How to Write an Essay Introduction (With Focus on IELTS)

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Eight Steps Towards a Better Scholarship Essay

Writing a scholarship essay can be very difficult – especially if you want to do it well. Your essay will need to wow the reader, and speak directly to the goals of that organization, as well as the objectives of that award. If done properly, you will very rarely be able to submit the same application to multiple awards – it is not a one-size-fits-all; most essays will need to be tweaked or completely altered to show the reader that you are deserving of the award above and beyond any of the other participant who also applied.

Misconception: No one actually reads your scholarship essay! – Wrong!

Fact: Your essay is the key to your scholarship application. It is an opportunity to demonstrate to the selection committee that you are a well-rounded individual, that you are more than your GPA, that you are a strong writer, and it gives you a chance to talk about your experiences and qualifications in greater detail than what appears on your resume or transcripts.

Step 1: Read the Essay Prompt Thoroughly

Many schools and other organizations that give out scholarships will give you a "prompt" or a question which the essay is supposed to address. Read the question or prompt carefully and try to "read between the lines." For example, the prompt you are to answer might be, "Describe a book that made a lasting impression on you and your life and why?" Ask yourself, "Are they really interested in my literary preferences or is there something more to this question?" More than likely, they want to get a better idea of who you are—not only what types of books you like but also what motivates you and what sorts of stories or topics interest you. They may also be interested in getting a sense for how promising a student you are based on the type of book you choose and what you have to say about it.

Tip: Always keep in mind that any scholarship essay question, no matter the topic, should demonstrate your interests, your background, and most importantly, highlight the experiences you've had that fit with the goals and mission of the funding organization.

Instead of being given a prompt, you might be asked to write an essay on the topic of your choosing. Although challenging, this is also an opportunity to demonstrate your creativity. Finally, if anything about the directions aren't clear, don't be afraid to contact someone at the funding organization and ask for clarification

Step 2: Make a List of Important Points and Keywords to Include

Regardless of the essay prompt, you will want to make sure to include the important and relevant information about your experiences and background that makes you an ideal candidate for the scholarship award. To complete this step, it can be helpful to first research the organization to which you're applying and try to find their mission statement on their website. Circle a few key words from the mission statement and make sure to include those buzzwords in your essay.

Researching and Writing a Literature Review

A literature review demonstrates that you have read around your topic and have a broad understanding of previous research, including its limitations.

In the literature review, you summarise the main viewpoints and important facts that you encountered in your reading as they relate to your chosen topic.  You will also use the literature review to justify the value of doing research on your topic by showing what is already known, what is not yet known, and how it is relevant. 

Your literature review should not simply be descriptive but should also provide a critical analysis of the body of work, and demonstrate that you understand how it fits together as a whole and how your own research fits with previous studies.

A key aspect of a literature review is what sources you select to include, and which you exclude.

Finding Sources

Thanks to the internet, literature searches are now relatively easy, and can be done from the comfort of your own laptop without needing to go anywhere near a library.

However, a word of warning is in order here. The ease with which anybody can access and publish to the internet means that many items published online have not been scrutinised by anybody other than the author. 

In other words, content has not necessarily been checked, you have no way of knowing whether the author’s facts and claims are at all accurate and you could easily land yourself in trouble by blindly following or citing from online sources. 

Furthermore, because items on the internet are frequently changed, you may find that something you read yesterday is no longer available in the same form today. However, internet sources can be very useful for up-to-date information, especially current affairs or ongoing or very recent research.

Blogs and sites like the encyclopaedia Wikipedia are particularly prone to these problems.  For these reasons, a general rule of thumb is that you should only rely on internet resources from the websites of organisations whose information you already know to be reputable, like SkillsYouNeed. 

Do not underestimate how much physical libraries and librarians may be able to help you.

Librarians are usually hugely experienced in using all the search tools and databases, and can often show you much quicker ways of doing things, as well as tips and tricks to help you refine your search.

Furthermore, libraries may have copies of books and academic journals that are not available online. So a trip to your library may prove to be very helpful.

Are you looking for a work at home?

How to Write a Report

What is a Report?

In academia there is some overlap between reports and essays, and the two words are sometimes used interchangeably, but reports are more likely to be needed for business, scientific and technical subjects, and in the workplace.

Whereas an essay presents arguments and reasoning, a report concentrates on facts.

