None of the students like to do this, but everyone has to deal with this task. However, writing an essay is a core skill in the learning process. If you do not learn how to express your thoughts on paper, find the right arguments, and build logical chains, then in the future, you will have to buy term papers, as you are unlikely to cope with them yourself. Today we offer you six simple tips that will help you write an essay in a foreign language.
Compile a glossary of terms
This is an interesting approach to writing an essay. First, choose a topic and write the central thesis. The thesis is the principal argument in your essay. Now that you have a thesis, think about your essay’s main subject and find the vocabulary related to it in various ways. Then add to your list words that are only indirectly related to your topic. This activity will help you expand your vocabulary. Not immediately, of course, but it will. By using all these words in your essay, you will also make it more colorful and lively.
Imagine that you work as a reporter
When you have first received the essay’s topic, try to explore the materials for your thesis fully. Ask questions. Show curiosity. The more questions you ask before you start writing, the more information you can use in your essay.
A good essay is an essay in which several topics are explained concisely and straightforwardly. If you act like a reporter, you will have quotes, sources, and vocabulary to help you start writing.
Generate some introductory sentences
An introductory sentence is the first sentence of a paragraph that briefly describes the meaning of the whole paragraph. You can write such sentences first so as not to lose focus while you are writing the essay.
Find arguments for both viewpoints
If you need to write a more complex essay, try to identify both points of view on the topic before you start writing. When writing an essay, you will need to focus on one line of reasoning. However, in the process of preparation, you will be helped to make a consistent list of arguments to support your thesis.
In addition, by bringing arguments to the opposite point of view, you will understand which parts of your essay should be better formulated. You will learn more about your topic and find more vocabulary to enrich your essay.
Read sentences from the end
Many native speakers have memorized the wrong grammar since childhood. It is complicated to learn if you have written with mistakes all your life!
While you are learning English, you take grammar practice and correct sentence structures seriously. One way to identify errors in your texts is to read sentences from the end (start with the last word and move on to the first). This way, you won’t be fooled by the way words sound in your head. Is everything in the right grammatical tense (don’t you have sentences that jump from past to present)? If you’re writing about plural forms, do possessive nouns belong to the plural? Are the apostrophes correct? Do all sentences end with punctuation marks (a dot, question, exclamation point)? When you read sentences from the end, you focus on grammar rules, not the sentence itself.
Use online thesauruses and dictionaries
You probably have already learned a lot of interesting words when preparing for the tasks. But before you start using this vocabulary in academic essays, you need to know precisely what it means in the context of your essay. A dictionary is handy for this. Thesaurus is another useful tool for writing an essay. You will find many synonyms in the thesaurus, i.e., words with the same or similar meaning as the word you are looking for. This is important because it can add volume to your essay and increase the impression of your words.
Learning a foreign language is a very ambitious and challenging project. You need to know so many details, and this process takes a lot of time and effort. But thanks to practice and diligent study, your skills will improve.
It takes even more effort to learn to write well in a foreign language, and these tips will help you get started.
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