23 What are the Steps to Writing an Essay?
Pre-writing steps:
- Read the essay prompt carefully
- Choose a topic and a purpose
- Choose a position on this topic
- Identify your rhetorical situation for this essay
- Conference #1
- Gather evidence for your position on this topic
- Structure your essay
- Outline the essay you want to write
- Draft a working thesis
Drafting the essay:
- Write the introduction
- Write the body paragraphs
- Review your draft so far
- Write the conclusion.
Revising steps:
- Review
- Peer review
- Conference #2
- Revise your essay
- Proofread your essay
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Pre-writing steps:
Read the essay prompt carefully
- Highlight or note the important points
- Ask questions for any part that isn’t clear to you
Choose a topic and a purpose
- The topic may be given to you, but you can almost always take your own viewpoint on it.
- The purpose will usually be informative or persuasive for both ENGL-090 or ENGL-095.
- The other purpose for writing is to entertain, such as a personal narrative or memoir essay about an important event in your life.
Choose a position on this topic
- Take a stand: good/bad; positive/negative; beneficial/harmful
- Unless your instructor says otherwise, you shouldn’t try to write about both sides equally.
Identify your rhetorical situation for this essay
- What is your topic?
- What is your credibility to write about this topic?
- Who is your audience and what is your purpose—who needs or wants to be informed/persuaded/entertained by your essay?
Conference #1
- Most students wait until they have a draft, but seriously, this is the best time to talk to a writing tutor about your project.
- HCC has several options for free tutoring. Best choice: after class, drop in at the Composition and Learning Center (CLC) in Duncan Hall 210. This is staffed by current HCC English professors, and you can talk to one for 10-20 minutes about your assignment and your ideas for your topic and what to include in your essay.
- There are also drop-in tutors at the Learning Assistance Center (LAC) in RCF 340.
Gather evidence for your position on this topic
- For ENGL-090, you will use the articles and texts we cover in class
- For ENGL-095, you will use class articles and may research some articles on your own
Structure your essay
- Decide what you need to include in your essay in order to achieve your purpose
- Look at the evidence you have noted from your source texts: do you need more? Do you have too much?
Outline the essay you want to write
- Keep it simple: Introduction; Body; Conclusion
- Most of your essays for ENGL-090 and ENGL095 will be between 5-7 paragraphs long: a single paragraph for your introduction; 4-5 body paragraphs; and a single paragraph conclusion.
Draft a working thesis
- A thesis includes your topic and what you are going to say about this topic
- A thesis always has two parts: a topic AND something important about this topic that your essay is going to discuss.
- A thesis is NEVER a question
Drafting the essay:
Write the introduction
- Capture the reader’s interest
- Introduce the source text(s) and author(s)
- Introduce the topic
- State your thesis
Write the body paragraphs
- Each body paragraph will present a different way to support your thesis
- Use examples, details, and/or quotes from the source texts
- Also add your comments and interpretation of the text evidence that you present
Review your draft so far:
- Have you fully supported your thesis? Or has your paper changed its focus in some way?
- You can revise your support paragraphs, or with your instructor’s permission, perhaps change your thesis to reflect your new direction.
Write the conclusion
- Re-read the essay prompt carefully. Did you answer it?
- Many students start their essays in alignment with the assigned writing prompt, but drift away from the required elements of the paper.
Revising steps:
Review/Peer review
- A classmate; a friend; a relative: ask someone to read over your work. Note their questions as they read.
- At the very least, read your essay aloud to yourself, stopping when you get tripped up in words or sentences. Consider how to make these rough spots easier to read.
Conference #2
- Schedule a conference with your instructor, or drop in on their student/office hours, or send them a Zoom request to talk about any questions you have about your draft.
- You can also drop in at the CLC in DH210 or LAC in RCF 340 to have a conference with a tutor.
Revise your essay
- Look at your outline: have you forgotten anything?
- You can re-outline your finished draft to see how it is structured
- Do a paragraph outline of just main idea sentences for each paragraph: you’ll have a 5-7 sentence summary of your whole essay.Circle back to your engaging opening from your introduction.
- Stress your strongest points
- Leave your reader something to think about
Proofread your essay
- Use Grammarly for style considerations
- Major grammar errors include run-on sentences, comma splices, and sentence fragments.
- You are responsible for running Grammarly or another grammar/spellcheck before your essay is submitted.
- Your instructors want to focus on improving your WRITING—not technical errors that machines can catch easily.
- Use Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines for formatting your academic essay and for any in-text citations or a Works Cited page.