What You should Know before Starting to Write your Essay
Some schools do not emphasize composition skills until high school. So you may enter ninth grade without the skills necessary to do a good job. On the other hand, you may have gotten the basic foundation, but you are simply a poor writer. Some people lack the innate skills for them to excel at this art. If either of these cases applies to you, you are going to need some assistance. We have a list of what you should know before starting to write your essay.
What You Should Know
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A strong subject is the very best key to success. It needs to be an interesting and somewhat specific topic. For example, you would not want your topic to be apiece on Elizabethan writers. And you probably would not even want it to be on persuading the audience that Shakespeare was the best writer in Elizabethan times. A better choice might be a paper on the themes and symbols from mythology that are in the play Romeo and Juliet. A good topic can greatly enhance the success of your piece.
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Next you will want to build your thesis statement. Just like a solid subject will greatly help you have success, so will a solid thesis statement. The main points need to be easy to understand. Avoid specific technical language that may need to be defined for your teacher to understand your point. Avoid long and complex sentences. A sample thesis statement may be In Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare uses mythological symbols to deliver the term of lost love and young romance. That sentence is easy to understand, so the main points will be easy to follow. There are no unknown terms in it.
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Make an outline that will guide you as you compose your piece. If the teacher wants a specific kind such as sentence or topic, then you must follow that format. If the teacher does not care, then use the one that you prefer. Then outline the paper. Your main points will be your headings. In a five-paragraph paper, your five paragraphs would be introduction, point one, point two, point three, and the conclusion. The outline may change, and this is expected. In fact, if my outline does not change as I locate new sources and read new critical reviews, I have probably done something very wrong. It usually takes me several drafts to finalize the outline that I will use.
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Just like you will have several drafts of the outline, you will also have several drafts of your paper. Your teacher may ask to see a rough draft and may actually proof it if you are a young writer. Then you would take the piece, make the corrections she asked for, and then re-submit it to her. Do not make new mistakes as you make the corrections that he or she asked you to do..
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Lastly, do not hesitate to go to your teacher for help, hire a tutor, ask a friend for help, join a study group, or hire a professional writing company. It is never a sign of weakness to ask for someone to help you if you get stuck. Do not merely throw your hands up in the air and quit because you do not understand something. If you are lucky, and your school has a writing lab or provides peer tutors, do yourself a big favor and sue these services. You should use every single composition service that you possibly can use. Work smartly as you create your composition.