide summaries of your documents, and answer questions about any document.

First, you'll need a subscription to either Microsoft 365 Personal or Family . Priced at $70 per year, the Personal edition is geared for one individual signed into as many as five devices. At $100 per year, the Family edition is aimed at up to six people on as many as five devices. The core apps in the suite include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote.

Also: Microsoft Copilot vs. Copilot Pro: Is the subscription fee worth it?

Second, you'll need the subscription to Copilot Pro if you don't already have one. To sign up, head to the Copilot Pro website . Click the Get Copilot Pro button. Confirm the subscription and the payment. The next time you use Copilot on the website, in Windows, or with the mobile apps, the Pro version will be in effect.

How to use Copilot Pro in Word

1. open word.

Launch Microsoft Word and open a blank document. Let's say you need help writing a particular type of document and want Copilot to create a draft. 

Also: Microsoft Copilot Pro vs. OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus: Which is worth your $20 a month?

A small "Draft with Copilot" window appears on the screen. If you don't see it, click the tiny "Draft with Copilot icon in the left margin."

 width=

2. Submit your request

At the text field in the window, type a description of the text you need and click the "Generate" button.

 width=

Submit your request.

3. Review the response and your options

Copilot generates and displays its response. After reading the response, you're presented with a few different options.

 width=

Review the response and your options.

4. Keep, regenerate, or remove the draft

If you like the draft, click "Keep it." The draft is then inserted into your document where you can work with it. If you don't like the draft, click the "Regenerate" button, and a new draft is created. 

Also: What is Copilot (formerly Bing Chat)? Here's everything you need to know

If you'd prefer to throw out the entire draft and start from scratch, click the trash can icon.

 width=

Keep, regenerate, or remove the draft.

5. Alter the draft

Alternatively, you can try to modify the draft by typing a specific request in the text field, such as "Make it more formal," "Make it shorter," or "Make it more casual."

 width=

Alter the draft.

6. Review the different versions

If you opt to regenerate the draft, you can switch between the different versions by clicking the left or right arrow next to the number. You can then choose to keep the draft you prefer.

 width=

7. Revise existing text

Copilot will also help you fine-tune existing text. Select the text you want to revise. Click the Copilot icon in the left margin and select "Rewrite with Copilot."

 width=

Revise existing text.

8. Review the different versions

Copilot creates a few different versions of the text. Click the arrow keys to view each version.

 width=

Review the different versions.

9. Replace or Insert

If you find one you like, click "Replace" to replace the text you selected. 

Also: ChatGPT vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Gemini: Which is the best AI chatbot?

Click "Insert below" to insert the new draft below the existing words so you can compare the two.

 width=

Replace or Insert.

10. Adjust the tone

Click "Regenerate" to ask Copilot to try again. Click the "Adjust Tone" button and select a different tone to generate another draft.

 width=

Adjust the tone.

11. Turn text into a table

Sometimes you have text that would look and work better as a table. Copilot can help. Select the text you wish to turn into a table. Click the Copilot icon and select "Visualize as a Table."

 width=

Turn text into a table.

12. Respond to the table

In response, click "Keep it" to retain the table. Click "Regenerate" to try again. Click the trash can icon to delete it. Otherwise, type a request in the text field, such as "remove the second row" or "make the last column wider."

 width=

Respond to the table.

13. Summarize a document

Copilot Pro can provide a summary of a document with its key points. To try this, open the document you want to summarize and then click the Copilot icon on the Ribbon. 

Also: The best AI chatbots

The right sidebar displays several prompts you can use to start your question. Click the one for "Summarize this doc."

 width=

Summarize a document.

14. Review the summary

View the generated summary in the sidebar. If you like it as is, click the "Copy" button to copy the summary and paste it elsewhere.

 width=

Review the summary.

15. Revise the summary

Otherwise, choose one of the suggested questions or ask your own question to revise the summary. For example, you could tell Copilot to make the summary longer, shorter, more formal, or less formal. 

Also: The best AI image generators

You could also ask it to expand on one of the points in the summary or provide more details on a certain point. A specific response is then generated based on your request.

 width=

Revise the summary.

16. Ask questions about a document

Next, you can ask specific questions about any of the content in a document. Again, click the Copilot icon to display the sidebar. In the prompt area, type and submit your question. Copilot displays the response in the sidebar. You can then ask follow-up questions as needed.

 width=

Ask questions about a document.

More how-tos

 width=

I've tried Vision Pro and other top XR headsets and here's the one most people should buy

 width=

The best AI image generators to try right now

 width=

The best TVs of 2024: Expert tested

  • Data, AI, & Machine Learning
  • Managing Technology
  • Social Responsibility
  • Workplace, Teams, & Culture
  • AI & Machine Learning
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Big ideas Research Projects
  • Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy
  • Responsible AI
  • Future of the Workforce
  • Future of Leadership
  • All Research Projects
  • AI in Action
  • Most Popular
  • The Truth Behind the Nursing Crisis
  • Work/23: The Big Shift
  • Coaching for the Future-Forward Leader
  • Measuring Culture

Winter 2024 Issue

The winter 2024 issue features a special report on sustainability, and provides insights on developing leadership skills, recognizing and addressing caste discrimination, and engaging in strategic planning and execution.

