Topic Selection

The basic element before starting an essay is choosing a topic. If you have been assigned a topic then you have an extra edge as you dont have to worry about going through the process of choosing the topic which you can easily write upon and which u find interesting. Topic given If your topic is an overview you are ready to go to the next step, if your topic is general then you must choose a narrow subtopic to discuss. For example, the topic Britain is a general one. If you are writing an overview then it is suitable otherwise conducting specific analysis you should choose something like Britain monarchy or art in Britain. Topic not assigned If your topic hasnt been assigned then you have a boarder vision and unlimited choices. It may seem hard for you to choose a specific topic when your brain is going haywire boggling with all sorts of ideas. The best is to first find the purpose of your essay once you have determine that search as to where your interest lies evaluate all your ideas and then shortlist them selecting the ones you think you will write easily and with interest. One of the best techniques that have come across recently is a four-question process. Basically, you take the four questions and write two on each side of a piece of paper. Use one piece of paper because then the white space is not so intimidating. If you think your guided brainstorming session will be successful, you may want to write each question at the top of a new piece of paper. Here are the questions: What What What What possible topics do I already have experience in? do I want to know more about? goals do I have in life right now? challenges and problems do I have right now?

And if all else fails you can search the Internet endlessly until an hour before it is due!

Outline
Once you have determined your topic, put together a working outline. This plan can range from a brief sketch of main points to a detailed point-by-point outline complete with paragraphs. The idea is to provide yourself with a rough map of where the essay will go, making a diagram of your thoughts to sharpen and define your purpose. At this point, you can also give your essay a working title. The outline shows where to begin and breaks the assignment into manageable parts. Structure The beginning is the introduction containing your thesis statement; the end is the conclusion; and the middle or body of the essay contains the argument, supported by evidence or example and designed to prove your thesis. The essay should progress towards the conclusion. At this stage, all you are preparing is the outline, which will take you from one end of the essay to the other, like a road map. It should be constructed to keep you from losing your sense of direction as you research and write the essay. A good outline will ensure that everything you write in the essay supports your thesis, preventing you from wandering off into the tempting byways of irrelevance. Construct your outline by listing all the important points you want to cover in your essay. You should provide one main point for each paragraph. Start with the introduction, under which you will write out your thesis statement and work through logically, point by point, until you reach the conclusion. Categorize your points according to their importance, keeping in mind the method of organization you intend to use. Group related ideas together under general headings and arrange them so they flow logically. It may be useful to number each point, giving more weight to major points and less to minor ones (e.g. A 1 2 3 B 1 2 3); alternatively, you can simply set the points off further from the margin of the paper as they decrease in importance: Major Point Sub Point Sub Point Minor Point Sub Point Major Point Useful Quotation .... and so on Some essays read as if each point had been written on an index card, then the pile thrown down a flight of stairs to determine the order. Make clear why one point follows another: each point in your outline should connect with the next; each main category should be linked to your thesis; and each sub-category should be linked to the main category. Focus your outline by discarding anything not useful or pertinent to your thesis. One of the most helpful things about a full outline is that it will quickly make clear to you where the gaps lie. If you don't yet have enough support in one area, you will know that you have more reading or thinking to do. Remember that sometimes your reading will unearth new facts or idea - and you will modify your essay to reflect them.

Thesis

All essays that involve the development of an argument require a thesis: the point you are arguing. While the topic is your subject, the thesis defines your position on that subject. Your essay will take a position and will provide convincing evidence to support that view. It is important to develop a working thesis early because it will help direct your thoughts and research; of course your thesis may change as your reading and writing progresses and you begin to incorporate new information. Once you have chosen your topic, you can begin to formulate your thesis by thinking closely about it, doing some exploratory reading, or drawing from lectures or conversations with classmates and friends. One way to develop a thesis is to ask yourself questions about the topic and to focus on a central issue or problem, which the topic raises. Your answer to this question will be your thesis. Brainstorming If you are having trouble developing a thesis, try brainstorming. You can brainstorm verbally with other people, or

