How to Nail your School Essays
Not to brag, but I’m kind of a big deal when it comes to essays at my school. Since I started highschool I haven’t received a grade less than 90% on an essay—so I’m here to share my secret. This works for the classic essay, but you can also use the same advice and fit it to formal reports or other academic writing.
1. Your essay is about 2 things, demonstrated 3 or more times
This is how I’ve always thought about essays. They’re about two ideas, demonstrated as many times as you need to fill the wordcount. Shakespeare + Feminism, Media + Truth versus Misconception, etc. etc. If you’re lucky, your teacher or prof will give you one of your elements. You’ll get assignments like, “write an essay about Hamlet” or “write an essay about the American dream” lucky you, that’s your first thing—now you need to connect it with another.
This connecting idea is my favourite part because you just get to choose a concept or idea you’re interested in. Here’s a tip, if your first/given topic is something concrete, choose an abstract connecting idea. If your given topic is something abstract, choose a concrete.
So, Hamlet (concrete) could be paired with any abstract concept: Loyalty, Truth, Feminism, etc.
However, if your prof gives you something like, “truth” or “race theory”, you’ll find it much easier to connect that with a more concrete thing, like a book, movie, or other piece of media, or even a specific person.
If you are luckiest, your prof will give you both things, “write about the American Dream in The Great Gatsby” in this case, you’re onto the next stage.
Tried, tested, true. Nothing wrong with a formula, especially not when it gives you A+ grades. Typical essay structure is:
2a. Evidence that proves it 1
2i. Justify its relevance
2b. Evidence that proves it 2
2ii. Justify its relevance
3a. Evidence that proves it
4a. Rise and repeat, you know where this is going.
Thesis completely outlines all your points, or the three+ places you’re demonstrating your connection, and why it matters.
Here is an intro + thesis I wrote a couple years ago:
“This literature review will explore the impacts influencer marketing has on the children that regularly consume social media content. Specifically, this review will focus on how influencers can impact children’s brand preferences, dietary choices, and lastly, the influx of children taking advantage of this system and becoming influencers themselves.”
“Burned discusses the human aspect of sex work and reverses reader’s expectations on sex workers, while Not in My Neighbourhood discusses prostitutes as victims of a system created against them. Both challenge readers’ perceptions of sex workers, effectively drawing attention to the ethics of displacing sex workers from their cities.”
So you have your connection (children and social media)/(Burned and Not in My Neighbourhood and sex work), and the different ways you plan on exploring or proving that idea (children’s brand preferences, dietary choices, children becoming influencers.) etc.
You may also have a more specific stance in your thesis. Such as, “In Macbeth, ambition is shown to be Macbeth’s ultimate downfall in these three ways.”
You start out every body paragraph with the point of the paragraph, or what it’s aiming to prove. Such as, “Influencers often include advertisements within their content, which can encourage children to feel more amiably to certain brands their favourite content creators endorse frequently more than others.”
After this claim, you spend the rest of the paragraph further proving it through examples. This will look like citing a specific source (a book, academic journal, quote, etc.) such as, “The authors claim likeable influencers can associate their likeability with the products they use, influencing children’s perception of brands, referred to as ‘meaning transfer’ (De Veirman et al. 2019)” (super important to always cite these sources!)
The last part is after each example/proof--you need to justify why this proves your point/is important. So, “This proves children are more influenced towards certain products depending on how close of a relationship they perceive to have with the influencer.”
Typically, your evidence will all lead into each other so you can transition to the next piece of proof, then the justification, rinse and repeat until you’re finished your paragraph. You can have as many pieces of evidence as you want per paragraph, and the longer your word requirement, the more you’ll want to fit into each point (or the more bodies you want to have.)
Piece of evidence + why it matters, rinse and repeat.
This is a small paragraph just before your conclusion where you anticipate an argument your readers may have, and disprove it. So, for example, you’d start with, “Some may argue that with parent supervision, the impacts of influencers on children could be lessened or moot. However…” and then explain why they’re wrong. This strengthens your argument, and proves that you’ve really thought out your stance.
Lastly, you want to sum up all the conclusions you came to in a few sentences. Your last line is one of the most important (in my opinion). I call it the mic drop moment. Leaving a lasting impact on your reader can bring your essay from an A to an A+, so you really want to nail this final sentence.
My final sentence was, “Ultimately, it is hard to know in advance how technology and social media will impact the development of children who have always grown up with some form of screen, but until they grow up, parents and caregivers need to take care in the content their children consume, and their very possible exploitation online.”
This sentence is backed by the entirety of the essay that came before it, and usually leaves a little something to chew on for the readers.
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