university english essay

Essay and dissertation writing skills

Planning your essay

Writing your introduction

Structuring your essay

• Writing essays in science subjects
• Brief video guides to support essay planning and writing
• Writing extended essays and dissertations
• Planning your dissertation writing time

Structuring your dissertation

• Top tips for writing longer pieces of work

Advice on planning and writing essays and dissertations

University essays differ from school essays in that they are less concerned with what you know and more concerned with how you construct an argument to answer the question. This means that the starting point for writing a strong essay is to first unpick the question and to then use this to plan your essay before you start putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard).

A really good starting point for you are these short, downloadable Tips for Successful Essay Writing and Answering the Question resources. Both resources will help you to plan your essay, as well as giving you guidance on how to distinguish between different sorts of essay questions. 

You may find it helpful to watch this seven-minute video on six tips for essay writing which outlines how to interpret essay questions, as well as giving advice on planning and structuring your writing:

Different disciplines will have different expectations for essay structure and you should always refer to your Faculty or Department student handbook or course Canvas site for more specific guidance.

However, broadly speaking, all essays share the following features:

Essays need an introduction to establish and focus the parameters of the discussion that will follow. You may find it helpful to divide the introduction into areas to demonstrate your breadth and engagement with the essay question. You might define specific terms in the introduction to show your engagement with the essay question; for example, ‘This is a large topic which has been variously discussed by many scientists and commentators. The principle tension is between the views of X and Y who define the main issues as…’ Breadth might be demonstrated by showing the range of viewpoints from which the essay question could be considered; for example, ‘A variety of factors including economic, social and political, influence A and B. This essay will focus on the social and economic aspects, with particular emphasis on…..’

Watch this two-minute video to learn more about how to plan and structure an introduction:

The main body of the essay should elaborate on the issues raised in the introduction and develop an argument(s) that answers the question. It should consist of a number of self-contained paragraphs each of which makes a specific point and provides some form of evidence to support the argument being made. Remember that a clear argument requires that each paragraph explicitly relates back to the essay question or the developing argument.

• Conclusion: An essay should end with a conclusion that reiterates the argument in light of the evidence you have provided; you shouldn’t use the conclusion to introduce new information.
• References: You need to include references to the materials you’ve used to write your essay. These might be in the form of footnotes, in-text citations, or a bibliography at the end. Different systems exist for citing references and different disciplines will use various approaches to citation. Ask your tutor which method(s) you should be using for your essay and also consult your Department or Faculty webpages for specific guidance in your discipline. 

Essay writing in science subjects

If you are writing an essay for a science subject you may need to consider additional areas, such as how to present data or diagrams. This five-minute video gives you some advice on how to approach your reading list, planning which information to include in your answer and how to write for your scientific audience – the video is available here:

A PDF providing further guidance on writing science essays for tutorials is available to download.

Short videos to support your essay writing skills

There are many other resources at Oxford that can help support your essay writing skills and if you are short on time, the Oxford Study Skills Centre has produced a number of short (2-minute) videos covering different aspects of essay writing, including:

• Approaching different types of essay questions  
• Structuring your essay  
• Writing an introduction  
• Making use of evidence in your essay writing  
• Writing your conclusion

Extended essays and dissertations

Longer pieces of writing like extended essays and dissertations may seem like quite a challenge from your regular essay writing. The important point is to start with a plan and to focus on what the question is asking. A PDF providing further guidance on planning Humanities and Social Science dissertations is available to download.

Planning your time effectively

Try not to leave the writing until close to your deadline, instead start as soon as you have some ideas to put down onto paper. Your early drafts may never end up in the final work, but the work of committing your ideas to paper helps to formulate not only your ideas, but the method of structuring your writing to read well and conclude firmly.

Although many students and tutors will say that the introduction is often written last, it is a good idea to begin to think about what will go into it early on. For example, the first draft of your introduction should set out your argument, the information you have, and your methods, and it should give a structure to the chapters and sections you will write. Your introduction will probably change as time goes on but it will stand as a guide to your entire extended essay or dissertation and it will help you to keep focused.

The structure of  extended essays or dissertations will vary depending on the question and discipline, but may include some or all of the following:

• The background information to - and context for - your research. This often takes the form of a literature review.
• Explanation of the focus of your work.
• Explanation of the value of this work to scholarship on the topic.
• List of the aims and objectives of the work and also the issues which will not be covered because they are outside its scope.

The main body of your extended essay or dissertation will probably include your methodology, the results of research, and your argument(s) based on your findings.

The conclusion is to summarise the value your research has added to the topic, and any further lines of research you would undertake given more time or resources. 

Tips on writing longer pieces of work

Approaching each chapter of a dissertation as a shorter essay can make the task of writing a dissertation seem less overwhelming. Each chapter will have an introduction, a main body where the argument is developed and substantiated with evidence, and a conclusion to tie things together. Unlike in a regular essay, chapter conclusions may also introduce the chapter that will follow, indicating how the chapters are connected to one another and how the argument will develop through your dissertation.

For further guidance, watch this two-minute video on writing longer pieces of work . 

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• Peterborough

Writing the English Essay

Understanding the english essay.

• Understanding The English Essay
• Developing a Topic and Thesis for an English Essay
• Drafting the English Essay
• Using Secondary Sources in an English Essay
• Glossary of Common Formal Elements of Literature
• Documenting Sources in MLA Style (Modern Languages Association)

What is an English Essay?

The formal elements of literary works, considering theme, considering the formal elements and theme.

An English essay is an organized and analytical discussion and interpretation of a work or works of literature in English. There are many approaches to writing the English essay, but most start with you closely and actively reading, responding to and thinking about the text(s) being written about. You, the reader and essay writer, must ask and try to answer questions about what the work means, how it makes meaning, and how the author’s choices affect meaning. An English essay is built around what the essay writer thinks about the text(s), and the most important evidence and support in the essay will come from the texts themselves. Many English essays, then, are not research essays and require no use of secondary sources.

There are many approaches to the study of literature. We can

• consider the work in relation to its background or in relation to its author or its original readers or viewers
• think about and reflect on the themes in the work
• consider how the work is constructed and how it creates the effects it does
• read from a particular theoretical perspective
• examine the work in terms of its genre.

When we write an English essay, we, can approach the work or works in different ways. We might

• consider what the work means
• consider why the author made a particular choice
• consider what the central theme(s) of the work are
• analyze how parts of the work relate to the theme or themes
• consider the "craft" of the author (the author's use of language).

Many English essays analyze how the formal elements of a literary text work together to create meaning or affect the reader. The term formal element is used here to refer to the different techniques and tools writers have at their disposal. Essay writers must pay attention to the ways authors can arrange and pattern words, their medium, to create effect.

Often the essay topics assigned by professors focus on these formal elements; for example

• “What is the relationship between setting and character in 'The Painted Door'?"
• “How does the imagery of 'The Waste Land' contribute to our understanding of its themes?”

