If you need to write an essay, whether for a college course or to pass a writing test, this guide will take you through the process step-by-step.
Even if you have never written an essay before, this guide will make the process simple and easy to follow.
It is divided into two parts.
First, I’ll show you the steps of writing an essay from scratch using a simple example.
And in the second part, we’ll go through the process together and write a complete sample essay.
Let’s dive right in.
Writing an essay is a 6-step process.
Step 1. Decide on your main point and write it down
You could be in one of the following situations:
- Your teacher or professor gave you a prompt, and you have to follow it
- You are allowed to make up your own essay topic
- You must pass a writing test and are practicing
Whatever the case, let’s assume that you have some kind of a topic or an idea for an essay. Many essay prompts ask you to decide for or against an idea. You must agree or disagree.
And in your first step, you need to simply make that decision – whether you agree or disagree – and just write it down as a simple sentence.
This is a very simple example, but it shows you what a thesis essentially looks like. It is also your main point.
Try not to make your thesis sentence too complicated. Keep it simple so that the point is perfectly clear to both you and the reader.
In this case, our example thesis is:
“I love apples.”
And we’re ready for the next step.
Step 2. Come up with three supporting ideas
Whether you need to write 300 or 3,000 words, as a beginner you only need three supporting points to prove your main point.
This is why I teach the Power of Three.
So, why three? You see, you need to divide your topic into subtopics. If you don’t, the whole essay writing process will be harder than it has to be.
If you divide it into only two parts, that’s okay. But it doesn’t give you enough meat when you’ll be writing the body of the essay.
If you divide it into more than three, that is also a recipe for frustration. It’s just too many.
Three is a very comfortable number for the brain to deal with. Trust me. I’ve taught many, many people.
Let’s apply the Power of Three to our simple example.
Why do I love apples? I love them for three reasons. Not one, not two, not seven. Just three reasons.
I love apples because they are:
- Delicious
- Nutritious
- Affordable
In this step, your job is to make sure that these three reasons are really different from one another. In this case, they are.
Here is a wrong way to do it:
I love apples because they are:
- Delicious
- Nutritious
- Filling
In this case, apples being filling is too similar to being nutritious. This means that when you’re writing the body of the essay, you may run into writer’s block.
This happens because you realize that you’ve already said everything there is to say about the nutrition of apples, and now them being filling is too closely related. And you’re out of words to write.
Don’t let that happen. Just keep your supporting points really distinct from one another.
Step 3. Write out the complete thesis statement
Now you have everything you need to write a complete thesis statement. You have your main and supporting points.
Take them and write them out as complete sentences in one paragraph. Let’s do it very simplistically, using our apples example:
“I love apples for three reasons. They are delicious. They are nutritious. And they are affordable.”
Again, this is overly simple, and I don’t expect you to write such short sentences one after another this way.
But it’s crystal clear. And the supporting points really sound like good evidence for the main point.
In other words, this thesis statement works.
Your Thesis Statement Is Also Your Outline
Students often ask how to write an essay outline. But once you have written your thesis statement the way I just showed you, you have yourself a nice outline.
In addition, you already have the first paragraph. It may not be complete. You may choose to add some words to it. You will also add an introduction in a later step.
But your first paragraph is, for the main, done. It exists, and it’s good to know that you just wrote a nice paragraph.
We are ready for the next step.
Step 4. Write the body of the essay
We already know that we have three sections in our little example. And you will also have three main sections if you apply the Power of Three to your essay.
Each of your sections will contain one or more paragraphs.
But as a beginner, just stick to one paragraph per section. Each of your sections will be a paragraph, and you need to write only three paragraphs in the body of the essay.
Body Paragraph Structure
You must begin each of your body paragraphs with a lead sentence (also known as a topic sentence). And then your job is to fill the rest of the paragraph with evidence to support what you just stated in the lead sentence.
You may have heard that in your essay you should proceed from more general to more specific? That is exactly right.
The lead sentence (the first sentence in the paragraph) is the most general statement in that paragraph.
For example, in our essay about apples, the second section is about how nutritious apples are. So, you would begin your paragraph with something like this:
“Apples are very nutritious.”
This is the most general statement. And now, your job would be to unpack that, to write a little more specifically.
As an explanation, you can write a sentence or two on what kinds of nutrients apples contain.
And as examples, you can write about what some of these nutrients do in the body that makes them nutritious.
Does this make sense? You are proceeding from general to specific. We’ll take a closer look at this process in the essay topic sample that is coming up.
Once you’ve written the body paragraphs, you’re ready for the next step.
Step 5. Write the introduction and the conclusion
Introductions
The introduction is really just a sentence (two at most) that you add in the beginning of your first paragraph.
