How to Write an Essay in College

Throughout college you will need to know how to write an essay. While this may seem like a daunting task to you now, once you get started you will find that it really isn't all that difficult to do. This article will provide you with the steps that you need to write your first college essay.

Whenever you are assigned a college essay to write, you will need to know what to do. Usually this task will consist of 1,000 or more words on a topic that you are assigned. Once you are ready, here are the steps that you will need to follow:


1. Begin by researching the topic. Utilize as many research tools as possible: talk to people about your topic, go to the library, go online and look through both magazines and newspapers.

2. Use note cards for taking your notes. These notes need to be in your own words so that they will be easier to transfer to your rough draft without plagiarizing. Include dates, quotes and examples whenever possible in order to make your essay more credible.

3. Organize your note cards into an outline. Get rid of unnecessary or redundant information.

4. Write an outline. Do not use sentences or punctuation. This is the time to simply get everything down in the order you want to say it in.

5. Write the essay’s rough draft. Your introduction should tell your reader what your paper is about. Then write several paragraphs that include all of the items that you want to talk about. Conclude with a paragraph that summarizes everything that you have stated throughout your paper.

6. Take some time to revise your rough draft. Make sure that the paragraphs are organized and that you stay on topic.

7. Run spell and grammar check to find and correct any errors. You should also have someone else read your paper if at all possible. Human eyes are always better than a computer as they will oftentimes catch a mistake that a computer can't.