Academic Essay Writing Guide

In an argumentative essay, students are expected to choose a subject, create a strong argument related to that subject and address the counterarguments to their position. To find material for these types of essays, students may be required to read published research on the topic or conduct their own by doing experiments, surveys or interviews.

The structure of an argumentative essay can vary. In some cases, argumentative essays are five paragraphs that consist of an introduction, three body paragraphs that address arguments and counterarguments, and a conclusion.

In longer essays, students can delve deeper into the contextual issues related to the topic, as well as argue the points and counterpoints made throughout the essay.

In order to successfully write an argumentative essay, students must be sure their topic is actually debatable. Students should ask themselves whether or not others can argue against their position and come up with ways the opposition would respond.

Also, in order for a topic to be debatable, it must be backed up by scholarly research and not be based on personal morality or cultural or religious standards.

Resources

• Argumentative Essay/Commentary - University of Toledo

  Includes information about logical fallacies, rhetorical appeals, arguments and counterarguments, and the Toulmin and Rogerian methods.

• MLA Sample Argumentative Papers - Skyline College Library

  This site includes samples of argumentative papers with feedback about what makes the writing effective.

• Purdue OWL - Argumentative Essays

  Provides information on the structure of argumentative essays and how to create a complete argument.

• Types of Papers: Argument/Argumentative - Roane State Community College

  Includes dos and don'ts for writing argumentative essays, plus how to address the opposing side of an argument.

While other types of essays may give students the opportunity to use elaborate writing, descriptive essays really allow them to express themselves in a creative way. Descriptive essays are also more personal because they're a description of students' individual experiences, feelings and thoughts.

The most important thing students need to do in descriptive essays is to show the topic they're writing about, rather than just telling the reader what it is. This can be done by:

• using all of the senses to paint a full picture of the action

• including dialogue

• choosing vivid language that creates a clear picture

• describing feelings and thoughts to illustrate a personal connection to the topic

Although students have creative leeway when writing descriptive essays, they still need to follow certain rules. Like other essays, descriptive essays must be organized in a logical way. Students should also express themselves while still creating an essay that is easy for the reader to follow.

Resources

• How to Write an Expressive or Descriptive Essay - The University of Texas at El Paso

  Includes a dozen tips on how to write a descriptive essay.

• Purdue OWL - Descriptive Essays

  Provides advice on how to use language when writing a descriptive essay.

• Types of Papers: Narrative/Descriptive - Roane State Community College

  Explains how to use concrete language, write vivid descriptions and include solid details in a descriptive essay. In addition, there are links to sample papers for students to review.

• Writing A Descriptive Essay - TIP Sheet - Butte College

  Advises students on how to show and not tell when writing a descriptive essay, as well as organize their work.

Narrative essays also give students the freedom to be creative as they are designed to describe a personal story. Like descriptive essays, narrative essays should be filled with expressive language that sets a scene, explains thoughts and emotion, and uses sensory images to make the story real. In addition, these essays are written in the first person, though “I” should not be overused.

In order to write an effective narrative essay, students should create a unified story that is centered around a fundamental idea, make sure the story being presented is written in a coherent way and end with a climax that illustrates the personal importance of the story. In addition, students can make the story they're telling easier to follow by using strong transitional words like “finally,” “later” and “next.”

Resources

• Narrative Essays Handout - Howe Center for Writing Excellence

  Includes information on how to create a narrative introduction, as well as a checklist to help students stay on track when writing narrative essays.

• Types of Papers: Narrative/Descriptive - Roane State Community College

  Advises students on how to write vivid descriptions and concrete details in narrative essays. Also, the site has sample essays to give students further guidance.

• Purdue OWL - Narrative Essays

  This page has best practices for writing narrative essays.

• Writing a narrative essay - El Paso Community College

  Provides an overview of how to write a narrative essay from start to finish.

When applying to undergraduate or graduate programs, personal statements are an important way that students sell themselves to an admissions committee. Also called application essays and statements of purpose, personal statements may require prospective students to answer a specific question or write a general essay about themselves and their goals.

