• Give someone else your work to go through it

Do not submit your academic work without giving your friend or someone you trust to go through your work. Some errors can always pass our eyes when we read our own writing. As for another person, it is easier to pinpoint such mistakes and correct them. Why submit your work and get poor grades because of simple mistakes? Give another person your work and be ready for some clean marks.

• Do not always rely on softwares to check your work

We all love technological advancements. Yes, it can be of great significance times, but it can fail to detect some mistakes again. Sometimes the software isn’t always right. Make it a habit of going through your work without relying on such grammar checkers.

• Avoid proofreading immediately you finish your paper

When you go through the work immediately after writing, be sure to miss more mistakes. Your mind already knows what you have been writing about, and it is fixed in a manner that you see every phrase as correct. You can see the errors, but instead of correcting them, you autocorrect them in your brain. In the end, you end up submitting a paper full of mistakes unknowingly. To avoid such instances, take some breaks after writing the essay, walk around, or take a cup of coffee, then face the paper again as you proofread. Here, you have reset your mind for a new task, and you can quickly note all the errors and correct them where necessary.

• Proofread your essay from the bottom

If you must proofread your work immediately after writing, try and check for mistakes from the bottom up to the top. Apply this strategy only when you are running out of time. Start by reading the bottom sentence and see if it makes sense. Keep moving to the sentences above until you reach the top. The idea is to shift your mind from what you have just written. Remember, you have the whole structure and the points you have written in your mind. It will be pretty hard to note any difference because your mind will auto-read the content, thus, skipping grammar mistakes and typos.

• Use a dictionary

Never underestimate the powers of a dictionary. There are some phrases that you might never understand how to use them. When in doubt, confirm with the dictionary and get the meaning. There are some phrases you want to include in your writing to spice it up. There is no point in using heavy words to give your work a different meaning, making the professor give you poor grades. Stay safe by using a dictionary always.

Most supervisors will provide you with the general guideline to follow when writing the essay or even some great college essays for sale to use as an example. In general, most pieces take a similar format. This article will learn about the essay’s general outlook and other essential content to understand the work.

Elements to include when writing a college essay

1. Cover page

The cover page should contain:

• Your name: you need to include your full names in this section.
• Teacher’s name: the cover section should also have the tutor’s name supervising your essay assignment.
• Your college: remember to write the name of your institution on the cover page.
• Your section
• Your discipline: your discipline may include the course you are perusing.
• The essay’s main topic: have a place on your cover page to illustrate your essay’s topic.
• The score awarded to the piece: the score section remains blank until after making your essay, where the lecture indicated your score in this section.
• Essay level
• The highest and lowest number of words to include in the essay

Get advice from your teacher before submitting the essay and know their requirements.

2. Contents page

It is mostly done at the final stage and put between the cover page and your essay’s first page. A content page divides the piece into sections and numbers them, especially if it has close to 2,000 words even more.

3. First page

It should contain your title at the very top of the page. It should be in bold and in a larger font than the rest of the words. The first page also contains the introduction. It is more or less like a summary of the essay.

4. Bibliography

It is merely the citations. Essays are all about reading other people’s work than coming up with your work, ideas, and opinions. Therefore, it requires research, and from your research, you need to cite exactly where you got your information. It is a requirement. Reference the necessary texts not everything requires a reference. If you have no clue in referencing or want to reference better, go through ‘How to succeed at referencing.’ Read different ways of citation and learn the best way of referencing.

5. Illustrations

It is informing of graphs, tables, pie charts and also pictures. Anything that is yours needs a reference. If you use any information that is not your original content, you need to cite it to avoid plagiarism, which is the biggest crime in essay writing. Do not forget to give a citation to picture or graphs lifted from another source other than your original work. The authority must be in the bibliography.

Put a title on your picture. Describe it so that the readers have more information on what they are looking at.

6. Formatting and fonts

Various essays may have specifications on how to format your work. The paper may describe the font to use, spacing among others.

• Font. The standard font is usually Times New Roman (12)
• Spacing. The standard spacing is 1.5 lines. Other essays may have their different specification to follow.
• Breaks. You are supposed to leave a line between paragraphs instead of indenting the first line. You can do this by spacing at 12pt after a line. In a way, it also makes your work neat, and it will attract the readers.

7. Section headings

It is necessary, especially when writing long essays. For short essays, this might not be necessary.

The headings should be in bold and not underlined. But before considering using headings, you should get advice from your teacher. Find out whether he or she likes using titles or not.

8. Title

The topic of your essay should be at the top of the first page. You should use 14pt text. Note that the title of your paper should not underline.

Conclusion

Writing an essay is an easy task, especially when you follow the format. Though different papers may differ in their structure, the majority of them have the same design. Understand the layout of every essay you need to write to ensure you are producing quality work. With the correct format, you will be sure to include all the relevant content in your paper.

You can have the best writing and English skills, but sometimes, you end up producing a low-quality paper. Writing essays begins with the type of topic you are writing about. The subject plays a significant role in how you will shape your writing. For such reasons, this article aims at explaining details related to topic selection. Read on to understand the impact of topics on your overall essays.