  • Past Issues
  • Upcoming Events
  • Video Archive
  • Me, Myself, and AI
  • Three Big Points

MIT Sloan Management Review Logo

How to Make Better Friends at Work

Friendships in the workplace can enrich our lives and make us better leaders and workers if we make the effort to cultivate truly healthy relationships.

  • Workplace, Teams, & Culture

how to make an essay better

Anna Godeassi/theispot.com

I don’t remember the moment that Francesco and I started referring to our friendship as a place. But in the grind of medical school rotations nearly 30 years ago, a flower bed between a parking lot and the building that hosted the internal medicine wards became “the friendship.” That’s what our friendship felt like then: A scruffy patch of nature wedged between the workplace and the comings and goings of daily life. “Come to the friendship!” one of us would say when the other was agitated or idle. We would walk out, sit there for a while, and then get back to work a little sharper, braver, and, some would say, more obnoxious for it.

Research has long established that friendship blossoms where people with similar interests spend time together, share meaningful and intense tasks, face uncertainty, and need each other’s help. 1 Francesco’s and my workplace ticked all those boxes, and soon our friendship wasn’t confined to it. In the friendship, we jumped between reviewing a procedure we had just seen and dissecting failed romances, sharing career dreams and making plans for the weekend. It was the first of a handful of work friendships without which I would not be writing this essay, do the work I do, or be who I am. It was also the beginning of a quest to understand friendship at work and what it takes to make those friendships work.

Email Updates on the Future of Work

Monthly research-based updates on what the future of work means for your workplace, teams, and culture.

Please enter a valid email address

Thank you for signing up

Privacy Policy

The workplace can be fertile ground for budding friendships because of the proximity that forming friendships requires. But growing friendships at work can be problematic. The philosopher George Santayana wrote that friends are the people “with which one can be human” — that is, a complex and conflicted person, not just the competent occupant of a role. By definition, friendship challenges the norms of instrumentality and impersonality in force at many workplaces. For that same reason, if nurtured properly, friendship can be a potent humanizing influence for ourselves and our colleagues.

It’s no wonder that as work becomes more technological and workplaces more remote, there has been renewed interest in friendship. Hybrid work might make us more productive, but it also risks making us less connected. 2 It deprives us of the serendipitous encounters and idle time with coworkers that could turn into life-changing friendships. Most exhortations to return to the office focus on its sociality. 3 They cast it as a place to forge deeper bonds than we can create on Slack or Zoom. Those bonds, scholars have argued, foster the resilience and creativity that we need to thrive in a turbulent world of work. 4

People’s experiences, however, are more mixed. 5 Not everyone trusts that befriending coworkers is wise. Some worry that friendship will interfere with professional judgment. Others prefer to keep their personal and work lives distinct. Likewise, research highlights both benefits and drawbacks of work friendships. It shows that they can help us feel safer, braver, and freer at work — but they can also make us feel conflicted, cautious, and constrained. (See “Understanding the Three Elements of Friendship at Work.”)

Gaining those benefits and avoiding those burdens depends on our capacity to forge healthy friendships. To do that, it helps to view work friendships as a welcome patch of nature, as my old friend and I once did. But the best ones grow beyond an unkempt secret garden that we take refuge in. They become carefully cultivated grounds that sustain our selves at work.

What Friends Are (For)

Francesco and I are still friends, even though our careers no longer intersect. Once we took different paths for our specializations, I found it harder to enjoy work. I missed the comfort, the camaraderie, and even the competition. I also found it easier to begin a transition from medicine to management academia. These days, he helps people survive physical illness; I, the intangible malaise of the workplace. Friendship, it turns out, will protect you against both.

Having friends keeps you healthier. In a densely referenced 2023 advisory about an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy estimated that its health consequences cost American companies $154 billion annually. Friendship lowers the risk of fatal diseases and prolongs life expectancy. In all species that form similar bonds — humans are not the only ones — friendship confers advantage. Individuals who have friends are more likely to live longer and reproduce.

If you have friends at work, “you are going to be less likely to want to leave; you are going to want to show up. You will probably accomplish more,” Julianna Pillemer, a New York University professor who studies work friendships, told me. Close relationships are crucial to well-being and success, she noted, and yet she has found that “people have polarized views. They really want to make friends at work or they say, ‘I don’t go there.’”

The reason, Pillemer explained, is that “going there” requires crossing a line or, more precisely, erasing the line between personal and professional. Concerns for mutual gain, goal achievement, and return on investment must be put aside, and so must power differences. At best, friendship is voluntary and reciprocal without being transactional.

Work connects you to what you do. Friends connect you to who you are.

The healthiest work friendships can be critical ballast for leaders, keeping them grounded when their position threatens to isolate them, and flattery or ego to blind them. “My friends are a stabilizer,” tech entrepreneur Fred Mazzella told me, explaining how friends helped him through his journey from anonymous start-upper to successful tech leader to highly visible entrepreneurship advocate. The cofounder of BlaBlaCar, a mobility platform and one of only 25 “unicorns” founded in France, recalled the days in which he was building the company. “I was in the media as much as I could because I needed our platform to be known. And at some point, I realized that I had created two things: I had created a company and an image of myself, or at least an image of what I do.”