work alone, writing all your ideas on paper. The important thing about brainstorming is not to edit your thoughts. Write down everything, which occurs to you about the topic, no matter how irrelevant or bizarre. The next stage is to make connections between your ideas, and to group them into sub-topics, expanding those that you can explore in more detail. Then see if you can put the groups into some kind of logical order, discarding those that do turn out to be irrelevant or bizarre. In most cases you will find that you have the beginning of an essay - something that implies a basic point of view you can explore further and refine into a fully developed argument. There are several good books on using the brainstorming process to generate ideas for writing, including Tony Buzan's 'Use Both Sides of Your Brain' and Gabrielle Lusser Rico's 'Writing the Natural Way'. If you are still unsure about the topic, you should consult your instructor after you have done some thinking about the topic on your own. To further, elaborate on thesis keep in mind these goals, which will help you even more in writing a thesis for your essay.

1. Building a strong thesis

Your thesis should have a strong stand, conclude your thesis with strong statements. Vague thesis statement: There are some positive and negative aspects to the All-slim diet plan Strong thesis statement: Because all-slim diet plans take into account diet pills and no amount of carbohydrate all day which can result in harming a persons body if he doesn't follow his doctors advice and start this diet without his recommendation his weight will be lost but in long process his health will suffer.

2. Give your thesis a justification

Your thesis should not be a simple sentence, make it in a form that discussion arises from it which is duly justified by proper reasoning.

3. A strong thesis follows only one main idea

Never confuse a reader given him more than one idea, try to focus your thesis statement on one main idea and work on it the whole way.

4. Make your thesis specific

Try to make your thesis specific and to the point, dont let your point stray in the the opposite direction this will help in making your essay manageable.

Introduction

The Introduction is the first paragraph.

1. Begin with a statement, which interests and orients the reader, often referred to as the HOOK or attention
grabber Starting Information The attention Grabber statement that you make should be true and verifiable, make sure the reader doesnt get any doubts about its authenticity. Try elaborating your attention grabber to prolong the interest of the reader. Anecdote For more effective impression begin your essay with an anecdote which is a story that illustrates a point. It

should be short, relevant to the topic, highlighting the main point you wish to make. Dialogue An appropriate dialogue does not have to identify the speakers, but the reader must understand the point you are trying to convey. Use only two or three exchanges between speakers to make your point. Follow dialogue with a sentence or two of elaboration. Summary information Make your information specific leading towards your thesis, try to explain your topic in just a few sentences. 2. 3. Should introduce topic right away. Should contain thesis statement/controlling idea.

Body

Write the Body Paragraphs In the body of the essay, all the preparation up to this point comes to fruition. The topic you have chosen must now be explained, described, or argued. Each main idea that you wrote down in your diagram or outline will become one of the body paragraphs. If you had three or four main ideas, you will have three or four body paragraphs. Each body paragraph will have the same basic structure.

1. Start by writing down one of your main ideas, in sentence form. If your main idea is "reduces freeway
congestion," you might say this: Public transportation reduces freeway congestion. 2. Next, write down each of your supporting points for that main idea, but leave four or five lines in between each point.

3. In the space under each point, write down some elaboration for that point.
Elaboration can be further description, explanation, or discussion. Supporting Point Commuters appreciate the cost savings of taking public transportation rather than driving. Elaboration Less driving time means less maintenance expense, such as oil changes. Of course, less driving time means savings on gasoline as well. In many cases, these savings amount to more than the cost of riding public transportation. 4. If you wish, include a summary sentence for each paragraph. This is not generally needed, however, and such sentences have a tendency to sound stilted, so be cautious about using them.

Once you have fleshed out each of your body paragraphs, one for each main point, you are ready to continue.