For a helpful explanation of the most common formal elements you will encounter in a literature course, see the Glossary of Formal Elements.

When an essay focuses on a literary work’s theme or themes, it is focusing on the major or central ideas that the work seems to be considering or expressing. The assumption is that a work of literature is about ideas and preoccupations of the “real world,” and through its story, plot, characterization and formal elements, it not only entertains but is saying something meaningful and important about central preoccupations all people share: Love, Duty, Right, Wrong, Justice, Friendship, Death, God etc. Literary works may also be thematically concerned with political, social, religious and psychological concerns of the work's particular place and time.

English essays often seek to uncover and clarify what the major themes in a text are and what the writer seems to be saying about them. When we study and write about a literary work, we may study it for theme, but we must also look at how a work's themes are being expressed and conveyed with the tools, the formal elements, unique to literature and the particular literary genre or form.

Remember, writers love words and what they can do with them. In a literary work, the words have been chosen and arranged to make meaning, create effect, and to make you feel, think, and interpret. The best English essays never forget that the plot, characters, setting etc do not really exist but have been created by the writer using words arranged in certain ways and using all the tools at their disposal (the formal elements) to create effect and express meaning (themes).

Other English essays have an even broader focus than the formal elements of a particular work in relation to its theme or themes. They may focus on the relationship among works by an author, or the relationships between the author’s life and work or the political, historical, or social context of the work(s).

It is important to be aware of what you are doing or what your assigned topic is asking you to do. If your topic’s focus is on the formal elements of a work or its theme(s), your primary, perhaps only, source will be the work; for essays with a broader focus, secondary sources may be necessary.

• Tips for Reading an Assignment Prompt
• Asking Analytical Questions
• Introductions
• What Do Introductions Across the Disciplines Have in Common?
• Anatomy of a Body Paragraph
• Transitions
• Tips for Organizing Your Essay
• Counterargument
• Conclusions
• Strategies for Essay Writing: Downloadable PDFs
• Brief Guides to Writing in the Disciplines

English for Uni

Essay Writing

Ms parrot: essay chef.

View the video, then try the essay exercises to test your knowledge! Watch the whole story, or see sections of the story below. All the videos have captions that you can view on YouTube.

View the video on the Chinese site youku .

View the individual video chapters

To view the individual chapters of the above video, you can either click the 'PLAYLIST' menu item in the above YouTube video and select the chapter from there, or, you can click one of the links below and view the individual video on YouTube.

• Essay Chef - Introduction
• Essay Chef - The cooking show
• Essay Chef - Teaching
• Exercise 1: Introductions
• Exercise 2: Conclusions
• Exercise 3: Voice
• Exercise 4: Paraphrasing
• Exercise 5: Referencing
• Exercise 6: Academic Integrity

Download the transcript of the video or download the exercises in PDF format or as a Word document .

Essays in different academic cultures Teachers' notes

Essay structure

Essays help you discover more about a topic and write a reasoned analysis of the issues in question, using a range of external sources to support your position.

An essay is a highly structured piece of writing with follow a typical pattern:

Writing a good essay can be compared to baking a cake—if you do not mix the right ingredients in the right quantities or order, and do not follow the required processes, then the end result will not be what you hoped for! There is no set model for an essay, but the English for Uni website presents one popular way to do it. The following example is based around a 1000 word discussion essay. To read about essays in greater detail, download this PDF or Word document .

Topic/title

It is important for you to analyse your topic and title very carefully in order to understand the specific aim of the question. To do this, you need to break down the question. Most essay questions will contain these three elements:

Content/Topic words give the subject of the essay. Limiting/Focus words provide a narrower scope for the essay. Directive or Instructional words tell you how to approach the essay. Look at these sample essay titles from A) Economics and B) Nutrition:

In example B, answering the question fully involves looking closely at the directive word Discuss and analysing its exact meaning.

Discuss: Present various points and consider the different sides. A discussion is usually longer than an explanation, as you need to present evidence and state which argument is more persuasive.

So, in your essay entitled:

“Chocolate is a healthy food”. Discuss.”

you would need to:

• consider a number of points in relation to the title
• balance your points between supporting and opposing positions
• consider which of the positions is the most persuasive and explain why

You also need to consider the length of your essay. In a 2000 word essay you can cover more points than in a 1000 word one! This example is based on a 1000 word essay.

In relation to Content words your focus is clear: chocolate!

In relation to Limiting words, you need to consider what healthy food actually means. A good way to expand your vocabulary is to look at the Academic Word List (developed by Averil Coxhead at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand). The uefap website also has very useful lists of words found in particular subjects, such as mathematics, business and health science.

Directive or Instructional words

There are a number of directive words, or instructional words as they are sometimes called, which  tell you what to do in your essay. Some common directive words include:

Brainstorming

Brainstorming means producing ideas related to a theme. You can write the ideas down in any order.

Here is a possible brainstorm for the chocolate essay, done in the form of a mind map:

Text description of the above image.

Note that the central focus (the essay question) has several boxes linked to it which represent the writer’s first ideas. Other boxes area then added. A brainstorm like this is organic; it does not necessarily stop growing. You can add, remove or reorganise it as you wish. If you like to put more system into your brainstorm, use a step-based model such as the following:

Step 1 Time yourself for the first draft of your mind map Set a fixed time for this drafting from your base topic/question and stick to it.

Step 2 Look critically at your draft Which ideas could you develop or remove? Is there a balance of ideas?

Step 3 Think about ordering Which issues might you tackle first in your essay and why?

Step 4 Anticipate readers’ needs Are there any words and/or phrases that might need explaining? If so, when is the best time in the essay to do this?

Step 5 Move Reflect upon your brainstorming. Once you are happy with your brainstorm you can use it to plan your essay.

Researching for your essay

Once you have done some brainstorming, it’s time to get researching!

Remember that an academic essay requires academic sources.

Finding what you want takes time and effort. The best place to start (assuming you haven’t already been given a prescribed reading list!) is by using an academic database. If you are not sure how to use a database, then book an appointment with your subject librarian at your institution.

Another option is to use an internet academic search engine such as Google Scholar. N.B. Make sure you are logged in to the library at your educational institution, so that you can use the full database capacities linked to Google Scholar.

You need to enter keywords to begin with. For the chocolate essay, one of the first associations we thought of was chocolate and mood. If we enter these words into Google Scholar it will look like this:

This will take you to a webpage which lists a number of relevant articles, like this:

The first two articles have been cited 90 times and 103 times respectively, suggesting that they might be good sources for your essay. The links to the right indicate that you can access the articles through your university website.