Mazzella had seen many entrepreneurs lose themselves in that reflection. “Since they work a lot — all the time, really — and maybe have a young family, they don’t have time to see their friends anymore. And they begin to think they are who the media say they are,” he explained. If he wanted to preserve his authenticity, Mazzella realized, he needed friends. “Work connects you to what you do. Friends connect you to who you are,” he remarked.

Friends help us stay true to our roots — our history, values, and idiosyncrasies — as we reach for professional goals. It was friends, after all, that Aristotle first described as holding up a mirror to ourselves. And they provide an anchor for those selves too. In my research on mobile managers and independent workers, I found that those who had friends felt better equipped to navigate the anxieties of nomadic careers and solitary work. 6 Others have observed that friendships can provide a foundation of solidarity to resist indignity at work.

In short, good friends give us confidence, comfort, and courage. They shape our working lives and career dreams as much as, if not more than, our managers do. They help us show up as we are and imagine who we can become. 7 Those benefits, however, come at a price.

Friends Without Benefits

“Work friendships are wonderful, and they are hard work,” Pillemer told me. Her research with Wharton professor Nancy Rothbard has shown that the demands of friendship regularly conflict with the demands of our work roles. 8

Neglect a friend, and you might lose them. But attending to a friend might not always be the best way to use your time and energy at work. Furthermore, friendships can silence us. Many involve what scholars call “navigating to commonality” — smoothing differences and avoiding disagreement. That tendency can deprive us of feedback we need to hear, erode the quality of group decisions, and bring our fairness into question.

Spending time with our friends to the exclusion of others, or depending solely on them for support, can isolate us. Cliques are almost always detrimental and can be particularly counterproductive when we need a nudge in a new direction. Research shows that new ideas and career opportunities are most likely to come from weak ties — relationships outside our closest circles. Similarly, the cocoon of friendship might protect us too much. In unreliable institutions, people often turn to friends as a buffer against factors that harm their well-being and performance. In that way, friends can make us more tolerant of workplace cultures that we should try to change or leave, such as cultures of overwork. With friends around, our life at work becomes more comfortable. And comfortable people, at times, make poor change agents.

Precisely because it blurs the boundary between the personal and the professional, friendship can breed confusion, caution, and conformity. If those make friendship hard for corporate coworkers, some argue that they make it fatal for entrepreneurs. One study found that companies started by friends were more likely to fail because their cofounders were too cautious to exchange critical feedback and too comfortable to seek help outside.

“Mentors advised me to never start a business with a friend,” Mazzella told me. That warning did not suit him. A Stanford computer science graduate and aspiring founder, Mazzella decided to leave Silicon Valley and return to Paris, where he and his best friend started the company that would become BlaBlaCar. But soon, the friends faced an impasse. Their unequal commitment to the startup was fostering resentment and ineffective leadership. Eventually, Mazzella took the lead and a larger share of the company, but their friendship endured.

Their story reminded me of Pillemer and Rothbard’s observation that not all friendships hold people back, harm organizations, or fray under the pressure of work. Only fragile ones do. Some friendships do begin and end at work, but others grow beyond it. The best work friendships eventually lose the qualification and become just … friendships.

The admonition should not be to avoid forming friendships at work but to make stronger ones. The question is how to turn a friendly coworker into a good work friend. To begin, it helps to recognize friendship as an organic process that we can assist but can’t force.

How to Cultivate Friendship

Friendship is a natural product of our species’ fundamental need and desire to belong. And friendship is an accomplishment, too: a product of our choices and efforts. Both aspects of friendship remind me of the olive trees of my ancestral countryside that grow in sunstruck soil, take years to bear fruit, and, when mature, provide shade and joy to children who climb them. You can’t build one of those. But you can cultivate one, if you care.

What follows is a blueprint for how to care for and grow work friendships over three stages. Use it to reflect on your own friendships, if you wish, and then go and discuss it with your friends. The sooner and more frequently you do it, the better. Until you can be honest about how your relationship affects your work and vice versa, your friendship will remain fragile and might cause conflict, demand caution, and isolate you. Discussing how to nourish it, make space for it, and share it, conversely, will make your friendship stronger.

Helping the seed of friendship sprout. Sometimes we find the seedling of a friendship at work, like when we notice a coworker who seems to share our outlook on life. Other times, we plant it there — say, when we hire a friend. Some budding friends are peers at work, whereas others are not. In any case, you must prepare the soil.

The composition of fertile ground for friendship is shared activities, common interests, and comparable challenges. It’s not enough to do something together, like working on the same project or for the same client, if you do not share similar views on, and similar struggles in, that work. Furthermore, friendship grows best on egalitarian ground, hence a degree of equality needs to be established alongside commonality.