Introductions are not necessary. Many instructors will expect that you write them while others won’t. You can go straight to the point by starting your first paragraph with the thesis.
However, most instructors will expect an introduction, and you should know how to write one.
To write an introduction, just zoom out a bit and write a more general and less relevant sentence. For example, we can start our essay about apples with this sentence:
“Doctors recommend that people eat fruits and vegetables, and apples are a good choice.”
And then we proceed straight to the thesis: “I love apples.” And so on…
Conclusions
In your conclusion you can do one of several things. But I recommend that, as a beginner, you stick to the time-proven restatement.
Basically, you simply repeat what you stated in your thesis statement, using different words.
Yes, this is repetitious, but that is the nature of conclusions. Don’t worry.
You can literally copy your thesis statement, paste it at the end of your essay, and make sure you change the wording so that it reads like a new paragraph.
For example, this is how we can write our conclusion about apples:
“To conclude, apples are great because they are tasty, rich in nutrients, and satisfy hunger quite well.”
Yes, your conclusion can be just one sentence. But it can also contain many sentences.
Step 6. Proofread
Our final step in writing an essay is to go back and proofread our draft.
We must look out for:
- Any contradictions (to make sure we don’t contradict our own points)
- Any irrelevant material (stuff that doesn’t belong in the essay at all)
- Grammatical errors
- Misspellings
- Typos
One good, thorough round of proofreading can be enough to be ready to submit your essay for grading.
You can use a variety of tools sto spell-check your essay. Google docs is one great tool for that. But many others, such as Grammarly, are available as well.
Guess what! Now you know how to write an essay, even if you’re a beginner.
And now, let’s apply what we learned.
Let’s take a sample topic and follow the 6 steps to write a nice sample essay.
Let’s do this!
Sample Essay: “Parents are the best teachers.”
This essay topic came from one of my readers. Let’s develop it into an essay by following the steps we just learned.
Step 1. Decide on the main point and write it
Let’s say that we are given a choice – whether we agree or disagree that parents are the best teachers.
All we have to do is take a stand. We have to simply decide – yes or no.
Let’s decide that parents are indeed the best teachers.
We simply state this as the main point:
“Parents are the best teachers.”
Great!
Step 2. Think up three supporting ideas
Why could parents be the best teachers?
This will take some thinking. But that’s what we need to do.
Let’s use the Power of Three. And here is what we came up with:
- They are the first teachers, and that’s very important.
- They have the child’s best interests in mind.
- They spend more time with their child than anyone else.
We really want to make sure that these supporting points are different from one another. Are they?
If we read them over, we’ll see that each of them is indeed distinct. Great!
Step 3. Write out the thesis statement
We have our main point. We have our supporting points. And writing the full thesis statement is now easy.
Let’s do it:
“Parents are the best teachers for three reasons. They are the first teachers, and that’s very important. Parents have their child’s best interests in mind. And they spend more time with their child than anyone else.”
We really just took the thesis and the supporting statements and wrote them all in a sequence as one paragraph.
As a result, we now have a nice, clear opening paragraph.
We also now have our outline:
We know exactly how many sections our essay will have.
We also know in which order we’ll be presenting our support. It’s all in the thesis statement, which is also our outline.
Step 4. Write the body of the essay
Now our job is to write three good supporting paragraphs, one at a time.
Let’s start with the first body paragraph.
The first sentence is always the lead sentence – the most general sentence in a body paragraph.
Writing the Lead Sentence
Let’s first copy and paste our first supporting point from our thesis statement:
“They are the first teachers, and that’s very important.”
I copied this because this is exactly what my paragraph is about. And this would be a perfect lead sentence if it were not repetitious.
To make sure it’s not simply repetitious, we’ll tweak and expand it a little:
“Parents are the first teachers, and that’s very important because what is imprinted early stays with the child forever.”
We made sure that the subject is clear – that it is not “They” but “Parents.”
And we expanded the sentence by adding an explanation: “…because what is imprinted early stays with the child forever.”
You don’t have to necessarily add an explanation in the lead sentence like this. But this is an option that you have.
All we really want to do in the lead sentence is just expand it slightly over the initial supporting point that it came from.
Writing the Rest of the Paragraph
Let’s review our body paragraph structure:
In our paragraph, we proceed from more general to more specific. Our lead sentence is the most general statement.
The next most general part of the paragraph is where you explain your point. You can provide a scientific explanation with data and research. You can explain it logically, using your own rationale.
But it is still a general part. Let’s write it.
Explanation
“Psychologists have known for over a century that the first years in a child’s life are the most formative. It became clear that what is imprinted in the child’s mind early on influences the rest of the child’s cognitive development. In addition, early conditioning is hard or impossible to erase.”
We are keeping it simple and not using any references to scientific studies. You can and should cite sources in your essay when necessary.
