Essay Writing Guide: A Guiding Light through the World of Writing

It is thought that since all essay questions are different that essays should probably all follow a different format.  That is not the case.  All essays should follow a universal essay writing guide which includes certain elements to guide you to successfully expressing your knowledge on a subject.

When following an essay writing guide, your reader (typically your teacher or professor) will be able to understand the main point you are trying to convey with the right amount of support to know exactly what you are talking about.

So what are the essential components of an essay writing guide?  If you were to write your own essay writing guide or checklist, what would you put on it?

Any essay writing guide would suggest that you understand the main idea of the essay is or the main point of what you are trying to tell your readers.  That is important because you will be doing everything you can to support that idea as you write. All good essay writing guides direct you to do that.

Essay writing guides also suggest that it is a good idea to have three ideas that support your main idea.  An essay writing guide will ideally state that there should be three sentences, proving or sustaining or making clearer the main theme or idea.  These three ideas can come directly from the source you are working from, or from outside sources.

According to most essay writing guides, typically, the three supporting points will make paragraphs all by themselves and within those paragraphs; you should be able to support them with anecdotes or examples throughout your essay.  The anecdotes or examples should be things that really happened in a fictional story, or provable in a non-fiction piece.  Once you have repeated the process, you should make sure that your essay writing guide specifies that you write your conclusion.