Those were the circumstances under which Christina Anagnostopoulou, an executive in the pharma industry, found a close friend in the workplace. “We met working on the same team. We were peers,” she told me. “My friend is an expert, detail-oriented, serious, and focused. I am a generalist, easygoing, always doing 10 things at once. We were executives in a formal, competitive, complex environment. We both loved work and felt a need for lightness, for laughter. We shared, without judgment, the pain and failures that were never discussed in the office.”

High-pressure work environments might incline us to seek friends as well. “Ours can be a dreary industry,” a banker told me, “but having friends around when you are pulling all-nighters, dealing with a difficult boss, or working on something you have no idea about makes it much easier and more fun.”

In her book on the evolution and functions of friendship, Lydia Denworth describes how gifts are a hallmark of friendship across many cultures. 9 When we approach a potential friend in the workplace, we might offer a croissant, a word of advice, or some gossip. These gifts represent the nutrients that the seeds of friendship need to grow: attention, candor, and, most importantly, time. The more uptight and pressured your workplace is, the more likely it is that you will see as a potential friend someone who treats you as an equal, gives you their time and attention, and seems to want nothing other than yours in return. Lack of time, conversely, makes friendships wither.

A budding work friendship also needs protective boundaries that acknowledge its intersection with work as well as its differentiation from it. You need to speak up when you need space, are disappointed, or have critical feedback. You need to be clear about when and how to put the friendship or the work aside deliberately.

A senior manager at a global consumer goods company learned that when he hired his best friend. After a difficult six months, they realized that they had to cultivate new relational boundaries. “I insisted on trying different ways to have a transparent discussion and exchange feedback about work and our relationship, and the more we opened up, the more the barrier disappeared,” the manager told me. The two also agreed not to speak about work when they met outside of it, and they stuck to that deal.

Openness makes it easier to set boundaries, and boundaries make it easier to be open, minimizing conflict if not preventing it entirely, which allows your friendship to set roots and unfurl its first leaves.

Making space for friendship to grow. Once your friendship has sprouted, it needs enough space and support to grow, flower, and bear fruit. Time matters at this stage, too — not just as a signal of interest but as an expression of commitment.

Few friendships survive asymmetry in how much time each person expects to spend with the other. One study showed that remote coworkers develop friendships only if their contact is frequent enough to let them feel connected beyond the requirements of work. The virtual contact, however, must be synchronous. A phone conversation is better than a text, unless we are texting back and forth at the same time. We need friends to be there with us, even online.

Entrepreneur Mazzella took time to stay connected with friends despite years of 80-hour workweeks. “I would often call a friend, inviting them to dinner around 9 p.m., when I took a break,” he told me. “If they were available, we would connect over a meal. If not, at least it was an occasion to discuss for a few minutes on the phone.” Those dinners and conversations were a physical expression of the friends’ commitment to each other.

Temporal and physical space — spending time somewhere you enjoy, such as on a hiking trail — makes friendship viable. Psychological space makes it stronger. Making that space involves committing to getting to know each other well and helping each other grow. Like a stake that supports a young tree, those commitments are friends’ stakes in mutual development.

Sadaf Hosseini, a senior manager at an international organization, told me that her work friends are “truer friends than those I have found in other contexts,” and she pointed to their honest feedback as one of the ways in which good friends help each other grow. “They have the capability of calling me on my bulls**t. That’s hard to find, as friends usually close their eyes on your weaknesses and sometimes even lie, just not to hurt you,” she said. This observation captures a crucial difference between fragile and stronger friendships: The former just reassure you; the latter challenge you, too. They keep you focused on your dreams and accountable for doing your best.

We build stronger work friendships by helping each other see how a personal issue might get in the way of work or how work can stifle who we are, and helping each other do something about it. The trunk of friendship has become strong enough when it lets us stay grounded and reach out freely. This is the point at which a friendship begins to bear fruit that nourishes two selves.

Letting others share its shade and fruits. Large trees are often visible features of a landscape, and so are strong friendships in the workplace. Once your friendship has grown deep roots and used the space to flourish, you will need to attend to its impact at work and avoid exclusivity and cliquishness. At this stage, you must ensure that your friendship is hospitable and does not become a hideout that stops you from engaging others.

I have witnessed hospitable friendships frequently among independent workers. Those professionals often rely on friends in their line of work for emotional and practical support. And yet they are mindful that they need to help each other tap into the weak ties that can help improve their work or find new work: the writer friends who set up a group to critique each other’s work, inviting peers from outside their circle; the consultants who asked one or two colleagues they did not know well to join them on a project; or the trainers who brought their respective clients together for a retreat to share best practices. They were all doing the same thing: opening up the protection and resources of their work friendship to others who might bring them new insight, a sense of community, and value.

Opening your friendship up is even more important in an organization, where the temptation might be the opposite — to seclude the friendship and keep it aside. “Sometimes you want to show that you are not offering preferential treatment to your friends, so you end up treating them worse than a stranger,” a corporate lawyer told me. That strategy, however, often backfires, creating suspicions that something inappropriate is afoot, even when it is not.