Essentially, a report is a short, sharp, concise document which is written for a particular purpose and audience. It generally sets outs and analyses a situation or problem, often making recommendations for future action. It is a factual paper, and needs to be clear and well-structured.

Requirements for the precise form and content of a report will vary between organisation and departments and in study between courses, from tutor to tutor, as well as between subjects, so it’s worth finding out if there are any specific guidelines before you start.

Reports may contain some or all of the following elements:

• A description of a sequence of events or a situation;
• Some interpretation of the significance of these events or situation, whether solely your own analysis or informed by the views of others, always carefully referenced of course (see our page on Academic Referencing for more information);
• An evaluation of the facts or the results of your research;
• Discussion of the likely outcomes of future courses of action;
• Your recommendations as to a course of action; and
• Conclusions.

Not all of these elements will be essential in every report.

If you’re writing a report in the workplace, check whether there are any standard guidelines or structure that you need to use.

For example, in the UK many government departments have outline structures for reports to ministers that must be followed exactly.

Sections and Numbering

A report is designed to lead people through the information in a structured way, but also to enable them to find the information that they want quickly and easily.

Reports usually, therefore, have numbered sections and subsections, and a clear and full contents page listing each heading. It follows that page numbering is important.

Modern word processors have features to add tables of contents (ToC) and page numbers as well as styled headings; you should take advantage of these as they update automatically as you edit your report, moving, adding or deleting sections.

Report Writing

Getting Started: prior preparation and planning

English & Writing

Fun Ways to Write Down Your Ideas for an Essay

 

Structuring Your Essay

An essay should be written in a flowing manner with each sentence following on logically from the previous one and with appropriate signposts to guide the reader.

An essay usually takes the following structured format:

• The introduction
• The main body: a development of the issues
• A conclusion
• A list of references of the sources of information you have used

The Introduction

The function of the introduction is simply to introduce the subject, to explain how you understand the question, and describe briefly how you intend to deal with it.

You could begin by defining essential terms, providing a brief historical or personal context if appropriate, and/or by explaining why you think the subject is significant or interesting.

Keep the introduction short, preferably to one or two paragraphs and keep it, succinct, to the point.

Some students find it best to write a provisional introduction, when starting to write an essay, and then to rewrite this when they have finished the first draft of their essay. To write a provisional introduction, ask yourself what the reader needs to know in order to follow your subsequent discussion. 

Other students write the introduction after they have written the main body of the essay – do whatever feels right for you and the piece of work you are writing.

The Main Body: A Development of the Issues

Essays are generally a blend of researched evidence (e.g. from additional reading) and comment.

Some students' essays amount to catalogues of factual material or summaries of other people's thoughts, attitudes, philosophies or viewpoints.

At the opposite extreme, other students express only personal opinions with little or no researched evidence or examples taken from other writers to support their views.  What is needed is a balance.

The balance between other researchers’ and writers’ analysis of the subject and your own comment will vary with the subject and the nature of the question.   Generally, it is important to back up the points you wish to make from your experience with the findings of other published researchers and writers.

You will have likely been given a reading list or some core text books to read. Use these as your research base but try to expand on what is said and read around the subject as fully as you can.  Always keep a note of your sources as you go along.

You will be encouraged and expected to cite other authors or to quote or paraphrase from books that you have read.  The most important requirement is that the material you cite or use should illustrate, or provide evidence of, the point you are making.  How much evidence you use depends on the type of essay you are writing.

Essay Structure

Writing an academic essay means fashioning a coherent set of ideas into an argument. Because essays are essentially linear—they offer one idea at a time—they must present their ideas in the order that makes most sense to a reader. Successfully structuring an essay means attending to a reader's logic.

The focus of such an essay predicts its structure. It dictates the information readers need to know and the order in which they need to receive it. Thus your essay's structure is necessarily unique to the main claim you're making. Although there are guidelines for constructing certain classic essay types (e.g., comparative analysis), there are no set formula.

Answering Questions:  The Parts of an Essay

A typical essay contains many different kinds of information, often located in specialized parts or sections. Even short essays perform several different operations: introducing the argument, analyzing data, raising counterarguments, concluding. Introductions and conclusions have fixed places, but other parts don't. Counterargument, for example, may appear within a paragraph, as a free-standing section, as part of the beginning, or before the ending. Background material (historical context or biographical information, a summary of relevant theory or criticism, the definition of a key term) often appears at the beginning of the essay, between the introduction and the first analytical section, but might also appear near the beginning of the specific section to which it's relevant.