If you’re writing an essay in an exam or test, you won’t need any references. You can just make things up as you go along. And it works as long as your content is logical and supports the main point.
If you’re writing for a college course, you will likely need to cite sources, unless it’s English 101 where you write basic essays like this one.
But now, we have three explanatory sentences in our paragraph. Our next step is to add at least one example. You can add more, but one should do it for a beginner.
Example
“An extreme illustration of this is what is known as the wild child. Some children who were abandoned when they were little were raised by animals. Some of these children never learned to speak and imitated animal behavior. What animals taught them stayed forever.”
This example presents a phenomenon that is well known in psychology. It is an example because it describes one extreme kind of a phenomenon. It is also much more specific than our explanation.
Note that we can add more words by talking about a specific wild child from history. But let’s stop here and look at our full paragraph:
We have 113 words in this paragraph. And it’s a perfect body paragraph that supports the first part of our thesis statement.
Let’s write the next one.
Writing the Lead Sentence
Again, let’s copy the second supporting point and then tweak and expand it.
“Parents have their child’s best interests in mind.”
This sentence already starts with the subject, which is “parents.” Now, all we need to do is to expand it slightly:
“Parents have their child’s best interests in mind the way nobody else does.”
We added a short phrase just to make the lead sentence a little longer and more detailed. Now it doesn’t read like plain repetition.
Explanation
Let’s write the next most general part of this paragraph – the explanation:
“A child is the parents’ biggest and most precious investment. Parents spend the first 18 or more years of the child’s life putting in time, energy, and finances into her development. It is very rare that anyone else will do that.”
These three sentences explain why it makes sense that parents would have the child’s best interests in mind. She is the most precious thing to them in the world.
Example
It’s time for an example. And I’ll use my personal experience:
“My own parents took care of me very well and gave me an amazing education. I learned to be well-behaved. I had some of the best tutors available in several subjects. And I got to travel to many countries and learn about the world.”
It’s totally okay to use personal examples in an essay. You can use them even in advanced research papers. Your personal experience is valuable. Use it.
Let’s take a look at our second body paragraph in its entirety:
This paragraph contains 98 words of evidence to support the second point.
It’s time for the final body paragraph.
Writing the Lead Sentence
Again, you know what we’ll do. We’ll just copy our third supporting point and tweak and expand it a little:
“They spend more time with their child than anyone else.”
Let’s make sure the reader knows what the real subject is in this sentence. And let’s also expand it just a bit:
“Parents spend more time with their child and have a chance to teach her more than anyone else.”
Great! It’s time for the explanatory part:
Explanation
“In any given week, the child will spend more time with her parents than with anybody else. Studies show that quantity is at least as important as quality when it comes to time spent with a child. Whoever spends more time with a child becomes more influential in her life.”
Again, we won’t be citing any sources here and will keep it simple. This explanation works really well because it provides evidence for the third supporting point.
Let’s be even more specific and write at least one example.
Example
“My parents used to spend a lot of time with me as I was growing up. My mother spent the most time with me. My father took me places on weekends because he worked a lot. As a result, my parents were my greatest influence as a child.”
Again, I’m using a personal example to show that whoever spends the most time with the child will have the most influence.
And let’s take a look at our third body paragraph as a whole:
We have here 116 words of great, general-to-specific content that supports our third point.
As a result, if we look back at what we’ve done, we’ll see that everything we wrote in the body paragraphs supports the main point that parents are the best teachers.
It’s time for the next step.
Step 5. Write the introduction and the conclusion
Introduction
Our introduction will be just one sentence, which is enough.
First, let’s revisit our complete thesis statement. We will write the introductory sentence based on it.
In this paragraph, we go straight to the point, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
However, as we know, most instructors will expect some kind of an introduction. So, we’ll add one sentence before we get to the main point.
This sentence must be more general. We are zooming out a little. Let’s do it:
“People have many influences and teachers as they grow up and often overlook a simple truth.”
And let’s take a look at the full paragraph together with the introduction:
Note that I took out the phrase “for three reasons.” It is unnecessary because it is clear that you are providing three supporting points. And the whole paragraph sounds better this way.
Conclusion
To write the conclusion, we’ll simply reword the thesis statement. We only need to make sure that we don’t sound like we’re just repeating things.
Let’s do it:
“Of all teachers people have in life, parents are the best. They are the first and the most significant influence. They care more than anyone else ever will. And they devote the most time to their children.”
That was not too hard, was it?
It’s time for the final step.
Step 6. Proofread
In this step, we just need to go over our essay, making final edits and corrections. And that’s all.
I hope this tutorial really helps you in your essay writing.
Stay tuned and we’ll talk soon!
Tutor Phil