If you think an article looks promising, click on the link and look at the abstract:

Read the abstract and ask yourself if the content of the article is likely to be relevant to your essay.

a) If yes, click on the PDF. This will take you to the full article which you can then skim read quickly to decide if it is relevant. b) If no, then you have a choice. Either click on the links to other related articles or go back to Google Scholar and then choose another article to skim read.

If you do not find what you are looking for, then you need to change your keywords search.

When you have found what you think might be useful, make a note in your plan at the appropriate place.

Do the same thing for all the points that need academic references to support them.

Remember that during your research you might discover new issues and perspectives that you hadn’t considered before, so your original plan might be quite different from the final one!

Planning your essay

Once you have brainstormed your ideas and done some initial research, start putting them into a logical order as part of the essay planning process. Brainstorming helps you to see what you know about the topic. Researching will give you more depth. Brainstorming, researching and planning are cyclical, which means that each process helps the other processes and you might want to do each process more than once.

Here is the brainstorm for the chocolate essay again, which you can use to develop the planning process:

Read the text version of the brainstorming mind map .

Planning or a plan?

In the first instance, it is important to distinguish between planning and a plan . Planning is an ongoing process, from when you receive the essay title to when you submit your final draft. A plan is a physical outline of the way you intend to conceptualise, structure and present your ideas.

Plans can be structured/restructured at any time during the planning process.

At this point it is time to write your first plan. However, do not stop doing research yet. Why not?

Remember that a plan is just that—a plan. It can be modified after you do more research; you might discover some different perspectives or issues you hadn’t previously anticipated.

Example: Developing an essay plan after research (linear style)

Title:  “Chocolate is a healthy food.” Discuss.

Introduction Context for paper – popularity of chocolate. Issue – whether chocolate is a healthy food is questionable. Thesis – chocolate may be enjoyable but not healthy. Scope – (only 4 aspects are covered here to keep the example short)

Main body Paragraph 1 with possible sources Ways in which chocolate can impact positively on mood. ‘Feel good effect’ - Parker, Parker and Brotchie (2006), Scholey and Owen (2013), Macht and Dettmer (2006) and Macht and Mueller (2007).

Is the chocolate and improved mood scenario measurable/transient? Parker, Parker and Brotchie (2006) – chocolate mood effects do not last. Macht and Dettmer (2006) – anticipation effect and more studies needed.

Paragraph 2 Possible benefits of chocolate on cardiovascular health – how much/what type(s) of chocolate have benefit? (Sources needed to help answer these questions.) Problems with measuring correlation between chocolate consumption and cardiovascular health. (Sources needed to help answer this.)

Paragraph 3 Chocolate best viewed as a food or a drug? Indulgence or addiction – are the boundaries unclear? (See what external sources have to say on this) Medication elements of chocolate? (Readings needed around this issue.)

Paragraph 4 The correlation between chocolate and obesity. (Definition of obesity needed.) What does the literature say in relation to other causal factors?

Conclusion Summary of four arguments presented. Chocolate is not a healthy food, but it is enjoyable nevertheless.

Example: Developed essay plan (linear style)

Main body Paragraph 1 Ways in which chocolate can impact positively on mood. ‘Feel good effect’-Parker, Parker and Brotchie (2006), Scholey and Owen (2013), Macht and Dettmer (2006) and Macht and Mueller (2007)

Is the chocolate and improved mood scenario measurable/transient? Parker, Parker and Brotchie (2006) chocolate mood effects do not last. Macht and Dettmer (2006) – anticipation effect and more studies needed.

Paragraph 2 Possible benefits of chocolate on cardiovascular health – how much/what type(s) of chocolate have benefit? Can provide heart-friendly flavanols (Hannum, Schmitz, & Keen, 2002) – helps with blood clotting and is anti-inflammatory (Schramm et al., 2001) Maximising benefits of chocolate lies in minimising fat levels (Hannum, Schmitz, & Keen, 2002). Current processes destroy flavanols (Hannum, Schmitz, & Keen, 2002). Note the change of focus from the original idea (correlation between chocolate consumption and cardiovascular health) due to the lack of research data available.

Paragraph 3 Chocolate best viewed as a food or a drug? Indulgence or addiction – are the boundaries unclear? Chocolate contains some biologically active ingredients, but in small amounts (Bruinsma & Taren, 1999). ‘Chocolate addicts’ – negative correlation: chocolate consumption and mood (Macdiramid & Hetherington, 1995) but chocolate cravings sensory rather than addictive (Bruinsma & Taren,1999). Medication elements of chocolate? Used in relation to magnesium deficiency in women (Pennington, 2000 in Steinberg et al., 2003). Findings concur with Abraham and Lubran (1981) who found a correlation between magnesium deficiency and nervous tension in women. Note the narrow focus of medical benefits (i.e. only considering magnesium) due to the short length of the essay.

Paragraph 4 The correlation between chocolate and obesity. No specific correlation found in literature (Beckett, 2008; Lambert, 2009). Note the findings show that there is no clear relationship between chocolate and obesity – an issue flagged in the introduction. Typified by Mellor’s (2013) findings – adults showed no weight increase after chocolate controlled diet. Lambert (2009) exemplified that chocolate consumption alone unlikely to precipitate obesity. ‘Chocoholic’ more likely to consume other sweet foods and less likely to exercise as much as others. Chocolate consumption thus marginal in causes of obesity.

Conclusion Summary of four arguments presented Chocolate is not a healthy food, but it is enjoyable nevertheless.

Writing your conclusion

It might seem strange to think about writing your conclusion before you write the body of your essay, but unless you know where you are going you can easily lose direction. Also, the conclusion is the last thing the reader actually reads, so it needs to be memorable.

There are a number of questions you should ask yourself, such as:

How will everything finish? What are you aiming for? What final impression do you want your readers to have?

Your conclusion ties your essay together. It should normally:

• Begin with a link to the preceding paragraph.
• Restate your thesis and summarise your principal points.
• End with a broad statement relating to the significance of your argument.

So, our chocolate essay conclusion should mirror this pattern.

The conclusion should not just repeat the ideas from the introduction. The introduction includes the background to the essay, the important issues and a thesis statement. The introduction leads your reader into the essay. The conclusion reminds your reader of the main points made in your essay and leaves your reader with a final impression and ideas to think about later.

Chocolate essay conclusion

The following conclusion has three parts.

(A) The first sentence links the conclusion to the discussion in the previous paragraph. (B) The following sentences restate the main points and reaffirm the thesis. (C) The last sentence is a broad statement relating to the significance of the argument.

(A) Obesity and chocolate consumption seemingly have no proven correlations. (B) Yet, in this essay, many chocolate focused arguments have been presented, including the transient effect of chocolate on mood and evidence that it is as likely to create feelings of guilt as of well-being.  Another possible positive dimension to chocolate is a correlation with cardiovascular health. Yet the potential benefits of flavanols in chocolate are currently offset by the high fat/carbohydrate content of most forms of chocolate. Whether chocolate is a food or a drug is also unclear. The literature outlines the chemical properties of chocolate which could help explain some addictive type behaviour, particularly in regards to nervous tension in women, but also there is a strong research focus on chocolate as a sensory-based indulgence. (C) It can therefore be said that chocolate is not a healthy food, but can be enjoyed as part of a healthy and balanced diet and lifestyle.