To counter the concerns about favoritism or cliquishness that friendship can create in work groups, it is not enough to be discreet. You must find ways to share the fruits of your friendship with the group. The same lawyer told me that discussing how to stay close yet professional with her friend made her question the need for so much distance with other coworkers. “Most of the time at work, we treat each other like robots. We fail to see the individual behind an email or a phone call,” she said. Her friendship made her resolve to treat everyone with the same care.

Friends who have done the work I’m describing here can become role models of openness. Declan, one of my closest work friends, is a master at this. I love to have him on my side on delicate projects and in mundane meetings. He is fierce and funny. He will have my back, and he won’t let me hide. He will be sensitive to my concerns and challenging with my shortcomings, and I with his. And we will be all that in public: letting everyone else know that care and honesty are what we expect and cherish in our line of work, and that they can join in.

Seen as a source of vitality to generously share, friendship becomes more than a way to survive a demanding workplace. It is a way to reject and challenge its norms of distance and instrumentality and begin humanizing it, making it more inclusive and engaging.

Don’t Fear Making Friends

We are all better off for having access to the grounded freedom that friendship provides. That we so often fear it or try to hide it at work says more about workplace norms than it says about our friends. People in circumstances in which work is personal and close relationships are vital often remind me that not having friends at work is potentially disastrous.

Organizations desperately need to bring humanity back into their cultures. Friendship is a way to do that.

Strong friendships are developmental for those involved and for those around them. They help everyone grow more than they could have alone. They make us feel that someone cares for our self and for our learning — rather than just for our skills and performance. Being dedicated to cultivating them will help you realize the true value of friendship: making us more secure, free, and generous.

Seen that way, friendship is not the antithesis of work relations but its expansion. It provides a template for the kinds of relationships that make a workplace a community. Reflecting on a career in professional services, an executive told me: “I have done my best work, my most creative work, my most impactful work with friends. Organizations desperately need to bring humanity back into their cultures. Friendship is a way to do that.”

Related Articles

Fragile work friendships will fade once a hard project ends or a friend leaves the company. Strong friendships born in the workplace often outlast those transitions. We take them with us because they become, as philosophers have argued and neuroscientists have shown, a part of us. And they keep us human and growing at work and beyond.

My friend Francesco and I have done a decent job at that. We have shared the moments that friends are meant to be there for — breakups and weddings, funerals and births, rejections and promotions. We have kept each other’s secrets and our conversation running. “Did you bring the friendship?” one of us will ask every time we meet. “It’s there!” The other will answer, pointing to a flowerpot. (There must be dirt.) More confined yet just as green, the friendship is still there — to witness who we once were, who we have chosen to be, and who we might still become. 

About the Author

Gianpiero Petriglieri is an associate professor of organizational behavior and the academic director of the Initiative for Learning Innovation and Teaching Excellence at Insead.

1. T.M. Newcomb, “The Acquaintance Process” (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961).

2. C.N. Hadley and M. Mortensen, “ Are Your Team Members Lonely? ” MIT Sloan Management Review 62, no. 2 (winter 2021): 36-40.

3. G. Petriglieri, “ In Praise of the Office ,” Harvard Business Review, July 15, 2020, https://hbr.org.

4. G.R. Kellerman and M. Seligman, “Tomorrowmind: Thriving at Work With Resilience, Creativity, and Connection — Now and in an Uncertain Future” (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023).

5. L. Gratton, “ Why You Should Make Friends at Work ,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Oct. 13, 2022, https://sloanreview.mit.edu.

6. G. Petriglieri, J.L. Petriglieri, and J.D. Wood, “ Fast Tracks and Inner Journeys: Crafting Portable Selves for Contemporary Careers ,” Administrative Science Quarterly 63, no. 3 (September 2018): 479-525.

7. M.G. Franco, “Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends” (New York: Penguin Random House, 2022).

8. J. Pillemer and N.P. Rothbard, “ Friends Without Benefits: Understanding the Dark Sides of Workplace Friendship ,” Academy of Management Review 43, no. 4. (October 2018): 635-660.

9. L. Denworth, “Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond” (New York: W.W. Norton, 2020).

More Like This

Add a comment cancel reply.

You must sign in to post a comment. First time here? Sign up for a free account : Comment on articles and get access to many more articles.

EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence

The use of artificial intelligence in the EU will be regulated by the AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive AI law. Find out how it will protect you.

A man faces a computer generated figure with programming language in the background

As part of its digital strategy , the EU wants to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure better conditions for the development and use of this innovative technology. AI can create many benefits , such as better healthcare; safer and cleaner transport; more efficient manufacturing; and cheaper and more sustainable energy.

In April 2021, the European Commission proposed the first EU regulatory framework for AI. It says that AI systems that can be used in different applications are analysed and classified according to the risk they pose to users. The different risk levels will mean more or less regulation. Once approved, these will be the world’s first rules on AI.

Learn more about what artificial intelligence is and how it is used

What Parliament wants in AI legislation

Parliament’s priority is to make sure that AI systems used in the EU are safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly. AI systems should be overseen by people, rather than by automation, to prevent harmful outcomes.

Parliament also wants to establish a technology-neutral, uniform definition for AI that could be applied to future AI systems.