Conclusion
The conclusion is the end of the journey. It looks back on the points you have shown the reader, and reinforces, but does not necessarily repeat, the main idea. It also should create a feeling of ending, a farewell to the reader. This is your final paragraph, therefore the most important. This will be the paragraph that is most fresh in the readers' mind after they put the term paper down. A good way to form your conclusion is to reform the introductory paragraph in reverse form. In other words, have the conclusion contain the following, in the order

written:

Restate your thesis, but in different words than before. Summarize your three major points in the body paragraphs. Close with a general statement that reflects insight on your topic.

This paragraph may begin with "In conclusion" or "To conclude" (although some markers find these somewhat mundane) or "Clearly" and often restates the thesis statement in different words. It may move from there to a general comment about life, or to a final important point, or to a suggestion about future action that may be needed. Some writers like to end with a relevant quotation, or end with a question, or end with a prediction or warning. Another concluding technique is to end with some idea or detail from the beginning of the essay (thus bringing this idea full circle). Yet another means of concluding is to end with an allusion to a historical or mythological figure or event.

Finishing Touches

You have now completed all of the paragraphs of your essay. Before you can consider this a finished product, however, you must give some thought to the formatting of your paper. Check the order of your paragraphs. Look at your paragraphs. Which one is the strongest? You might want to start with the strongest paragraph, end with the second strongest, and put the weakest in the middle. Whatever order you decide on, be sure it makes sense. If your paper is describing a process, you will probably need to stick to the order in which the steps must be completed. Check the instructions for the assignment When you prepare a final draft, you must be sure to follow all of the instructions you have been given. Are your margins correct? Have you titled it as directed? What other information (name, date, etc.) must you include? Did you double-space your lines?

Proof Reading

The whoops list tips for proofreading Once you are satisfied with the content of your essay, be sure that it is visually satisfactory: look for careless mistakes. Proofreading is an essential task that many writers do not take seriously. Reread the essay, out loud if possible, to make sure that it flows well and that it makes sense as a whole. Since you have worked on the essay one section at a time, you may have forgotten to connect those sections properly. Reading your essay aloud from beginning to end may make you realize that it is less coherent or not as thorough as you had thought, and you may even have to do some last minute research to bolster a weak point. Hearing a sentence may make its faults clearer than they appear on the page. You may discover that you have left a sentence incomplete, omitted a citation, or (if you are using a computer) forgotten to erase unwanted text. If you have typed your paper or used a word processor, you must beware of the illusion of perfection that the printed page presents. Your essay looks so official and sophisticated that mistakes seem inconceivable. However, they are probably there. A typo is no less an error than a spelling mistake. While the professor may know that the error comes from your fingers rather than your brain, the experience of reading your paper will still have been interrupted, and there will be an ugly gash of red ink on the page. One of the most efficient ways of picking up spelling errors (if you have the time) is to read your work backwards, word for word. That way you are looking at each individual word, not reading for the overall sense of the passage. Alternatively, get a friend to read your paper, or (best of all, both for spelling and for style) leave the paper for several days, then come back and read it carefully. The only problem with this last solution is that it is seldom practical in the real world of university assignments. The presentation of your essay is not a trivial matter; you wish to show the reader that you are thorough and organized. A series of typos suggests that you are careless, and does not reflect well upon your work. Check very carefully for errors in spelling, typing, and, especially in the Bibliography, punctuation. Many professors deduct marks for these mistakes. Reading a messy essay is not a pleasant task. A professor wading through a massive pile of papers may grow impatient with illegible work. Make sure of the following:

"Your essay is visually appealing "The type is large enough and dark enough "There are sufficient spaces between the lines

If you are handing in a written assignment, do not fill it with scribbled out words or indecipherable squiggles. Handwriting looks deceptively readable to its writer. Make it easy for your instructor to enjoy reading your work, and you will likely get a better mark.

Reference: http://www.essaystart.com/Step_by_Step_Guide/topic_Selection.htm

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