Writing the body paragraphs

At the heart of your essay lie your body paragraphs. Typically, a body paragraph will follow the format below.

N.B. Paragraphs should be balanced – keep to the ‘no less than 3 sentences per paragraph’ rule.

Remember to link all the points in your paragraph to the idea in the topic sentence. One way to check if you have done this is to write keywords in the margin for each sentence. If your keywords are related to the topic sentence, your paragraph is good. If there are ideas that are not related, you should remove them.

In the following example, the unrelated ideas are highlighted in red:

These unrelated ideas can be removed to make a more coherent paragraph:

It has been claimed that chocolate is a healthy food, but in fact it contains a lot of sugar, which can be unhealthy. For example, sugar can cause tooth decay, which can lead to dental problems in later life. Too much sugar can also lead to obesity, which is a serious health risk. In addition, sugar contains a high amount of fructose, which is bad for the liver. The amount of sugar contained in chocolate means, therefore, that chocolate, particularly milk and white chocolate, may not be healthy.

You can then add examples and references to make your paragraph stronger.

Here is an example:

View the text description of the above body paragraph example .

Writing your introduction

Once you have drafted your main body paragraphs and your conclusion, it is time to draft your introduction.

Writing your introduction last means you are more likely to have a tighter fit between the introduction, main body and conclusion because you already know what your essay will be about.

Let us have another look at the functions of an introduction:

B ackground statement — where you set the context for your essay I ssue(s) — where you outline the specific issues that are relevant to your essay. T hesis — where you state your position in relation to the issues. S cope — where you outline what exactly is going to be covered in relation to your argument.

The thesis and scope are sometimes combined to form one or more sentences known as a thesis statement . The thesis statement often comes at the end of the introduction, although it can be written earlier.

Sometimes an essay will begin with a direct quote to draw readers into the essay.

Sometimes, particularly in very short essays, the essay will begin with an issue rather than a background statement.

Essays also sometimes begin with an issue, outline the scope and then move on to end the introduction with the thesis statement.

It is important to remember that there is not a fixed ordering for the introduction, though the BITS/BIST patterning is a very common one, which is why it is modelled for you as an example.

Example introduction

“Chocolate is a healthy food”. Discuss.

Writing references for your essay

When you are writing an essay you will need to include references to external academic sources.

Why do you need to reference?

• To show respect for other people's ideas and work
• To clearly identify information coming from another source
• To distinguish an external source from your interpretation or your own findings
• To support your own arguments, thus giving you more credibility
• To show evidence of wide (and understood) reading
• To avoid being accused of plagiarism, which includes copying another’s work, paraphrasing or summarising without acknowledgement, colluding with others and presenting either identical or very similar essays

What does referencing include?

A. In-text citations, which can take three forms:

• Paraphrasing, where you keep the original author’s ideas intact, but just change the wording
• Summarising, where you summarise the whole of the author’s work, rather than one particular aspect
• Direct quoting, where you take a word-for-word copy of a short extract from the original author’s work, and include it in your essay, making use of quotation marks and page number
• All of these need a reference in the text.

B. A reference list at the end of your essay, which includes details such as:

• Date of publication
• Publisher and place of publication (for books)
• Journal name, volume and issue (for journals)
• Internet address or doi (digital object identifier) for electronic sources

Referencing is integral to academic essay writing and shouldn’t be viewed as an ‘add-on’. When you are referencing, always use a referencing guide to help you ensure 100% accuracy.

Normally, when writing an essay at university you will be expected to use only academic sources. The following learning guide on source credibility will help you to determine whether an external source is academic or not.

The chocolate essay uses the American Psychological Association (APA) style of referencing, which is easy to distinguish from the Harvard Author-Date System, as the format is different:

When you are writing an essay and including external sources, more often than not you want the reader to focus on what is said rather than who is saying it. In that case the information comes before the author. For example:

Such citations are called information-centred citations.

When the focus is more on who is saying it then the citation is written like this:

Such citations are called author-centred citations.

Try and achieve a balance between both types of in text-references in your essay writing.

Reference list

In the APA style of referencing, the reference list has certain conventions that you must also follow. Here are some examples from the chocolate essay:

Text description of the APA style of referencing example above.

Don’t make referencing something you do just as an editing or proofreading activity. Include your in-text citations and reference list as part of your first draft.

An excellent website to help with your APA referencing is the APA Interactive tool at Massey University.

Redrafting your essay

Leave yourself enough time to look at your essay more than once. For a 1000 word essay you need at least three days to redraft your essay.

Always save each draft as a separate file; then you can see how your essay develops and improves.

Here are the sorts of questions you should ask yourself:

View a text version of the redrafting your essay diagram above.

You can also look at other checklists such as this one on editing your own work .

Let’s see how the writer of the chocolate essay redrafted their original introduction:

View the text version of the redrafted essay .

Now compare the above with the final draft:

Since Spanish explorers brought back chocolate from the new world, chocolate consumption has become a worldwide phenomenon.  At first, chocolate, a derivative of the cacao bean, was consumed as a drink, only later achieving mass popularity in tablet or bar form. However, chocolate’s inherent popularity does not equate to it possessing healthy properties, as suggested by the title. The realities of chocolate are more down to earth; a number of these realities will be addressed in this essay. Chocolate has chemical properties that can influence mood and there is possible evidence for some positive impacts of chocolate on cardiovascular health. Yet, such positive attributes are counterbalanced somewhat by the argument that, in some instances, chocolate can be viewed as a drug rather than a food. Moreover, there is the possibility of some correlation between over-consumption of chocolate and obesity. Thus, it will be argued that despite chocolate’s positive effect in some cases on mood and the cardiovascular system it has also been linked to addiction and obesity.

Take your time and be careful when redrafting—it will be worth it!

Incorporating your own voice

How do you write in an academic way?

Your lecturers will want to hear your ‘voice’ as they read your essay.

Imagine your essay as a kind of story. You are the principal storyteller, the internal voice of the writer, leading the reader through to your conclusion.

During the story, there are different voices that appear from time to time. These are the external voices (citations) that add substance to your story, providing detail and support for what you are saying and sometimes even giving an alternative perspective. The external voices can be divided into two categories in your essay: the direct external voice of an author (through a direct quote) and the indirect external voice of an author (through a paraphrase).

The reader needs to know at all times whose voice they are hearing. Is it your internal voice or the external voice of other authors?

