What to Write About in an Essay
Writing an essay can be a daunting task if you have just entered high school or college or are new to academic writing. Writing an essay on even a simple topic can prove to be a serious challenge especially if you do not know what to write in your essay. If what to write in an essay is a question you are seeking an answer to, here is good news for you: there’s a lot you can write in your essay as you will see from this article. This article gives you essay writing tips with a focus on the kind of information you can present in your essay or what to write about in an essay. So if what to write in my essay has always been a worry to you, you no longer need to fret.
Before we focus on what to write in an essay, it is important to note that there are different types of essays and essays come with different instructions or set of requirements. This also means that there are limitless essay topics. Although there are different types of essays, most of them have a common general structure; introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion. In addition to these three main essay sections, academic essays commonly have references, which are the sources you referred to when writing your essay. Each of the three main essay sections should contain information that is relevant to the topic or the question that the essay seeks to answer.
As you may well be aware, writing a high quality essay involves a lot of reading, thinking, and bringing together of different pieces of information and ideas. How to write an essay is, therefore, to focus on finding the right information from other sources or by applying critical thinking to choose the right words to write in an essay. The good thing is that you can learn academic writing by getting essay writing ideas and learning the words to write in essay writing. Now let’s focus on what to write in an essay or academic paper.
Although essays may differ by type, topic, and set of requirements, they often contain certain types of contents or information in common. In this section, we highlight some of the information that can be included in different academic papers and that you should consider including in your essay. Important to note is that you may not need to include all these types of information in one academic essay as not all of them will be relevant in all cases.
Read about: Introduction to essay writing
Definitions, Descriptions, and Backgrounds
One of the things you will almost always need to include in your academic essay is definitions. It is a good idea to include the definitions of important constructs in your essay. If you have to present definitions in your essay, be sure to present professional definitions – definitions that have been developed by experts or professionals in the subject or field you are writing on. This means that presenting a definition that you have come up with purely from your own thoughts as a college student non-professional is not be the right direction to go. The definitions you come up with based on your own thoughts may be too narrow, too broad, or may be misleading from a professional point of view.
The need to present professional definitions highlights the need to engage in research from which you will identify relevant definitions. When writing your essay, you will probably need to paraphrase and properly reference the definition that you have obtained from your research. Presenting two or more professional definitions in your essay is acceptable and often welcome. It is a good idea to come up with a definition that merges the ideas presented by different experts in their original definitions. Doing this demonstrates your ability to compare ideas, analyse, and synthesise information, which is one of the things that essay writing is all about.
Another thing that you can write in your essay, which is closely related to definitions, is descriptions. You can describe what something is, how something looks, how something feels like, how something is done, or even how something happened. Your description may also be a statement of the nature of something, its characteristics, applications, advantages, and disadvantages. Moreover, a description may be a statement of what something is not. For example, when describing a sapphire gemstone, one description that you can state is that a sapphire is a corundum of any colour but not red.
Another thing you can write in your essay is historical background. In this regard, you can provide the history of the subject, construct, or concept you are writing on. You can, for example, write when something began and how it has developed over time. A historical background may be closely related to the description of something especially if the subject or thing you are writing on is a historical event.
Find out the important essay writing skills you need to develop to write great essays.
Explanations, Purpose, and Justifications
Yet another thing you can write in your essay is explanation. An explanation is a statement that makes something clear explaining. Explanation comes from the word “explain”. So you can explain something in your essay. An explanation goes deeper than a description in that while a description focuses on what something is, an explanation focuses on answering why something is.
Still asking what to write in my essay? Objectives, aims, goals or purpose of your essay, study, or activity are some of the other things that you can include in your academic essay. For example, you can state in the introduction of your essay that the purpose or aim of your essay is to describe an event or explain why something happens in a certain way.
