How Do You Write A Long Essay? Structure Tips

Writing a longer essay is much harder than a five paragraph one.  These kinds of essays require you to start earlier and unlike five paragraph essays, you can’t do these ones last minute. First you want to make sure that you know the requirements of the essay, including word count and format.  Make a schedule for the essay, this will keep you no track and will allow you time if you fall behind.

When you are doing the research for your essay make sure you take good notes and keep track of where you got the information because you will need that later. You should construct your thesis and at least three main points on the topic.  Create an outline of all the information that you have gathered, put in the order it will be in your essay.  This will help you keep all the ideas and facts in order and will make writing this long essay easier.

Structure Tips

1. You introduction and conclusion should only be a paragraph or two depending on the length.  The introduction needs to have you thesis, a great opening sentence, and an introduction on the topic, and a good transition into the body of the essay.  You conclusion should summarize the essay and reinstate your thesis but don’t repeat it.  And it should leave your topic open for further research.
2. The body of your essay should be one to two paragraphs on each of your main points of the essay.  These points have to have good information to back up your topic.  Remember this information is there to support your topic and if you don’t have good facts then you will end up with a less than compelling essay.  These also need to have good opening and closing sentences that transition the reader to the next paragraphs.
3. The last part of your essay is the references and depending on the style you are given, use that to right the proper citations and don’t forget the in text ones as well.
4. Don’t forget after you are done to go back and proofread and edit your work.  Look for holes in your research, things you can elaborate on, spelling and grammatical errors, and the mechanics of the sentences.  It helps if you read it out loud or use the speech feature on your computer.  Hearing your essay read aloud allows you to hear the errors.