You might wonder how you can include your own voice and still sound academic when you are writing about a subject area in which you have little (or no) knowledge. Including your voice does not mean that you should say ‘I think’ or ‘in my opinion’.

Here are some examples of the critical/analytical language that you can use as your own internal voice when you present other people’s ideas:

Let’s look at one of the paragraphs from the chocolate essay to see how the text is an interplay of the internal voice of the writer and the external voices of other authors. The internal voice of the writer is colour-coded in yellow; the indirect external voices of other authors (i.e. paraphrases) are coded in grey; and the direct external voices of other authors (i.e.  quotations) are coded in blue.

View a text version of the voice explanation above.

This is a balanced paragraph. The writer sets the scene at the beginning of the topic sentence and also links together all of the sentences, using their own voice to lead into content which is provided by the external voices.

Look at the same paragraph re-written, with the amount of the writer’s voice substantially reduced:

View a text version of the above re-written paragraph .

Here the writer is not ‘in charge’ of the paragraph, and it reads a little like a list. That is something your lecturers do not want to see.

When you are drafting your paragraphs, use a colour-coding system like the one used here. It will help you ensure your academic voice is clear!

When you get more confident in using external sources, you will gradually expand the language of your critical internal voice. The Phrasebank website at Manchester University provides examples of some more expressions to use when assessing external sources.

Proofreading and editing your essay

Editing focuses on the big picture elements such as overall structure, appropriate paragraphing and whether the question has been answered.

Proofreading has a micro-focus on the details of your essay, such as formatting, grammar and punctuation.

Everybody has their own personal style of editing and proofreading. You need to focus on the types of errors you commonly make by looking at the marker’s comments on your previous work.

Some people proofread alone; some get other people involved. Having others involved is a really good idea.

Fresh eyes can help you find things you might not otherwise have seen.

Here are some things to consider when proofreading and editing:

View a text version of the above proofreading and editing your essay considerations.

The Purdue OWL website has even more detail on the proofreading process.

Submitting on time

Students regularly underestimate the time it takes to write an essay, in particular the planning and researching stages.

Before you begin your essay, have a look at the Massey University assignment planning calculator . You might be surprised how long the whole process takes!

As you can see from the assignment planning calculator, if you only start your essay a few days before the due date, you will have to do things too quickly.

If you think of the essay/cake analogy, you need time to mix all the ingredients properly, or the end result will not be what you want to share with others!

To write a 1000 word essay, ideally you should allow yourself about 3 weeks.

Let’s have a look at how an essay time management ‘cake’ could be divided into slices:

View a text description of the writing an essay time management 'cake' .

You can see that the biggest part of your time is spent on the planning/research elements and redrafting/editing/proofreading elements, which together should comprise around 60% of your time.

Have a look at another model to see what you also need to consider:

Essay example

Here is the final version of the chocolate essay. You can also download a PDF version of the chocolate essay .

“Chocolate is a healthy food.” Discuss.

Since Spanish explorers brought back chocolate from the new world, chocolate consumption has become a worldwide phenomenon. At first, chocolate, a derivative of the cacao bean, was consumed as a drink, only later achieving mass popularity in tablet or bar form. However, chocolate’s inherent popularity does not equate to it possessing healthy properties, as suggested by the title. The realities of chocolate are more down to earth; a number of these realities will be addressed in this essay. Chocolate has chemical properties that can influence mood and there is possible evidence for some positive impacts of chocolate on cardiovascular health. Yet, such positive attributes are counterbalanced somewhat by the argument that, in some instances, chocolate can be viewed as a drug rather than a food. Moreover, there is the possibility of some correlation between over-consumption of chocolate and obesity. Thus, it will be argued that despite chocolate’s positive effect in some cases on mood and the cardiovascular system it has also been linked to addiction and obesity.

Consumption of chocolate is something that many enjoy, and there is evidence (Parker, Parker, & Brotchie, 2006) that high carbohydrate foods such as chocolate do have a ‘feel good’ effect. Moreover, Scholey and Owen (2013) in a systematic review of the literature in the field point to several studies, such as Macht and Dettmer (2006) and Macht and Mueller (2007), which appear to confirm this effect. Yet, as Parker, Parker and Brotchie (2006, p. 150) note, the mood effects of chocolate "are as ephemeral as holding a chocolate in one’s mouth". In addition, mood is something that is difficult to isolate and quantify, and aside from the study by Macht and Dettmer (2006) there appears to be little research on any longer term mood affecting influences of chocolate. Another point is raised by Macht and Dettmer (2006), whose study found that positive responses to chocolate correlated more with anticipation and temporary sensory pleasure, whereas guilt was also a statistically significant factor for many, for whom the ‘feel-good’ effect would be minimalised. As these authors stress, “temporal tracking of [both] positive and negative emotions” (p.335) before and after consuming chocolate in future studies could help in further understanding the ‘feel good’ effect and more negative emotions.

Another possible positive influence of chocolate is upon cardiovascular health. Chocolate, processed accordingly, can be a provider of significant quantities of heart-friendly flavanols (Hannum, Schmitz, & Keen, 2002) which help in delaying blood clotting and reducing inflammation (Schramm et al., 2001). Such attributes of flavanols in chocolate need to be considered in the context of chocolate’s other components – approximately 30% fat, 61% carbohydrate, 6% protein and 3% liquid and minerals (Hannum, Schmitz, & Keen, 2002). The key to maximising the benefits of flavanols in chocolate appears to lie in the level of fats present. Cocoa, which is simply chocolate minus the fat, is the most obvious candidate for maximising heart health, but as Hannum, Schmitz and Keen (2002) note, most cocoa products are made through an alkali process which destroys many flavanols. Optimal maximisation of the flavanols involves such compounds being present in cocoa and chocolate products at levels where they are biologically active (Ariefdjohan & Savaiano, 2005).

The biological makeup of chocolate is also relevant in determining whether chocolate is better viewed as a food or a drug, but the boundaries between indulgence and addictive behaviour are unclear. Chocolate contains some biologically active elements including methylxanthines, and cannabinoid-like unsaturated fatty acids (Bruinsma & Taren, 1999) which could represent a neurochemical dependency potential for chocolate, yet are present in exceedingly small amounts.  Interestingly, and linked to chocolate and mood, Macdiarmid and Hetherington (1995) claim their study found that “self-identified chocolate ‘addicts’” reported  a negative correlation between chocolate consumption and mood. This is perhaps indicative of addictive or compulsive type behaviour. However, as Bruinsma and Taren (1999) note, eating chocolate can represent a sensory reward based, luxurious indulgence, based around texture, aroma and flavour anticipation, rather than a neurochemically induced craving. Yet, it has been argued that chocolate is sometimes used as a form of self-medication, particularly in relation to magnesium deficiency. A study by Pennington (2000 in Steinberg, Bearden, & Keen 2003) noted that women do not generally meet US guidelines for trace elements, including magnesium. This correlates with earlier studies by Abraham and Lubran (1981), who found a high correlation between magnesium deficiency and nervous tension in women. Thus, tension-related chocolate cravings could be a biological entity fuelled by magnesium deficiency. Overall, however, it would appear that the proportion of people using chocolate as a drug rather than a food based sensory indulgence is small, though further research might prove enlightening.

