Worksheet For Writing An Essay

Writing an essay can be daunting, but if you break it up into steps, it will become manageable. Often, it is a good idea to begin by doing some freewriting; to do freewriting, you choose the topic you are going to explore in your essay, and then write whatever comes into your head, without worrying about correct grammar, spelling, etc. This doesn’t produce a finished product, but it can help you get some of your ideas onto paper. Often, your instructor will assign a topic, but if he or she leaves you free to choose, pick something you are really interested in; that makes the writing so much easier!

Once you have some ideas to work with, you can arrange them in a way that makes sense to you. Eliminate those that don’t “work,” and elaborate on those that do. As your ideas become clearer, you will want to write a thesis statement. This is a formal statement of your position about the topic. Everything in your essay will support this thesis statement. You can think of it as the “topic sentence” for your whole essay.

In order to write an accomplished essay, fill out the following outline. Write a rough draft, using the outline as your guide. Then rewrite, edit and proofread as necessary to produce a finished product.

TOPIC:

NARROWED TOPIC (IF NECESSARY):

(WORKING) THESIS STATEMENT:

I. INTRODUCTION – TELL WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO BE WRITING ABOUT

II. BODY – ALL THE SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FOR YOUR THESIS STATEMENT

A.

B.

C.

III. CONCLUSION – TELL WHAT YOU HAVE PROVEN OR SHOWN; SUMMARIZE/AND OR RESTATE

For more information, click the link to Purdue OWL, http://owl.english.purdue.edu/.


For more information, contact the Academic Success Center at 860.773.1530 or
[email protected].