When the teacher asks you to craft an essay, you have to analyze the topic you want. There are many ways to decide on the topic. There are plenty of resources to research from. Still, you can discuss with your teacher how to choose the best topic. Sometimes, a topic that seems easy can end up being the hardest. Ask yourself, if I decide on a given matter, will I gather enough content? Are there adequate resources I can research from? Will I be able to pull five paragraphs in the main body? Do not just settle on the topic because it seems friendly by looking at it. Go for a complex subject that will challenge you to conduct more research. 

Sometimes, you choose a simple topic and stay reluctant, as you keep procrastinating doing the school work with the idea that the essay is easy and you can accomplish it within a few hours. When the deadline approaches, you start writing only to get two-point, and you can’t find any other reliable points related to the topic. In such a situation, you will be in a big mess because you don’t have enough time to change the subject and the deadline for submission is around the corner. What happens next is that you produce shoddy work, which results in poor grades. Now, at this point, you can see how the topic has contributed towards failing the essay.

How to Select a Good Essay Topic

There are several approaches you can implement to choose the best essay topic. You can use the following ideas to pick an essay topic:

• Ask for Help

At times, you cannot figure out everything on your own. Your friends and family understand you better. They are in an excellent position to tell you what fits you and what doesn’t. If you go ahead and pick a topic yourself, you might have trouble during the actual writing. Use other people’s ideas and come up with a reliable topic.

• Brainstorm

Still, you can find a calm environment and think of ideas that you love more. Think in line with your hobbies and select a topic you fancy a lot. This way, you will gather resources and put ideas in an organized manner since you are writing on what you love.

• Check possible resources

Before you fall for a topic, do little research to analyze resources for a given topic. You don’t need to pick a topic that will stress you throughout when researching. The materials should be readily available, and you must get enough content for the selected topic. In case you realize a particular subject doesn’t have adequate resources, change immediately.

• Avoid common topics

Some topics are pretty standard, and many students have already done them. If you select such topics, you might have difficulties trying to bring out new ideas because all information is on different platforms. After all, you do not want to fall into the plagiarism trap.

Conclusion

Selecting essay topics can be easy if you approach the matter positively. However, it can be a challenging task if you complicate everything. From the word go, pick a topic you are sure of gathering enough content throughout your essay. Do not fall for a case because it sounds easy, only to get stuck in the middle of writing without relevant content.

• Take note of your audience

As a rule, students need to reflect on the organization granting the scholarship before putting fingers to the keyboard or putting pen to paper. Students need to consider the purpose, objective, and aims of the funding organization in the entire educational and financial sector. The students also need to consider the traits of the committee members and what they share in common. The scholarship committee members will determine the theme, tone, and choice of words. The inappropriate manner might lead to automatic disqualification even if you are needy or a great candidate.

• Develop an outline

Before you begin to write your essay, you must create an outline that will guide your writing process. The system will help you to organize your ideas and ensure that you do leave any idea out. Your outline needs to include all your points that you intend to address in your essay and the word limit as per the scholarship board requirements. A list of your key points will make sure that you do leave out the major arguments.

• Develop compelling introduction

The scholarship essay application reviewers will read many essays, therefore ensure that your scholarship essay stands out from the rest. It catches the eyes of the reviewers and land in good hands. Make that your piece is outstanding by authoring an excellent introduction. Begin with something intriguing and exciting, then introduce the essay’s core topic at the tail end of the paragraph, then hook them up with an excellent introduction.

• Be clear and concise

Clear and concise writing is always the best since your audience will understand you and get what you need. The majority of the students believe that long sentences are the best; however, this is not the case. It turns out that short sentences are concise and clear to the majority of the audience. It will help if you communicate your ideas by using enough words as you can. It is also notable to note that simplicity than complex.

• Do not use a thesaurus

This rule is suitable for all writing forms such as essays, blogs, or even academic writing. In case you do not understand the meaning of a word kindly, do not use it. It would be best if you did not use words you do not know their meaning because your audience will feel your discomfort, and most likely, you will look less trustworthy as a writer. It would help if you were comfortable with the choice of words you use.

• Edit and proofread

Before submitting your work, you must edit and proofread it thoroughly. Running spellchecker is not editing but the first step in editing. You need to read and re-read your essay, even if it means reading it loudly so that you can identify trouble spots. These sections need clarification, subject-verb disagreements, and awkward sentences. Do not allow grammar errors or misspelling to hinder you from getting the scholarship funding.

• Get help

If you doubt your editorial skills, remember to seek help from your teachers, parents, or friends to help you peruse through your essay. When you let a second eye look at your work, they will point issues that you had not seen or anticipated. Illogical sentences that you thought they are logical might come to the fore if a second person goes through your work. A second opinion is always good, especially when it comes to writings of all forms.

• Be persistent

To ensure that you get a scholarship, always apply for scholarship opportunities. Apply to as many scholarship opportunities as you can, and if you miss out on the one, you will get in one application. Persistency in anything you do as a student will always bear fruit. Some may think that they are nagging, but persistence is a good way to get noticed.