Another kind of information that you can provide in your essay is justifications. A justification is a statement that serves to show why something is right or reasonable. For example, you can justify your essay by stating why the subject you are writing on is important or stating that there is limited understanding of the subject you are writing on. You can also provide reasons for selecting a topic, method, or for performing a study. Your motivations is also something you can write in an essay. For example, you can write what has driven you to choose the topic you are writing on. In an application essay, you will probably need to write what has motivated you to choose a certain course, university, or career option.
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Arguments, Theories, and Methods
Since essay writing is about bringing together several ideas, you cannot go without making statements or presenting discussions in your essay. Your statements can be in the form of claims, arguments and counter arguments, rebuttals, expert views or opinions, public views or opinions, or facts. You may write other people’s claims or your own claims. The main claim that you make in your essay may translate to your thesis statement. Your statements may also come in the form of logical reasoning, comparisons (compare and contrast), or the findings, results, or conclusions of past research studies. Additionally, they may come in the form of analyses of views, statements, or findings of other people or studies. As you can see, claims, arguments, counterarguments, opinions, and facts are some of the things you can write in your essay.
In your academic paper, you may discuss or highlight such things as processes, theories, models, events, steps involved, methods or methodologies. You may also may also discuss the importance or significance of the study, advantages (pros) and disadvantages (cons) of subjects or objects of interest, and uses or applications of things. Additionally, you can present or discuss controversies surrounding issues or events, critiques, relevant laws/ regulations/ policies and professional guidance. Professional guidance may especially be relevant if your essay is on a subject on human, public, or social health.
Causes, Effects, and Statistics
Causes and effects are some other things you can write in your essay. Cause and effect essays especially require you to focus on the cause and effects of something. You can almost never go wrong by providing examples in your essay. You can use examples to make constructs easier to understand, support your arguments, and make your essay more engaging.
Statistics is another common type of information that you can provide in your academic papers or essays. Statistics or statistical data is information that is presented in the form of numbers. Statistics can help you present complex information in a manner that is easier to understand. Statistics can also show the magnitude or importance of something in a simple yet effective way. Statistics are also useful when you need to present certain facts, analyse certain information and draw logical conclusions. In academic essays, statistics may be presented in the form of numbers, frequencies, percentages, quantities, values, fractions, proportions, correlation coefficients, regression coefficients, significance levels, effect levels, confidence levels, and odds (among others). Here is an example of a statistics in a statement:
Scientists estimate that the earth contains 1.386 billion km3 of water, out of which only about 2.5% is fresh water.
Discussions, Personal Views, and Summaries
Other information that you may include in your academic paper are discussions, personal views, and quotes. You can, for example, discuss the relationships between concepts, things, ideas, or variables. You can also discussion the limitations of your own or other person’s study. In some cases, you may include personal opinions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences in an academic essay. When writing a reflective essay, for example, you are required to write about your personal experiences and feelings. While you may include direct quotes in your essay or paper, it is important to keep these to a minimum as they tend to increase your plagiarism score. A lower plagiarism score is desirable as it portrays that your work is more original.
In your academic essay, you can also provide reviews or summaries of other articles or research works. Your essay may not be complete without signposting, evidence, and references (which may be in the form of in-text citations). Signposting involves telling the reader what to expect in the essay and using words that connect the different ideas of the essay to ensure its logical flow. Some of the words that you can use in your essay to signpost are: first, secondly, after that, therefore, because, additionally, however, in contrast.
An essay is almost never complete without a conclusion. As such, your essay should ideally include a conclusion. In the conclusion section of your essay, you can present a summary of the main points of your essay or the findings and conclusions of your own study. Where relevant, you can present the implications of situations, events, findings, arguments or ideas either as part of your conclusion or within the body of your essay.
Final Words on What to Write in an Essay
Writing an essay can be a difficult task if you do not know what to write in an essay. This article has touched on how to write an essay by covering some of the things that you can write about in an essay. It has answered the questions on what to write in your essay or words to write in an essay. Some of the essay writing tips that emerge from this article are that your essay can include information such as definitions, descriptions, discussion, statistics, and summaries. As you can see, there’s so much you can write about in an essay. You thus no longer need to ask what to write about in an essay.