how to write a professional essay

how to write a professional essay

A Comprehensive Guide to Writing Professional Essays

1. Introduction to Professional Essay Writing

The remaining paragraphs are often carbon copies of the reading with the cited source text followed by the student’s opinion. This is simply unacceptable. Professional papers are fact-filled and formatted works written to persuade a professional group. That is not our objective. We desire a dialogue. Because the two assignment types are similar in that both require a comprehensive understanding of the material, the discussions fall under the essay heading and, therefore, fall under the professional adjective omission.

Style of Writing: 1. “Professional” should be omitted from the grammar because it is understood that students are writing to and for individuals involved in the discussion, e.g. professionals. Note, however, that the discussion contributions are not essays or papers. There is no title or opening paragraph. Rather, the dialogue is the essay – its first paragraph consists of an introduction to the issue. Subsequent paragraphs cover the various issues that were raised in the paper. These issues are not presented in sequential order. Far too often, the submissions follow the essay template exactly.

The essays we will write are not case studies, nor are they pieces of literature. Rather, our essays will be concise presentations of the issues that were previously discussed in the reading and classroom.

Aim: 1. The purpose of this guide is to provide a crash course in the most common writing techniques and receive constructive feedback. This guide is not designed to allow participants to become professional writers overnight. It is meant to put potential participants on the path to professional writing.

2. Structuring Your Essay

The rule of three dictates that you always need to end your introduction with your thesis statement. Since it is the most important part of your essay, your thesis statement is critically important. No details need to be included of the three main arguments in your thesis. The thesis statement establishes for the reader the three most important ideas that will develop in the three body paragraphs. Each kind of essay will have a different conclusion that is based on the instructions an assignment you are given. Your essays will be structured uniquely but in general, there is nothing less than an introduction with a thesis statement, three body paragraphs that develop and support the thesis, and a conclusion. Your essay is only as strong as your structure.

Having learned the thinking process that goes into creating great essays, the next chapter will guide you through the process of structuring your essays to meet your specific types of instruction assignment. As you will learn, the structure of the essay is how the essay is presented to the reader. We will discuss that, primarily, the line of reasoning established in the paper, the credibility of your sources, and the organization and development that will be necessary to make the best presentation. By following a step-by-step model for writing, you will be able to learn the steps involved in writing a great essay.

3. Research and Gathering Evidence

1. Importance of writing an essay 2. Understand the question 3. Research and gathering evidence 4. Style and punctuation 5. Revising the essay required

More often than not, students in college and university will be required to write essays for their different courses across all realms. Often, students are requested to write an impressive essay that scores the best grades to fulfill their course’s expectations. For this purpose, the student needs to gain knowledge and experience writing various essays for quite some time. It is important for students to organize themselves and be ready to complete any essay assignment at any time. An academic essay must be organized, with arguments being explained and instances part of the text to underline claims. The points presented inside the essay must follow a logical organization, with any introduction presenting the main theme.

4. Writing and Revising Your Essay

Remember that your return on time invested for this step is high: for every editing hour you invest, your grade will probably increase. After preparing a rough draft, you are in the best shape to edit your document. At this stage, you have the big picture, and you know what you wanted to say. You should rework your rough draft in this manner, aim at the following quality control objectives. Choose a rap over the knuckles for your work. Then, ask someone else to do the same. Your paper may contain many narrative errors (unity, coherence, transitions, clarity, conciseness) that are hard for you to spot because you won’t expect them. Use word processing tools judiciously to catch the most flagrant typos and grammatical errors, but beware of false alarms. Finally, make a last judgment call. Have someone else look at and critique your paper. If you disagree with certain points, decide for yourself whether the fault lay in their reading eye or in your writing hand.

The key to creating professional essays is to revise your work tirelessly. Experts advise this to students, and professionals recommend it to other professionals. After all, good writing – be it a letter to a colleague or a pressing argument – requires a clear message and persuasive style. The writing and revising process is not just a matter of catching typos, grammatical errors, and logical missteps. Of course, you will have to do all that, and you will need to review your paper carefully to accomplish it. Yet there is much to do before you get to that stage. You will need to assemble your evidence, craft clear and concise introductory and topic sentences, and create smooth transitions to tie your claims together. A good original draft will help you avoid many mistakes and save you time in the long run.

5. Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism

University students can use spelling and grammar correction tools to check their papers and may also find plagiarism checkers or apps very useful to make sure their paper uses their own language. Non-students can use the plagiarism-avoiding editing functions in professional software such as the latest MS Word version. Remember that using the ideas, images or even purchased pre-written papers created by others without authorization, giving proper credit to the authors or paying for the work are forms of cheating and considered plagiarism. If you are caught plagiarising, you may receive an F or worse.

Both the three formatting styles mentioned above provide guidelines on how to reference different types of publications such as books, book chapters, journal articles, webcasts, blogs and many other sources you may use. Due to copyright restrictions, let us give only the basic rules here and not reproduce the whole of a citation guide page. According to APA, a source can be cited often in the following way: a. When referencing or summarizing the work of a single author, provide the author’s surname and the year of publication; b. When referencing or summarizing the work of two authors, provide the authors’ surnames, joined by “and” or “&”; c. in case of three to five authors, provide all the authors’ surnames the first time a source is cited; later only the surname preceded by “et al.” should be indicated (first author et al., year); d. in case of more than six authors, give only the first author’s surname and et al.; e. When directly quoting a source that has fewer than 40 words, provide both the author’s surname and the publication year; f. in this case, provide the page number preceded by “p.” after the author’s name if the quote comes from a page or a group of pages; (Data on how to cite references with 2 to 6 authors, in press references, etc. can be found at).

In the real world, ideas do not take place in a vacuum. We wrote much of this guide based on other people’s work, but we did not steal the work of others. To reference the great work of others, give credit where credit is due and build your credibility, papers typically require citations inside the text. The most well-known and widely accepted citation and formatting styles are: APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Languages Association), and Chicago, although we will focus only on one here.