General personal statements allow students to showcase their story in a compelling way. These essays can be used to talk about academic experience, goals for the future, obstacles faced and the learning lessons that came with them, and accomplishments outside of the classroom. For personal statements that require an answer to a specific question, students should stay within the parameters of the question and, if necessary, do research on the subject before writing.

No matter what type of essay colleges ask for, students should be sure to tailor their personal statement to each individual school. Admissions professionals can detect when an essay has been repurposed and it can count against the student's application.

Resources

• 6 tips for writing great personal statements - USA TODAY College

  Provides best practices for writing personal statements for college applications.

• Purdue OWL - Writing the Personal Statement

  Includes general advice for writing personal essays, as well as questions students should ask themselves to prepare for the writing process.

• Writing the Personal Statement - Berkeley Graduate Division

  Explains what should be included in a personal essay when applying for graduate school.

• Writing Tips: Personal Statements - Center for Writing Studies

  This site has do's and don'ts for writing personal statement essays, as well as personal inventory questions that guide the content of the essay.

“In my experience, students rely on ‘popular' sources, which are the results of cursory Google searches. It's odd, since library-based searches look increasingly like Google—that is, user friendly interfaces. I think, therefore, that student writers should be skeptical of sources they find outside of the school library's connection to information,” said Christopher McCarrick, Professor of English at Clarion University.

“Students can certainly start with, say, Google or Wikipedia, but they should not end up there. In other words, let the library and the databases do the initial vetting. Develop a sense of how reliable sources ‘read.'”

“An expert usually has a doctoral degree—Ph.D., Ed.D., M.D., etc.—and has published articles in scholarly journals and/or scholarly books about the topic that the student is writing about,” says Heller.

“Scholarly articles and books are long, cite many other researchers' findings and have footnotes or endnotes and a bibliography of sources at the end.”

“Source evaluation is pure detective work, if not simply an art form. It requires patience, some imagination, more patience and a dash of common sense. Some of the tell-tale signs a source is not to be trusted is if it identifies no author in the byline,” says Christopher J. Irving, Faculty Instructor in English and humanities at Beacon College.

“It sounds too simple to most students, but the simple fact is that they should not assume, as some do, that a source's integrity is solid just because it is in print.”

“Web addresses that end in ‘lo' or ‘com.co' are often illegitimate or, at best, satire. Either way, they should not be used as legitimate sources. Also, analyze the URL for domain names. Blogging platforms—Wordpress, Blogger, Wix, Squarespace, etc.—are available for anyone; the creators of these sites are probably not legitimate journalists or researchers,” said Dr. Erec Smith, Professor of writing and rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania.

“Secondly, odd and quirky titles are generally unreliable. To be safe, refrain from citing such websites.”

In some cases, students forget that the reader may not be well-versed in the essay's subject matter, which can cause them to leave out key information on the topic.

“Student writers face a tough situation: they're new to college and to ‘professors,' rather than teachers. Don't professors know everything about a subject? I ask classes to explain their information to an actual person who they know—a parent, grandparent, sibling. We talk in class about appropriate content and word choices for such ‘known' readers and work our way to composing for more abstract readers,” says McCarrick.

“I also tell student writers that they can always ask what readers need to know, usually by having a professor read a draft.”

Students may choose quotes that are not relevant to what they're writing about, which may be done in an attempt to pad their research papers.

“Students should read articles by published scholars carefully to see how these writers use sources,” says Heller. “Good writers use quotations only when they are very relevant to a point that the author wishes to make or to critique another scholar's theory.”

Some students may not manage their time efficiently, and not spend adequate time writing the essay or doing pre-writing work.

“Procrastination is the bane of all writing, and too often composition students are under the impression that everything they produce on the page must be solid gold on its first attempt. This is so completely wrong that I believe it may require a course of its own,” says Irving.

“My best advice is that managing a writing schedule and producing something—anything—towards an assignment every day helps provide a student with clarity towards their own work.”

Students may only choose sources that support the argument they're making.

“Cherry-picking, or acknowledging research that backs a pre-established argument while ignoring research that refutes that argument, is dishonest and non-scholarly,” says Smith. “Information antithetical to one's argument must be acknowledged and must either be refuted or allowed to change a pre-established thesis statement.”