A final point to consider in relation to chocolate is the perception that chocolate is linked to obesity. A person is defined as being obese when their Body Mass Index is greater than 30. The literature on chocolate and obesity has clearly demonstrated that there are no specific correlations between the two variables (Beckett, 2008; Lambert, 2009). This is typified by the findings of Mellor (2013), who found that, over a period of eight weeks of eating 45 grams of chocolate per day, a group of adults demonstrated no significant weight increase. As Lambert (2009) notes, chocolate consumption alone is not likely to cause obesity, unless large amounts of other calorie dense foods are consumed and this calorie dense intake is greater than needed for bodily function, bearing in mind levels of activity. The stereotypical ‘chocoholic’ seems more likely to consume many other sweet foods and be less likely to take exercise than other people, so chocolate consumption is only one possible variable when considering the causes of obesity.

Obesity and chocolate consumption seemingly have no proven correlations. Yet, in this essay, many chocolate focused arguments have been presented, including the transient effect of chocolate on mood and the fact that it is as likely to create feelings of guilt as of well-being. Another possible positive dimension to chocolate is a correlation with cardiovascular health. Yet the potential benefits of flavanols in chocolate are currently offset by the high fat/carbohydrate content of most forms of chocolate. Whether chocolate is a food or a drug is also unclear. The literature outlines the chemical properties of chocolate which could help explain some addictive type behaviour, particularly in regards to nervous tension in women, but there is also a strong research focus on chocolate as a sensory-based indulgence. It can therefore be said that chocolate is not a healthy food, but can be enjoyed as part of a healthy and balanced diet and lifestyle.

(Word count: 1087. This is within 10% of the word limit, which is usually acceptable. Check this with your lecturer if you are in any doubt.)

Abraham, G. E., & Lubran, M. M. (1981). Serum and red cell magnesium levels in patients with premenstrual tension. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , 34 (11), 2364-2366. Retrieved from http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/34/11/2364.short

Ariefdjohan, M. W., & Savaiano, D. A. (2005). Chocolate and cardiovascular health: Is it too good to be true? Nutrition Reviews , 63 (12), 427-430. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2005.tb00118.x

Beckett, S. T. (2000). The science of chocolate . Cambridge, UK: Royal Society of Chemistry.

Bruinsma, K., & Taren, D. L. (1999). Chocolate: Food or drug? Journal of the American Dietetic Association , 99 (10), 1249-12. doi: 10.1016/S0002-8223(99)00307-7

Hannum, S. M., Schmitz, H. H., & Keen, C. L. (2002). Chocolate: A heart-healthy food? Show me the science! Nutrition Today , 37 (3), 103-109. Retrieved from http://journals.lww.com/nutritiontodayonline/Abstract/2002/05000/Chocol…

Lambert, J. P. (2009). Nutrition and health aspects of chocolate. In S. Beckett (Ed.), Industrial chocolate manufacture and use , (4th ed., pp. 623-635). London: Wiley Blackwell. Retrieved from  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444301588.ch27/pdf

Macht, M., & Dettmer, D. (2006). Everyday mood and emotions after eating a chocolate bar or an apple. Appetite , 46 (3), 332-336. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2006.01.014

Macht, M., & Mueller, J. (2007). Immediate effects of chocolate on experimentally induced mood states. Appetite , 49 (3), 667-674. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2007.05.004

Macdiarmid, J. I., & Hetherington, M. M. (1995). Mood modulation by food: An exploration of affect and cravings in ‘chocolate addicts’. British Journal of Clinical Psychology , 34 (1), 129-138. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1995.tb01445.x

Mellor, D. D. (2013). The effects of polyphenol rich chocolate on cardiovascular risk and glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus (Doctoral dissertation, University of Hull, UK). Retrieved from https://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:7109

Parker, G., Parker, I., & Brotchie, H. (2006). Mood state effects of chocolate. Journal of Affective Disorders , 92 (2), 149-159. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2006.02.007

Scholey, A., & Owen, L. (2013). Effects of chocolate on cognitive function and mood: a systematic review. Nutrition reviews , 71 (10), 665-681. doi:10.1111/nure.12065

Schramm, D. D., Wang, J. F., Holt, R. R., Ensunsa, J. L., Gonsalves, J. L., Lazarus, S. A., Schmitz, H. H., German, J. Bruce, & Keen, C. L. (2001). Chocolate procyanidins decrease the leukotriene-prostacyclin ratio in humans and human aortic endothelial cells. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , 73 (1), 36-40. Retrieved from http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/73/1/36.full

Steinberg, F. M., Bearden, M. M., & Keen, C. L. (2003). Cocoa and chocolate flavonoids: Implications for cardiovascular health. Journal of the American Dietetic Association , 103 (2), 215-223. doi: 10.1053/jada.2003.50028

Academic integrity and plagiarism

‘Integrity’ relates to ‘honesty’, and academic integrity involves writing in an honest way, so that no one will think you are claiming that words or ideas from someone else are your own. This is very important in academic writing in western countries, and if you do not do this you might be accused of plagiarism, which is a serious offence at university.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words, ideas or diagrams without acknowledgement.

Of course, when we write an essay we need to refer to other people’s ideas. We gave some of the reasons for this before:

Being a good writer involves using other people’s ideas to support your work. However, you should never forget to say where these ideas come from, even if you don’t quote the person’s exact words.

Include a reference in the text, where the words or ideas appear, and in a reference list at the end of the essay.

All the references in the text must appear in the reference list, and all the references in the list must also appear in the text.

There is a short video clip on plagiarism here and a wonderful Plagiarism Carol video here (click on ‘captions’ to get subtitles in English).

Another word connected to academic integrity is collusion .

Collusion means that you work with someone else and submit the same or very similar assignments without your lecturer’s permission.

For example, if you and a friend work together on an essay and then submit identical or very similar versions of the essay, one under your name and one under your friend’s name, that is collusion . However, if you are doing a group work assignment and your lecturer has asked you to work together and submit the assignment jointly, that is not collusion . Collusion, like plagiarism, has an element of dishonesty in it. People who collude do so secretly, as they know that the lecturer would not be happy.

People make genuine mistakes, so lecturers are usually very happy to advise you if you ask them.

• Academic Skills
• Reading, writing and referencing

Writing a great essay

This resource covers key considerations when writing an essay.

While reading a student’s essay, markers will ask themselves questions such as:

• Does this essay directly address the set task?
• Does it present a strong, supported position?
• Does it use relevant sources appropriately?
• Is the expression clear, and the style appropriate?
• Is the essay organised coherently? Is there a clear introduction, body and conclusion?

