How to Write a College Essay: A Quick Reference Guide

In your college career, you will write many different types of essays. You will write essays on many different subjects. Finally, you will write essays for many different purposes. Each time you receive a new essay assignment, you will have something new to learn. It may be a new topic for you to research, or it may be that you are writing a specific type of essay for the first time. This can be a major challenge. Fortunately, you can mitigate this challenge if you understand some of the basics of writing college essays.

What does this mean? This means that there are certain rules that apply to every college essay, no matter the type or subject. This means that if you know the basics of how to write a college essay, you will be better equipped to write any college essay.

How to Format a College Essay

In order to understand the basics of the college essay, you must understand the way that the great majority of college essays are formatted. Nearly every essay that you will write as a college student will contain an introductory paragraph(s) with a thesis statement, body paragraphs supporting your thesis statement, and a conclusion that will tie everything together.

It is important to remember that essay format also includes concepts such as paragraph transitions and main idea sentences. Another important element to consider when formatting a college essay is paragraph sequence.

Choosing Your Point of View

This does not refer to your personal review of the essay topic. This is the point of view from which you will write the essay. Nearly every college essay is written from the third person point of view. In case there is any confusion, here are examples of the 3 different writing points of view:

• The first person point of view = I, me, myself. This is rarely used in essays except for personal narratives.
• The second person point of view = You, yours, yourself. This is extremely uncommon in college essays. In fact using the second person in your writing will generally earn result in a deduction of points.
• The third person point of view = Them, they, he, she, one, people. The third person is the most common writing point of view for college essays. It puts the writer in the position of relaying information without over-personalizing the work.

When you write, always be careful that you do not fluctuate from one point of view to another. This will make your writing confusing to others, and will prevent you from making a salient point.

Writing for the Future

Once you know these few basic points, you will know how tackle nearly any writing assignment from how to write a great research paper to how to write a college entrance essay. This does not mean that you will not face writing challenges, it just means that you will have some basic tools to use. Remember that if you do struggle with any writing assignment, EssayWriting.Education has writers available 24 hours per day to assist you.