Writing is a powerful tool to communicate with others. It helps us convey our ideas and beliefs. But apart from that, writing is also an integral part of academia. Students have to compose numerous essays during their academic life. No matter what they study, writing assignments will be part of their curricula. That’s why having excellent writing skills to complete an essay is what matters the most.
However, not every person can write an impeccable paper. Students often lack time, and they can’t complete everything before deadlines. Although anyone can hire a top essay writer on essaybulls.com to handle their assignment, many individuals want to deal with their tasks on their own. But they don’t know what skills they should bolster to cope with their academic assignments effectively. This article reveals paramount abilities each and every student must have to make an essay flawless and outstanding.
Critical Thinking
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Critical thinking is one of the most crucial skills in college. Having critical thinking abilities at a high level helps deal with complicated tasks and elaborate on thought-provoking takes. It also comes in handy with other subjects and home assignments, such as projects and presentations.
It might be hard to develop critical thinking, especially when you are a student. This is because you have to read plenty of literature, become more self-aware, understand your mind, develop foresight, and listen to different people and sources. You must also peruse existing evidence and ask relevant questions.
Developing critical thinking skills is a time-consuming process. But it is an ability that will help you in everyday life. Remember that no one thinks all the time critically. You should analyze things and come to conclusions by yourself, even though they might happen to be wrong.
Brainstorming
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Brainstorming is what always makes papers unique. When brainstorming, you do your best to stimulate your brain to come up with exclusive concepts that you can include in the essay. You might ask, “How does it work, and what should I do to have productive brainstorming?” Here is the thing.
Since brainstorming is an indispensable part of an essay, article, book, and blog writing, a dozen techniques exist. You don’t necessarily need to follow a specific strategy because someone’s told you it’s effective. On the contrary, test several methods, and by trial and error, choose one that works best for you.
We can only recommend trying the following brainstorming techniques, as they have already proved useful:
- Listing: The most straightforward method that doesn’t require anything from the writer but a pen and paper. If you lack the time or don’t want to spend plenty of it developing ideas, this type might suit you the best.
- Mind-Mapping: If you like drawing tables, diagrams, and circles to develop an idea, mind-mapping is for you. There are tons of mapping apps with zillions of templates you can use. You can also try a Venn diagram.
- Freewriting: Compared to the mentioned techniques, freewriting is the most time-consuming. If you’re short on time, this method is definitely not yours. Conversely, if you aim to develop one-of-a-kind ideas, you will benefit from this type the most. Simply start a brainstorming session and try to develop an idea. Once the session is over, take a break and start all over again. Professors claim the third attempt of freewriting results in original and unique ideas.
Researching
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Researching can be a real pain in the neck. Not only might it be challenging to find relevant sources, but you can also spend lots of time looking for them. Be that as it may, though, knowing how to research and what to look for will boost your writing skills and reduce your time spent searching for sources.
To make your research effective, start with broad sources covering the field the essay’s topic is related to. You can use a search engine and Wikipedia. When using Wiki, familiarize yourself with content and carefully look at the section with used sources. Upon doing that, narrow down your search, focusing on the topic of your paper. Look for different pieces of literature and check their tables of content. If they have anything related to your essay, it’s time to verify such sources. Checking authenticity and reliability is a must, so make sure to examine:
- The author: Check the author. Are they academicians? Do they have any other publications? Do they have profiles on academic websites, such as Academia.Edu and Research Gate?
- The publisher: Look closely at the publisher. Is a publishing house credible? What has it recently published? Does it publish any controversial topics? Is it more specialized, or it publishes works on various subjects?
- The publication date: Essentially, the more newly published source is, the better it is. The rules of academic writing don’t usually accept sources older than five years. That is, your sources must be published no earlier than 2016.
Knowledge of Grammar and Punctuation
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It goes without saying that grammar and punctuation are vital skills in essay writing. No teacher will give an essay a high grade if it has grammar inaccuracies and other grave errors, such as misspellings and typos. Grammar and punctuation are tricky, and although plenty of books exist, it is impossible to learn every rule. Let alone mountains of exceptions.
Of course, if you are an English native speaker, you will find it easier to write a paper grammar and punctuation-wise. But what if English is your second language? Needless to say that millions of students are EFL speakers whose programs are conducted in English. For international students, it might be hard to learn the proper use of contractions, prepositions, and, above all, articles. Luckily, neither native nor non-native English speakers have to learn grammar and punctuation the hard way. Knowing fundamental rules will be enough if they use Grammarly.
Grammarly is an excellent spell checker that works with English texts, highlights mistakes, and provides solutions to different grammar, lexical, and punctuation issues.
Apart from Grammarly, Hemingway Editor is also worth attention. It focuses on the text’s readability, highlighting hard-to-read words, phrases, and sentences, and providing better alternatives to them.