You can use these questions to reflect on your own writing. Here are six top tips to help you address these criteria.

1. Analyse the question

Student essays are responses to specific questions. As an essay must address the question directly, your first step should be to analyse the question. Make sure you know exactly what is being asked of you.

Generally, essay questions contain three component parts:

• Content terms: Key concepts that are specific to the task
• Limiting terms: The scope that the topic focuses on
• Directive terms: What you need to do in relation to the content, e.g. discuss, analyse, define, compare, evaluate.

Look at the following essay question:

Discuss the importance of light in Gothic architecture.

• Content terms: Gothic architecture
• Limiting terms: the importance of light. If you discussed some other feature of Gothic architecture, for example spires or arches, you would be deviating from what is required. This essay question is limited to a discussion of light. Likewise, it asks you to write about the importance of light – not, for example, to discuss how light enters Gothic churches.
• Directive term: discuss. This term asks you to take a broad approach to the variety of ways in which light may be important for Gothic architecture. You should introduce and consider different ideas and opinions that you have met in academic literature on this topic, citing them appropriately .

For a more complex question, you can highlight the key words and break it down into a series of sub-questions to make sure you answer all parts of the task. Consider the following question (from Arts):

To what extent can the American Revolution be understood as a revolution ‘from below’? Why did working people become involved and with what aims in mind?

The key words here are American Revolution and revolution ‘from below’. This is a view that you would need to respond to in this essay. This response must focus on the aims and motivations of working people in the revolution, as stated in the second question.

2. Define your argument

As you plan and prepare to write the essay, you must consider what your argument is going to be. This means taking an informed position or point of view on the topic presented in the question, then defining and presenting a specific argument.

Consider these two argument statements:

The architectural use of light in Gothic cathedrals physically embodied the significance of light in medieval theology.

In the Gothic cathedral of Cologne, light served to accentuate the authority and ritual centrality of the priest.

Statements like these define an essay’s argument. They give coherence by providing an overarching theme and position towards which the entire essay is directed.

3. Use evidence, reasoning and scholarship

To convince your audience of your argument, you must use evidence and reasoning, which involves referring to and evaluating relevant scholarship.

• Evidence provides concrete information to support your claim. It typically consists of specific examples, facts, quotations, statistics and illustrations.
• Reasoning connects the evidence to your argument. Rather than citing evidence like a shopping list, you need to evaluate the evidence and show how it supports your argument.
• Scholarship is used to show how your argument relates to what has been written on the topic (citing specific works). Scholarship can be used as part of your evidence and reasoning to support your argument.

4. Organise a coherent essay

An essay has three basic components - introduction, body and conclusion.

The purpose of an introduction is to introduce your essay. It typically presents information in the following order:

• A general statement about the topic that provides context for your argument
• A thesis statement showing your argument. You can use explicit lead-ins, such as ‘This essay argues that...’
• A ‘road map’ of the essay, telling the reader how it is going to present and develop your argument.

Example introduction

"To what extent can the American Revolution be understood as a revolution ‘from below’? Why did working people become involved and with what aims in mind?"

Introduction*

Historians generally concentrate on the twenty-year period between 1763 and 1783 as the period which constitutes the American Revolution [This sentence sets the general context of the period] . However, when considering the involvement of working people, or people from below, in the revolution it is important to make a distinction between the pre-revolutionary period 1763-1774 and the revolutionary period 1774-1788, marked by the establishment of the continental Congress(1) [This sentence defines the key term from below and gives more context to the argument that follows] . This paper will argue that the nature and aims of the actions of working people are difficult to assess as it changed according to each phase [This is the thesis statement] . The pre-revolutionary period was characterised by opposition to Britain’s authority. During this period the aims and actions of the working people were more conservative as they responded to grievances related to taxes and scarce land, issues which directly affected them. However, examination of activities such as the organisation of crowd action and town meetings, pamphlet writing, formal communications to Britain of American grievances and physical action in the streets, demonstrates that their aims and actions became more revolutionary after 1775 [These sentences give the ‘road map’ or overview of the content of the essay] .

The body of the essay develops and elaborates your argument. It does this by presenting a reasoned case supported by evidence from relevant scholarship. Its shape corresponds to the overview that you provided in your introduction.

The body of your essay should be written in paragraphs. Each body paragraph should develop one main idea that supports your argument. To learn how to structure a paragraph, look at the page developing clarity and focus in academic writing .

Your conclusion should not offer any new material. Your evidence and argumentation should have been made clear to the reader in the body of the essay.

Use the conclusion to briefly restate the main argumentative position and provide a short summary of the themes discussed. In addition, also consider telling your reader:

• What the significance of your findings, or the implications of your conclusion, might be
• Whether there are other factors which need to be looked at, but which were outside the scope of the essay
• How your topic links to the wider context (‘bigger picture’) in your discipline.

Do not simply repeat yourself in this section. A conclusion which merely summarises is repetitive and reduces the impact of your paper.

Example conclusion

Conclusion*.

Although, to a large extent, the working class were mainly those in the forefront of crowd action and they also led the revolts against wealthy plantation farmers, the American Revolution was not a class struggle [This is a statement of the concluding position of the essay]. Working people participated because the issues directly affected them – the threat posed by powerful landowners and the tyranny Britain represented. Whereas the aims and actions of the working classes were more concerned with resistance to British rule during the pre-revolutionary period, they became more revolutionary in nature after 1775 when the tension with Britain escalated [These sentences restate the key argument]. With this shift, a change in ideas occurred. In terms of considering the Revolution as a whole range of activities such as organising riots, communicating to Britain, attendance at town hall meetings and pamphlet writing, a difficulty emerges in that all classes were involved. Therefore, it is impossible to assess the extent to which a single group such as working people contributed to the American Revolution [These sentences give final thoughts on the topic].

5. Write clearly

An essay that makes good, evidence-supported points will only receive a high grade if it is written clearly. Clarity is produced through careful revision and editing, which can turn a good essay into an excellent one.

When you edit your essay, try to view it with fresh eyes – almost as if someone else had written it.

Ask yourself the following questions:

Overall structure

• Have you clearly stated your argument in your introduction?
• Does the actual structure correspond to the ‘road map’ set out in your introduction?
• Have you clearly indicated how your main points support your argument?
• Have you clearly signposted the transitions between each of your main points for your reader?
• Does each paragraph introduce one main idea?
• Does every sentence in the paragraph support that main idea?
• Does each paragraph display relevant evidence and reasoning?
• Does each paragraph logically follow on from the one before it?
• Is each sentence grammatically complete?
• Is the spelling correct?
• Is the link between sentences clear to your readers?
• Have you avoided redundancy and repetition?

See more about editing on our  editing your writing page.