Learn more about Parliament’s work on AI and its vision for AI’s future

AI Act: different rules for different risk levels

The new rules establish obligations for providers and users depending on the level of risk from artificial intelligence. While many AI systems pose minimal risk, they need to be assessed.

Unacceptable risk

Unacceptable risk AI systems are systems considered a threat to people and will be banned. They include:

  • Cognitive behavioural manipulation of people or specific vulnerable groups: for example voice-activated toys that encourage dangerous behaviour in children
  • Social scoring: classifying people based on behaviour, socio-economic status or personal characteristics
  • Biometric identification and categorisation of people
  • Real-time and remote biometric identification systems, such as facial recognition

Some exceptions may be allowed for law enforcement purposes. “Real-time” remote biometric identification systems will be allowed in a limited number of serious cases, while “post” remote biometric identification systems, where identification occurs after a significant delay, will be allowed to prosecute serious crimes and only after court approval.

AI systems that negatively affect safety or fundamental rights will be considered high risk and will be divided into two categories:

1) AI systems that are used in products falling under the EU’s product safety legislation . This includes toys, aviation, cars, medical devices and lifts.

2) AI systems falling into specific areas that will have to be registered in an EU database:

  • Management and operation of critical infrastructure
  • Education and vocational training
  • Employment, worker management and access to self-employment
  • Access to and enjoyment of essential private services and public services and benefits
  • Law enforcement
  • Migration, asylum and border control management
  • Assistance in legal interpretation and application of the law.

All high-risk AI systems will be assessed before being put on the market and also throughout their lifecycle.

General purpose and generative AI

Generative AI, like ChatGPT, would have to comply with transparency requirements:

  • Disclosing that the content was generated by AI
  • Designing the model to prevent it from generating illegal content
  • Publishing summaries of copyrighted data used for training

High-impact general-purpose AI models that might pose systemic risk, such as the more advanced AI model GPT-4, would have to undergo thorough evaluations and any serious incidents would have to be reported to the European Commission.

Limited risk

Limited risk AI systems should comply with minimal transparency requirements that would allow users to make informed decisions. After interacting with the applications, the user can then decide whether they want to continue using it. Users should be made aware when they are interacting with AI. This includes AI systems that generate or manipulate image, audio or video content, for example deepfakes.

On December 9 2023, Parliament reached a provisional agreement with the Council on the AI act . The agreed text will now have to be formally adopted by both Parliament and Council to become EU law. Before all MEPs have their say on the agreement, Parliament’s internal market and civil liberties committees will vote on it.

More on the EU’s digital measures

  • Cryptocurrency dangers and the benefits of EU legislation
  • Fighting cybercrime: new EU cybersecurity laws explained
  • Boosting data sharing in the EU: what are the benefits?
  • EU Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act
  • Five ways the European Parliament wants to protect online gamers
  • Artificial Intelligence Act

Related articles

Benefitting people, the economy and the environment, share this article on:.

  • Sign up for mail updates
  • PDF version
  • Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

Every FAFSA Delay Puts College Further Out of Reach

An illustration of a figure wearing a varsity jacket emblazoned with the words “Insufficient Funds.”

By Justin Draeger and Ted Mitchell

Mr. Draeger is president and C.E.O. of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Mr. Mitchell is president of the American Council on Education and a former U.S. under secretary of education.

Each year, more than 17 million students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, hoping to secure the financial support they need to afford college. But this year, operational glitches and repeated delays in the U.S. Department of Education’s “Better FAFSA” rollout threaten to harm the very students and families that financial aid is intended to help. Despite promises of an easier, more straightforward application process, students and families so far have been met with glitches and delays, and still today, there are entire groups of students blocked from even completing the form.

The department notified schools on Jan. 30, the day that they were supposed to get detailed information to determine how much aid was available for each student, that schools would not receive that data until sometime in the first half of March, leaving colleges scrambling to determine how best to issue aid offers as soon as possible. Students may not receive financial aid offers until April and are typically expected to make a decision about where to attend college by May 1. The traditional “college decision day” simply may not work for students this year since many will not have had the time they need to consider all of their financial options.

This problematic rollout is causing more than just an administrative headache. For students — and even schools themselves — the ripple effect could be catastrophic. Federal financial aid programs were created to open the doors to higher education, bringing a dream within reach for some who would otherwise be unable to unlock that future. Those who can least afford to pay for college will be the most adversely affected.

Some students may be pressured into making one of the most significant financial decisions of their lives without having a complete picture of their options. Others may delay enrolling in college for another year, once the aid application process is running more smoothly. Or, worse yet, some students may become so frustrated by the complexity and confusion of this year’s financial aid process that they give up altogether, forgoing pursuit of a postsecondary degree or credential that would add to their earnings and provide all the other benefits that come with additional education.

Meanwhile, many colleges and universities are stuck in a holding pattern. Schools, state agencies and private scholarship providers rely on FAFSA data to determine how to distribute their own financial aid dollars. Without that information, financial aid offices can’t begin the work of putting together aid offers for students or even precise timelines about when students will receive them.