It's helpful to think of the different essay sections as answering a series of questions your reader might ask when encountering your thesis. (Readers should have questions. If they don't, your thesis is most likely simply an observation of fact, not an arguable claim.)

"What?"  The first question to anticipate from a reader is "what": What evidence shows that the phenomenon described by your thesis is true? To answer the question you must examine your evidence, thus demonstrating the truth of your claim. This "what" or "demonstration" section comes early in the essay, often directly after the introduction. Since you're essentially reporting what you've observed, this is the part you might have most to say about when you first start writing. But be forewarned: it shouldn't take up much more than a third (often much less) of your finished essay. If it does, the essay will lack balance and may read as mere summary or description.

"How?"  A reader will also want to know whether the claims of the thesis are true in all cases. The corresponding question is "how": How does the thesis stand up to the challenge of a counterargument? How does the introduction of new material—a new way of looking at the evidence, another set of sources—affect the claims you're making? Typically, an essay will include at least one "how" section. (Call it "complication" since you're responding to a reader's complicating questions.) This section usually comes after the "what," but keep in mind that an essay may complicate its argument several times depending on its length, and that counterargument alone may appear just about anywhere in an essay.

"Why?"  Your reader will also want to know what's at stake in your claim: Why does your interpretation of a phenomenon matter to anyone beside you? This question addresses the larger implications of your thesis. It allows your readers to understand your essay within a larger context. In answering "why", your essay explains its own significance. Although you might gesture at this question in your introduction, the fullest answer to it properly belongs at your essay's end. If you leave it out, your readers will experience your essay as unfinished—or, worse, as pointless or insular.

Mapping an Essay

Structuring your essay according to a reader's logic means examining your thesis and anticipating what a reader needs to know, and in what sequence, in order to grasp and be convinced by your argument as it unfolds. The easiest way to do this is to map the essay's ideas via a written narrative. Such an account will give you a preliminary record of your ideas, and will allow you to remind yourself at every turn of the reader's needs in understanding your idea.

Essay maps ask you to predict where your reader will expect background information, counterargument, close analysis of a primary source, or a turn to secondary source material. Essay maps are not concerned with paragraphs so much as with sections of an essay. They anticipate the major argumentative moves you expect your essay to make. Try making your map like this:

• State your thesis in a sentence or two, then write another sentence saying why it's important to make that claim. Indicate, in other words, what a reader might learn by exploring the claim with you. Here you're anticipating your answer to the "why" question that you'll eventually flesh out in your conclusion.
• Begin your next sentence like this: "To be convinced by my claim, the first thing a reader needs to know is . . ." Then say why that's the first thing a reader needs to know, and name one or two items of evidence you think will make the case. This will start you off on answering the "what" question. (Alternately, you may find that the first thing your reader needs to know is some background information.)
• Begin each of the following sentences like this: "The next thing my reader needs to know is . . ."  Once again, say why, and name some evidence. Continue until you've mapped out your essay. 

Your map should naturally take you through some preliminary answers to the basic questions of what, how, and why. It is not a contract, though—the order in which the ideas appear is not a rigid one. Essay maps are flexible; they evolve with your ideas.

Signs of Trouble 

A common structural flaw in college essays is the "walk-through" (also labeled "summary" or "description"). Walk-through essays follow the structure of their sources rather than establishing their own. Such essays generally have a descriptive thesis rather than an argumentative one. Be wary of paragraph openers that lead off with "time" words ("first," "next," "after," "then") or "listing" words ("also," "another," "in addition"). Although they don't always signal trouble, these paragraph openers often indicate that an essay's thesis and structure need work: they suggest that the essay simply reproduces the chronology of the source text (in the case of time words: first this happens, then that, and afterwards another thing . . . ) or simply lists example after example ("In addition, the use of color indicates another way that the painting differentiates between good and evil").

Copyright 2000, Elizabeth Abrams, for the Writing Center at Harvard University

Essay by George Orwell

Books vs. Cigarettes (1946)

  A couple of years ago a friend of mine, a newspaper editor, was firewatching with some factory workers. They fell to talking about his newspaper, which most of them read and approved of, but when he asked them what they thought of the literary section, the answer he got was: “You don’t suppose we read that stuff, do you? Why, half the time you’re talking about books that cost twelve and sixpence! Chaps like us couldn’t spend twelve and sixpence on a book.” These, he said, were men who thought nothing of spending several pounds on a day trip to Blackpool.