6. Cite sources and evidence

Finally, check your citations to make sure that they are accurate and complete. Some faculties require you to use a specific citation style (e.g. APA) while others may allow you to choose a preferred one. Whatever style you use, you must follow its guidelines correctly and consistently. You can use Recite, the University of Melbourne style guide, to check your citations.

Further resources

• Germov, J. (2011). Get great marks for your essays, reports and presentations (3rd ed.). NSW: Allen and Unwin.
• Using English for Academic Purposes: A guide for students in Higher Education [online]. Retrieved January 2020 from http://www.uefap.com
• Williams, J.M. & Colomb, G. G. (2010) Style: Lessons in clarity and grace. 10th ed. New York: Longman.

* Example introduction and conclusion adapted from a student paper.

Looking for one-on-one advice?

Get tailored advice from an Academic Skills Adviser by booking an Individual appointment, or get quick feedback from one of our Academic Writing Mentors via email through our Writing advice service.

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How to Write the Perfect Essay

06 Feb, 2024 | Blog Articles , English Language Articles , Get the Edge , Humanities Articles , Writing Articles

You can keep adding to this plan, crossing bits out and linking the different bubbles when you spot connections between them. Even though you won’t have time to make a detailed plan under exam conditions, it can be helpful to draft a brief one, including a few key words, so that you don’t panic and go off topic when writing your essay.

If you don’t like the mind map format, there are plenty of others to choose from: you could make a table, a flowchart, or simply a list of bullet points.

Discover More

Thanks for signing up, step 2: have a clear structure.

Think about this while you’re planning: your essay is like an argument or a speech. It needs to have a logical structure, with all your points coming together to answer the question.

Start with the basics! It’s best to choose a few major points which will become your main paragraphs. Three main paragraphs is a good number for an exam essay, since you’ll be under time pressure. 

If you agree with the question overall, it can be helpful to organise your points in the following pattern:

• YES (agreement with the question)
• AND (another YES point)
• BUT (disagreement or complication)

If you disagree with the question overall, try:

• AND (another BUT point)

For example, you could structure the Of Mice and Men sample question, “To what extent is Curley’s wife portrayed as a victim in Of Mice and Men ?”, as follows:

• YES (descriptions of her appearance)
• AND (other people’s attitudes towards her)
• BUT (her position as the only woman on the ranch gives her power as she uses her femininity to her advantage)

If you wanted to write a longer essay, you could include additional paragraphs under the YES/AND categories, perhaps discussing the ways in which Curley’s wife reveals her vulnerability and insecurities, and shares her dreams with the other characters. Alternatively, you could also lengthen your essay by including another BUT paragraph about her cruel and manipulative streak.

Of course, this is not necessarily the only right way to answer this essay question – as long as you back up your points with evidence from the text, you can take any standpoint that makes sense.

Step 3: Back up your points with well-analysed quotations

You wouldn’t write a scientific report without including evidence to support your findings, so why should it be any different with an essay? Even though you aren’t strictly required to substantiate every single point you make with a quotation, there’s no harm in trying.

A close reading of your quotations can enrich your appreciation of the question and will be sure to impress examiners. When selecting the best quotations to use in your essay, keep an eye out for specific literary techniques. For example, you could highlight Curley’s wife’s use of a rhetorical question when she says, a”n’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talking to a bunch of bindle stiffs.” This might look like:

The rhetorical question “an’ what am I doin’?” signifies that Curley’s wife is very insecure; she seems to be questioning her own life choices. Moreover, she does not expect anyone to respond to her question, highlighting her loneliness and isolation on the ranch.

Other literary techniques to look out for include:

• Tricolon – a group of three words or phrases placed close together for emphasis
• Tautology – using different words that mean the same thing: e.g. “frightening” and “terrifying”
• Parallelism – ABAB structure, often signifying movement from one concept to another
• Chiasmus – ABBA structure, drawing attention to a phrase
• Polysyndeton – many conjunctions in a sentence
• Asyndeton – lack of conjunctions, which can speed up the pace of a sentence
• Polyptoton – using the same word in different forms for emphasis: e.g. “done” and “doing”
• Alliteration – repetition of the same sound, including assonance (similar vowel sounds), plosive alliteration (“b”, “d” and “p” sounds) and sibilance (“s” sounds)
• Anaphora – repetition of words, often used to emphasise a particular point

Don’t worry if you can’t locate all of these literary devices in the work you’re analysing. You can also discuss more obvious techniques, like metaphor, simile and onomatopoeia. It’s not a problem if you can’t remember all the long names; it’s far more important to be able to confidently explain the effects of each technique and highlight its relevance to the question.

Step 4: Be creative and original throughout

Anyone can write an essay using the tips above, but the thing that really makes it “perfect” is your own unique take on the topic. If you’ve noticed something intriguing or unusual in your reading, point it out – if you find it interesting, chances are the examiner will too!

Creative writing and essay writing are more closely linked than you might imagine. Keep the idea that you’re writing a speech or argument in mind, and you’re guaranteed to grab your reader’s attention.

It’s important to set out your line of argument in your introduction, introducing your main points and the general direction your essay will take, but don’t forget to keep something back for the conclusion, too. Yes, you need to summarise your main points, but if you’re just repeating the things you said in your introduction, the body of the essay is rendered pointless.

Think of your conclusion as the climax of your speech, the bit everything else has been leading up to, rather than the boring plenary at the end of the interesting stuff.

To return to Of Mice and Men once more, here’s an example of the ideal difference between an introduction and a conclusion:

Introduction

In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men , Curley’s wife is portrayed as an ambiguous character. She could be viewed either as a cruel, seductive temptress or a lonely woman who is a victim of her society’s attitudes. Though she does seem to wield a form of sexual power, it is clear that Curley’s wife is largely a victim. This interpretation is supported by Steinbeck’s description of her appearance, other people’s attitudes, her dreams, and her evident loneliness and insecurity.

Overall, it is clear that Curley’s wife is a victim and is portrayed as such throughout the novel in the descriptions of her appearance, her dreams, other people’s judgemental attitudes, and her loneliness and insecurities. However, a character who was a victim and nothing else would be one-dimensional and Curley’s wife is not. Although she suffers in many ways, she is shown to assert herself through the manipulation of her femininity – a small rebellion against the victimisation she experiences.

Both refer back consistently to the question and summarise the essay’s main points. However, the conclusion adds something new which has been established in the main body of the essay and complicates the simple summary which is found in the introduction.

Hannah is an undergraduate English student at Somerville College, University of Oxford, and has a particular interest in postcolonial literature and the Gothic. She thinks literature is a crucial way of developing empathy and learning about the wider world. When she isn’t writing about 17th-century court masques, she enjoys acting, travelling and creative writing. 

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Politics and International Studies

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Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, getting college essay help: important do's and don’ts.

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.