And without those aid offers, students can’t — really, shouldn’t — decide where to enroll. Financial aid offices are feeling pressure from students and families who are rightfully frustrated and confused as to why they haven’t been given any information on aid packages, as well as from institutional leaders who are eager to finalize their incoming class and budget for the year ahead.

Colleges and universities must now move to take corrective action, and fast. That is why we and other higher education association leaders are urging schools to extend financial aid and enrollment deadlines beyond the traditional May 1 date.

For years, students, families, college guidance and admissions professionals and researchers have known that the FAFSA was too complicated, lengthy and daunting, causing many qualified students to skip filling out the form and miss out on the aid they’re entitled to. In 2020, Congress ordered the Department of Education to overhaul the form by asking fewer questions and relying on technology to obtain key information already gathered by other federal agencies, such as the I.R.S.

Congress provided no additional funds to help roll out a new FAFSA. At the same time, Federal Student Aid, the office in the Department of Education responsible for the FAFSA, was working to revamp the student lending system while creating numerous new loan forgiveness efforts, including the expansive plan that was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court last summer. Big ambitions and limited resources most likely contributed to the problems we’re seeing now.

Given these challenges, Congress granted the department an extra year to pull off this huge system overhaul. But even with a three-year development runway, when the 2024-25 FAFSA finally “soft launched” nearly three months later than usual on Dec. 30, 2023, it did so with very limited availability: less than an hour a day for the first couple of days. While the form is now available 24/7 and more than three million students have been able to complete it, some applicants in special family circumstances and those who make simple mistakes on the form still cannot log back in to correct and resubmit.

Moving forward, the Department of Education must meet its own timelines, putting aside blame and finger-pointing to provide the higher education community with better, continuing and more proactive communication about the FAFSA rollout. Colleges, financial aid offices, high school guidance counselors and millions of students simply cannot make plans around last-minute delays and surprises.

The responsibility to make sure that students and families get the information they need, when they need it, in time to make educated decisions about college cannot be delayed.

Justin Draeger is president and C.E.O. of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Ted Mitchell is president of the American Council on Education and a former U.S. under secretary of education.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , X and Threads .

IMAGES

  1. How To Write an Essay

    how to make an essay better

  2. How to make your essay longer

    how to make an essay better

  3. 10 Tips On

    how to make an essay better

  4. ⚡ Make essay better generator. Online Essay Maker: Free Generating Tool For Any Paper. 2022-10-28

    how to make an essay better

  5. How to Make Your Essay Better: 7 Tips for Stronger Essays

    how to make an essay better

  6. Wondering How To Make Your student essay writer Rock? Read This!

    how to make an essay better

VIDEO

  1. How to Improve Your Essay

  2. Write IISMA Essay Better!!!

  3. Essay examples I The best online essay

  4. Essay Writing

  5. Essay writing I Top essay writing online

  6. 📝 3 Tips for Writing Better Essays 💯 #shorts #youtubeshorts

COMMENTS

  1. Write Better, Instantly

    Our essay-checking tool will look for grammatical mistakes, spelling errors, and more. Our writing assistant supports clean writing with suggestions that go beyond grammar.

  2. How to Make Your Essay Better: 7 Tips for Stronger Essays

    Write a Strong Thesis Statement Possibly the most important step in essay writing is to craft a strong thesis statement. A thesis statement is a brief—usually single-sentence—explanation of what your essay is about.

  3. PDF Strategies for Essay Writing

    now going to make a better one. • After your introduction In some cases, you may want to respond to a counterargument early in your essay, before you get too far into your argument. This is a good option when you think readers may need to understand why the counterargument is not as strong as your argument before you can even launch your own ...

  4. A (Very) Simple Way to Improve Your Writing

    The "one idea" rule is a simple concept that can help you sharpen your writing, persuade others by presenting your argument in a clear, concise, and engaging way. Learn how to apply this rule to your essay and other types of writing with examples and tips from Mark Rennella, an associate editor at HBR.

  5. How To Write An Essay: Beginner Tips And Tricks

    Use transitions between paragraphs. In order to improve the readability of your essay, try and make clear transitions between paragraphs. This means trying to relate the end of one paragraph to the beginning of the next one so the shift doesn't seem random. Integrate your research thoughtfully.

  6. 12 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Academic Essay Writing Skills

    Avoid transition words that don't add anything to the sentence and unnecessary wordiness that detracts from your argument. Furthermore, use the active voice instead of the passive whenever possible (e.g., "this study found" instead of "it was found by this study"). This will make your essay's tone clear and direct. 3.

  7. Essay Writing: How to Write an Outstanding Essay

    The basic steps for how to write an essay are: Generate ideas and pick a type of essay to write. Outline your essay paragraph by paragraph. Write a rough first draft without worrying about details like word choice or grammar. Edit your rough draft, and revise and fix the details. Review your essay for typos, mistakes, and any other problems.

  8. The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay

    Writing: Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion. Revision: Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

  9. How to Write Better Essays: 5 Concepts to Know

    1 Develop your thesis A thesis is the essence of your paper—the claim you are making, the point you are trying to prove. All the other paragraphs in your essay will revolve around this one central idea. Your thesis statement consists of the one or two sentences of your introduction that explain what your position on the topic at hand is.

