Essay Writing Tips and Guidelines For Better Outcome

This page instructs students on the best practices and forms for writing an effective essay for the WAEC or NECO exams or any other circumstance that calls for testing your essay-writing prowess, knowledge, and skills.

How do essays work?

Few people are aware that the Roman word “exagium,” which roughly translates to “to present one’s case,” is the source of the English word “essay”? An essay, then, is a brief piece of writing that expresses one’s perspective on a situation, a point of view, or an event.

For those who are familiar with former WAEC or NECO questions on English language, paper writing websites typically assesses students’ ability to effectively communicate in English. It is intended to test students’ abilities to communicate coherently and clearly in a manner appropriate to the circumstance and audience.

Also, it assesses a student’s command of syntax, proper paragraphing, improper use of features, presentation of ideas, right spelling, appropriate punctuation, and adept use of a wide range of idioms.

A student is required to write 450 words for an essay. The student will lose significant points for producing an essay that is under 450 words since his topic will not have been properly developed to achieve a good Mark and a student will receive zero points for mechanical accuracy if there are fewer than 20 errors in the essay.

Yet, it is not a waste of time to count the essay’s words. The evaluation of 450 words is as follows:

  • 45 lines (ten words each) make up the answer booklet.
  • 50 lines with 9 words each line
  • 56 lines with 8 words each line
  • 64 lines with 7 words each line
  • 75 lines with 6 words each line
  • 90 lines with 5 words each line
  • 112 lines with 4 words per line.

Guidelines For Writing A Excellent Essay

Depending on the type of essay you are assigned to write, planning is necessary before you start writing. Several pupils experience anxiety simply because they don’t prepare before writing. Basically, there are four steps that you must swiftly get through in order to write a quality essay. Which are:

1) Compiling concepts
2) Compiling the thoughts
3) Creating the concepts
4) Changing the concepts

1. Brainstorming

This entails carefully reading the question you have decided to respond to in order to fully understand its topic. You must ascertain what is required of you in writing. Always make sure to select the question on which you can provide the most insightful and pertinent ideas and points for your essay. Finally, carefully interpret the question, making sure you have enough points and thoughts to address each section and earn a good grade.

For instance, if a student just addresses one of the two components of the question in his response to a question asking him to describe the role he played in a recent disturbance at his school during which priceless school property was broken and apologize, he will not receive a high content score. After taking care of this, write down any pertinent details or ideas that occur to mind on some rock paper.

2. Sorting Out The Concepts

The next step is to rearrange all the pertinent points that have suddenly occurred to you on the rough paper into an outline. When writing your essay, be sure to have an outline.

The ideas should be organized logically and serve as an introduction to paragraphs. Every paragraph should have a single main topic, and they must all be connected to create a logical whole. You should be aware that a few well-organized points that are completely developed by relevant examples and experiences will leave a stronger impact than a plethora of ideas that are randomly thrown together. Your arguments should be presented in a way that they support a strong conclusion.

3. Expansion of The Ideas:

Your essay should be developed based on the written outline. The paragraphs ought to have strong development. In order to get a decent grade, each point must be completely presented without the use of examples, experiences, or illustrations.

Use short, straightforward sentences rather than rambling ones to prevent your writing from being awkward and confusing. Clarity of thinking and expression, as well as careful attention to syntax and punctuation, are necessary components of an excellent essay.

4. Revision of the Concept

Do not submit your paper in a rush without carefully reading what you have written. This can help you identify any mistakes that still need to be fixed. You shouldn’t put too much faith in your ability to avoid making mistakes.
A student would create an outstanding essay that would assure a very good score in English language if they adhered to these guidelines and format for essay writing.

Examples of Excellent Essay Formats

There is no set formula to follow when writing an essay because it is your personal account of expression in writing, but there are perfect ways to deliver it. Writing essays is all about creativity and textual expression. The three recognized formats listed below ought to be used as a model when writing an essay:

The First Body and Last Conclusion

1) Initialization

Similar to how you should always introduce yourself to a stranger before explaining why you are meeting them, you should do the same when writing an essay. The topic of your introduction is covered. You must provide a very succinct summary of your essay here. The ideal length for the start is 5 to 6 lines because a longer introduction will make your essay dull.

Strive to be original and innovative in this section because it will affect the examiner’s interest in your essay. Some people suggest starting your introduction with a question or a quote to draw the reader in.

2) Body

Now you know why you’re writing the essay. The most marks should go to this section. Since it is the most crucial and significant part of the essay, it must be written clearly with proper language, spelling, and punctuation.

Here, proper paragraphing is necessary; keep in mind that each new discussion deserves a new paragraph, so it’s critical that you structure your ideas and material correctly. The easiest approach to ensure that your information flows smoothly and that readers or your examiner can understand and draw a logical conclusion from it is to follow the write-up chronologically.

Conclusion

It serves as the essay’s conclusion, as its name suggests. Except than summarizing what was written in the essay’s introduction and body, it doesn’t really reveal anything about the essay. Yet, in the event of an argument, a tale, or an experience related to the essay topic, a strong conclusion has the ability to persuade the reader and emphasize your position.

How Essay Writing Marks Are Given

Students’ ability to express their views clearly and concisely in an essay is judged as part of the senior high school certificate test.

Marks are given based on the following four criteria:

  • 10 marks for the contents
  • Organizing – 10 points
  • Expression (20 points)
  • 10 points for mechanic accuracy.

One) Contents

The term “content” refers to the main points made in an essay that are pertinent to the subject matter or issue the student is writing about. To get a decent mark under content, your points must be properly developed and pertinent to the issue you have chosen to respond.

Organization, second

Essays are evaluated according to their organizational intent. If you are asked to write an article for the national newspaper, for instance, and you instead choose to write a letter to the editor, you will receive a failing grade for organization. Additional factors taken into account include a decent introduction, sufficient development, effective paragraphing and links between paragraphs, balance, unity, and coherence, as well as an appropriate ending.

3) Word choice

The highest Mark is assigned to this. It has to do with how well you use your vocabulary, including idiomatic terms, and how clearly you explain yourself. The reader of your essay should be able to comprehend what you have written. Effective sentence structure arrangements and variations, judicious and creative use of figurative language, appropriate words, collocations, and sentence kinds, and deft and sophisticated punctuation use are other elements that fall under the heading of expressions.

4) Mechanical precision

This relates to grammatical, punctuational, tenses, and spelling errors. Pupils should use extreme caution since in the WAEC and NECO exams, respectively, twenty (20) and forty (40) errors respectively result in a mechanical accuracy score of zero (zero) and zero (zero).

We should keep in mind these points. Most students who write essays don’t know these essay writing strategies, which causes them to perform poorly on their exams. The highest grade is given for essay writing, then summary writing. Both of these serve as the foundation for passing the English language exam, but sadly, the majority of students or applicants fail this portion.

By following the instructions outlined in this blog article, students can learn how to respond to essay-writing-related questions in any job test, WAEC exam, or NECO examination.

I hope you understand this. Do you have any queries about essay writing advice and all you need to know about creating an outstanding article by utilizing the essay writing styles and techniques described in this post? Please feel free to contact us using the comment box below, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Bill Rose

I love writing about health and lifestyle as it's my job to protect people from harmful things!

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