   This idea that the buying, or even the reading, of books is an expensive hobby and beyond the reach of the average person is so widespread that it deserves some detailed examination. Exactly what reading costs, reckoned in terms of pence per hour, is difficult to estimate, but I have made a start by inventorying my own books and adding up their total price. After allowing for various other expenses, I can make a fairly good guess at my expenditure over the last fifteen years.

  The books that I have counted and priced are the ones I have here, in my flat. I have about an equal number stored in another place, so that I shall double the final figure in order to arrive at the complete amount. I have not counted oddments such as proof copies, defaced volumes, cheap paper-covered editions, pamphlets, or magazines, unless bound up into book form. Nor have I counted the kind of junky books-old school text-books and so forth — that accumulate in the bottoms of cupboards. I have counted only those books which I have acquired voluntarily, or else would have acquired voluntarily, and which I intend to keep. In this category I find that I have 442 books, acquired in the following ways:

Bought (mostly second-hand) 251
Given to me or bought with book tokens 33
Review copies and complimentary copies 143
Borrowed and not returned 10
Temporarily on loan 5
Total 442

   Now as to the method of pricing. Those books that I have bought I have listed at their full price, as closely as I can determine it. I have also listed at their full price the books that have been given to me, and those that I have temporarily borrowed, or borrowed and kept. This is because book-giving, book-borrowing and bookstealing more or less even out. I possess books that do not strictly speaking belong to me, but many other people also have books of mine: so that the books I have not paid for can be taken as balancing others which I have paid for but no longer possess.

How to Write an Effective Essay

In this lesson, I give you a simple method for writing a good, effective essay in English. If you don't know where to start when you are given a writing assignment, start here and learn how to do it right!

 

 

How to write the good essay

How to write the good essay

 RECOMMENDATIONS

 It is necessary to write shortly and clearly.
    From you wait for manifestation of capabilities to construct and prove your line item on certain problems on the basis of the acquired knowledge and independent thinking.
    Quality of any essay (composition) depends on three components: initial material (abstracts of the read literature, lectures, record of results of discussions, your own reasons and the accumulated experience on this problem), quality of its handling (the organization, the argumentation and arguments), the argumentation (how precisely it corresponds to the problems lifted in your essay).
    On a subject it is necessary to read at first 2-3 key articles or chapters of books in which a conceptual framework or the theoretical argumentation are given empirical data are provided, the literature circle on this subject is considered and estimated.
    The structure of written work, as a rule, consists of such components as introduction (an essence and reasons for the choice of the chosen subject), the main part (the reasoned disclosure of a subject on the basis of collected material), the conclusion (generalization and conclusions).
    In introduction it is very useful to give short definitions of key terms.
    However try to minimize number of determinations (we will tell, 3-4).
    Filling with content the main part, be limited within the paragraph to consideration of one main thought.
    When citing always quote the text and give the full reference on a source (including number of the page), otherwise the text will be considered as plagiarism.

    In conclusion it is worth instructing on application of your research, not excepting interrelations with other problems.

CONTROL QUESTIONS

    Whether correctly you understood a question (subject)?
    Whether the argumentation is developed by you?
    Whether the plan of writing of work according to argumentation stages is prepared?
    Whether attentively you read literature on a subject?
    Whether you in each paragraph formulate one accurate main issue?
    Whether paragraphs in the logical sequence are provided?
    Whether proofs are effectively used by you?
    Whether correctly you make references to sources?
    Whether your conclusion is short and relevant?
    Whether the work scope is specified by you?
    Whether you re-read the essay?
    Whether it is checked by you whether the essay answers the questions posed?
    Whether the work stylistics are checked by you whether changes are made?
    Whether the bibliography is correctly constituted?

EXAMINERS DON'T LOVE:

    if you can't answer a question;
    bad organization of the answer;
    inability to adhere to the answer to the main question;
    use of rhetoric (statement) instead of the argumentation (proof);
    negligent operating by data, including excessive generalization;
    if a descriptive part is too extensive and isn't supported with analytical material;
    if other points of view without statement of own line item are stated;
    repetitions (needlessly).

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