  10. How to Structure an Essay

    Knowledge Base Essay How to structure an essay: Templates and tips How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates Published on September 18, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023. The basic structure of an essay always consists of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

  11. How to Write Better Essays in 10 Easy Steps

    Step 1: Think critically Your essay will be scored on how well you prove the point you are trying to make. You need to show that you can take a subject or argument and present evidence to support or negate it by using critical thinking and constructing an argument backed up by facts.

  12. Does my paper flow? Tips for creating a well-structured essay

    From Our Blog. by Jessica Diaz A sure way to improve your paper is to strengthen the way you present your argument. Whether you only have a thesis statement or already have a fully-written essay, these tips can help your paper flow logically from start to finish. Going from a thesis statement to a first outline Break down your thesis statement.

  13. Strategies for Essay Writing

    Counterargument. Conclusions. Strategies for Essay Writing: Downloadable PDFs. Brief Guides to Writing in the Disciplines. The links below provide concise advice on some fundamental elements of academic writing.

  14. Example of a Great Essay

    The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement, a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas. The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ...

  15. Essay Writing in English: Techniques and Tips for Crafting ...

    An essay is a written composition that presents and supports a particular idea, argument, or point of view. It's a way to express your thoughts, share information, and persuade others to see things from your perspective. Essays come in various forms, such as argumentative, persuasive, expository, and descriptive, each serving a unique purpose.

  16. Essay Structure: The 3 Main Parts of an Essay

    Basic essay structure: the 3 main parts of an essay. Almost every single essay that's ever been written follows the same basic structure: Introduction. Body paragraphs. Conclusion. This structure has stood the test of time for one simple reason: It works. It clearly presents the writer's position, supports that position with relevant ...

  17. How to Improve Your Essay Writing Quickly: A Step-by-Step Guide

    To improve at essay writing, students often need a paradigm shift: to figure out exactly what isn't working, and why, and to learn and apply a new way of doing things. The good news, on the other hand, is that the individual skills required to write a strong essay are things you can learn, practise and improve in.

  18. How to write better essays: 'nobody does introductions properly'

    According to Squirrell, it's simple: you need to "poke holes" in the texts you're exploring and work out the ways in which "the authors aren't perfect". "That can be an intimidating idea," he says....

  19. The Writing Center

    words. Be specific: Words like things, very, stuff, and interesting are vague. Search for words or sentences in your essay that could be replaced with more specific words. You also may want to add more specific details to strengthen your argument. For example, "Barbies are bad for people" might be revised to "Barbies are harmful to young ...

  20. How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay: Easy Step-by-Step Guide

    Written by MasterClass Last updated: Sep 9, 2021 • 5 min read When you're writing a persuasive essay, you need more than just an opinion to make your voice heard. Even the strongest stance won't be compelling if it's not structured properly and reinforced with solid reasoning and evidence.

  21. Nine Basic Ways to Improve Your Style in Academic Writing

    Don't always feel you have to use big words. It is always better to be clear and use simple language rather than showing off flashy words you aren't sure about and potentially misusing them. This is not to say, however, that you should settle for very weak vocabulary choices (like "bad" or "big" or "mad"). 8. But also work on expanding your ...

  22. Making Your Writing Flow

    Good academic writing should flow, which means it should be easy to read with ideas logically connected to one another from one sentence to the next. It should also have coherence between paragraphs so that the overall ideas within a paper build off one another in an organized way. Adding flow, cohesion, and coherence to your writing adds ...

  23. Free AI-Powered Essay and Paper Checker—QuillBot AI

    Our free essay checking tool gives your essay one final review of usage, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. You can feel great every time you write an essay. Utilize our AI-powered essay and paper checker for precise analysis and correction. Enhance your writing with our efficient AI essay and paper checker tool.

  24. Free AI Paragraph Rewriter

    Language improvement. Language learners and non-native speakers can leverage Ahrefs' Paragraph Rewriter to enhance their writing skills. By submitting their paragraphs, they can receive rewritten versions that showcase proper grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structures.

  25. How to Make Conflict Less Destructive

    In other words, create an attractive way out for them and for you. Instead of pushing, do the exact opposite: attract. Instead of making it harder for them, do the exact opposite. Make it easier ...

  26. How to use Copilot Pro to write, edit, and analyze your Word ...

    2. Submit your request. At the text field in the window, type a description of the text you need and click the "Generate" button. Submit your request. Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET. 3. Review ...

  27. How to Make Better Friends at Work

    Her research with Wharton professor Nancy Rothbard has shown that the demands of friendship regularly conflict with the demands of our work roles. 8. Neglect a friend, and you might lose them. But attending to a friend might not always be the best way to use your time and energy at work.

  28. EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence

    As part of its digital strategy, the EU wants to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure better conditions for the development and use of this innovative technology. AI can create many benefits, such as better healthcare; safer and cleaner transport; more efficient manufacturing; and cheaper and more sustainable energy.. In April 2021, the European Commission proposed the first EU ...

  29. Opinion

    Each year, more than 17 million students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, hoping to secure the financial support they need to afford college. But this year ...