High School Essay Writing Tips: How to Craft a Masterpiece

Filed in Education by on July 26, 2020

High School Essay Writing Tips: The standards for writing a high school paper is often much different from writing a college-level paper.

This article will discuss several tips to help you to write a better high school paper from scratch. With each tip, examples will be provided so you know how to use the tips when you write your own paper.

1. Pretend Your Audience Knows Nothing About the Topic.

This is one of the very important School Essay Writing Tips. When you are assigned your paper for the first time, your teacher will probably say something like, “Don’t assume your audience knows everything you do.” This is a great tip to follow. While your teacher is the one who will be grading your assignment, you have to pretend that you are writing to another audience, one that has no prior knowledge of the subject.

For example, say you are writing a movie review of The Avengers. While your teacher may have seen the movie, your pretend audience might not have. So, instead of jumping right in and writing, “Ironman fought Loki for the Infinity Stone,” you are going to need to put in a little explanation. The following paragraph would be a better way to write the previous sentence.

“Ironman, who is one of the Avengers, is a billionaire who doesn’t have superpowers. Instead, he uses his money and genius to build a suit that can fly and shoot lasers. In this movie, he and the other Avengers, a team of superheroes that fight to save Earth from destruction, must fight Loki. Loki is a trickster god from Asgard, a place far away from Earth. He has magical powers, much like a wizard. Loki has the Infinity Stone, which makes his power even greater. The Avengers must retrieve the Stone if they wish to defeat him.”

While the above paragraph may seem a little long-winded for anyone who has seen the movie, it provides just enough detail for someone who hasn’t seen the movie to understand what is going on. Context is key when writing an essay, and if your reader doesn’t understand the context, then you can’t have written a very good essay.

2. Separate Fact and Opinion.

Is your assignment to write about how you feel about something or is it a research-based factual essay? If you are unsure, ask your teacher. When you are writing an opinion paper, it is important to support your opinions with research. However, if you are writing a fact-based research essay, it is best to keep your opinion out of the paper, as adding in your opinion may make your essay seem unprofessional.

For example, let’s say you are writing about global warming, which some people don’t believe in. Whether you believe in it or not, you need to ignore your own opinions and use facts to write your essay. You would write something like, “Global warming is considered fact by 97% of the scientific community based on the evidence…” not, “Global warming is considered fact by 97% of the scientific community, but I think the 3% is right because I feel like it’s been cold recently.”

If you are writing an opinion based essay, you will still need to support your argument with facts. After all, you are going to want your audience to agree with you and the best way to go that is to prove (with facts) why they should. For example, instead of writing, “Pineapple on pizza is good,” you would explain why you think so with facts, while still making it sound like your opinion. “I think pineapple on pizza is good because pineapple is sweet and the cheese is salty, which makes for a great sweet-and-salty combination.” Of course, you are still going to have people who disagree with you, but backing up your opinions helps to make them more relatable and believable.

3. Rough Drafts, Proofreading, and Editing.

You should always write more than one draft of your essay, at least, that’s what your teacher is likely to say. One way to do this is to write your first draft on paper and then type up your second draft. By doing this, you will be self-editing, probably without even realizing it. You will have two drafts, without needing to physically write out the second paper. This will also force you to look over your paper a second time.

Make sure to carefully proofread your paper after you type it! Spelling and grammar check doesn’t catch everything. For example, you might write something like, “Wednesday is in the middle of the weak,” which my grammar checkers on Google Docs didn’t even catch! When you proofread, you will realize that it needs to be rewritten to “Wednesday is in the middle of the week.”

For proofreading and article editing services, kindly visit https://www.servicescape.com/services/proofreading for proper guideline.

If you are unsure of your own editing skills, do not be afraid to ask a teacher or a friend to look over your paper with you. Sometimes having another pair of eyes to look over your work can be a big help! When you review your own work, you are often used to looking at the same words, so you may skip over the same mistakes each time. When someone else looks over your work, they aren’t likely to skip the same mistakes you did. If you cannot find someone to look over your work, try reading it out loud, as this may help you to catch mistakes you missed in previous drafts.

Writing essays is a common high school homework assignment, so it’s best that you know how to write one well. By following the three tips in this article, you are sure to improve your writing, and likely improve your word count as well. Good luck with your essay!

CSN Team.

Comments are closed.

Hey Hi

Don't miss this opportunity

Enter Your Details