Essay writing is some of the most interesting work you’ll ever do as a college student. It’s also some of the most stressful times you’ll spend at college. Whether you’re a talented writer or someone who writes essays to get them out of the way, the amount of work you’ll have to put in cannot be understated.
According to published findings, 60% of students experience overwhelming anxiety, with over 40% going through crippling bouts of depression. College assignments are a demanding part of academic life and not everyone deals with them easily.
However, by understanding some of the essay writing trends which are popular around the world, you can make your academic life a bit easier. Here’s what you need to know about essay writing trends and how they can help you make ends meet.
1. Using the Right Essay Writing Structure
Each essay writing assignment you work on will be unique. It’s important to understand the different types of essay writing structures so that you can pinpoint which one is best suited to your current task. Misjudging which structure to use can make your work more difficult for no reason. Here are the four basic types of academic essay writing:
- Descriptive writing – presents simple and verifiable facts to the reader
- Analytical writing – Analyze a certain topic or phenomenon for the reader
- Persuasive writing – Persuade the reader with your point of view on a topic
- Critical writing – Similar to persuasive, with the added caveat of “critiquing” something
If you’re unsure of which essay structure to use, you can discuss it with your professor or college friends before starting. Over time, however, you’ll be able to determine which structure to rely on for your writing moving forward.
2. Emphasis on Original Content
Academic writing must always be original, no matter how trivial an assignment might be. Whether you write an essay or work on a case study about something extraordinary like the Instagram spy app, you’ll need to make your topic unique and original. Beyond that, you’ll need to make sure that your writing doesn’t contain any plagiarism whatsoever.
Plagiarism is the bane of academic writing and you don’t want to be caught with plagiarized content in your essays and papers. To avoid plagiarism, you can write your essays and other papers with the help of other published works and research papers that you’ll cite as sources. Or, you can use online plagiarism tools to make sure that your essays are not plagiarized.
Don’t fall into the trap of handing in unverified writing to your professor only for them to tell you it’s been plagiarized. You’ll have a difficult time explaining how it happened without failing the course or receiving a poor degree regardless of the paper’s quality.
3. Quality Over Length in Essay Writing
When it comes to essay length, it’s important to understand the format of the paper you’re writing. Essays are not research papers – they shouldn’t overstay their welcome. Instead of trying to impress your professor with dozens of pages of writing, try to truncate your thoughts.
Say more with fewer sentences and try to be as constructive and succinct as possible. This will give you an edge over other students who might struggle with doing the same. Most professors will also assign certain word count restrictions from the get-go, limiting how much you can write from the start.
Essays are the simplest form of academic writing but they are in no way less demanding than other types of papers. Treat them with equal care and attention as any other paper you’ll write and you won’t run into issues with length or clarity.
4. Properly Formatting and Proofreading the Essay
Making sure that your essay is legible and scannable is very important. Regardless of how good your writing is, it’s important that your essay also looks good at a glance.
This will make it more approachable to both academic and general readers, not to mention improving your overall grade. Once you’re done writing the essay, read it again to find proofreading and grammar mistakes. Fix any mistakes you’ve made, both grammatically and stylistically, before handing the essay in.
The same applies to your sentence structure and formatting of the overall paper. Keep your paragraphs short and don’t be afraid to use subheadings, italics, bolds, lists, and other elements to break up the text. This will further improve your essay’s readability and help you write a much better paper as a result.
5. Getting Professional Writing Help
Academic life is more complex than ever before. You have more options for extracurricular activities, semesters abroad, and other opportunities than any generation before you. This makes it hard for students to focus on their essay writing and ignore all other opportunities to grow.
Instead, you can use the help of a professional writer from a reliable writing service to get everything done on time. You can check out trust my paper reviews to find a suitable writer who will help you with your essays while you tend to other academic assignments or projects. This is a great way for you to use digital technology to your benefit and get even more things done in the same amount of time.
Using Essay Writing Trends to your Advantage
By familiarizing yourself with these and similar essay writing trends, you’ll be able to take back control over your academic assignments. While academic life can get overwhelming at times, it’s important to remember why you applied for college in the first place.
The work you’ve put into getting a degree will pay off in spades once you’re out there on the job market. Keep the bigger picture in your mind as you tackle your essays, papers, and projects and it’ll all be worth it in the end.
