Essay writing, explained
Longer pieces on how essays actually work, and on using AI for them without getting yourself into trouble.
· 10 min read
A Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example, Annotated
A full worked example, with the source text printed above it so you can check the analysis against the thing being analysed. Including the weak version of one paragraph, which is more instructive than the good one.
· 8 min read
How to Write a 5 Paragraph Essay
Five paragraphs is a scaffold, not a law — and it is a genuinely good one while you are learning. Here is what each paragraph owes the reader, and the point at which you should stop using it.
· 6 min read
5 Paragraph Essay Graphic Organizer
Every box, with the question it is actually asking. Copy it into a document, print it, or hand it out — and fill it in the order given rather than top to bottom, which is the part most organizers get wrong.
· 8 min read
Essay Formats, and Which One You Are Being Asked About
“Format” means three unrelated things, and the advice you find depends on which one the writer assumed. Page setup, citation style, and structure — here is each, with the defaults for when nobody has told you.
· 8 min read
What Is a Rhetorical Analysis Essay?
A rhetorical analysis asks how a text works on its reader, not whether the text is right. Nearly every weak one fails at that first distinction — it argues the topic instead of analysing the argument.
· 6 min read
What Is an Explanatory Essay?
An explanatory essay explains something without taking a side. If that sounds like the definition of an informative essay, that is because in almost every course it is the same assignment under a different name.
· 8 min read
UChicago Essay Prompts, and How to Answer Them
The prompts change every year, so the list is not the useful part — the official page has it. What does not change is the structure of the supplement and what these questions are actually testing, which is where almost everyone goes wrong.
· 8 min read
Admission Essay Writing Help
Most applicants worry about the wrong question. The problem is rarely finding help — it is knowing which kind helps, and where the line sits between an editor and a ghostwriter.
· 8 min read
How to Start an Essay Introduction
An introduction is three moves inside about a tenth of your word count: something specific, the context that makes the question live, and the thesis. Most of what goes wrong is a budgeting problem rather than a writing one.
· 8 min read
How to Start an Essay About Yourself
An essay about yourself is not a biography, and the opening is where that goes wrong. Start with one moment rather than a summary of who you are — and not with the day you were born.
· 8 min read
How to End an Essay
The last paragraph is the one your reader finishes on, and most of them are spent repeating what the reader just read. Here is what to do with it instead — and how the right ending differs by the kind of essay you are writing.
· 7 min read
What Is a Call to Action in an Essay?
A call to action tells the reader what to do now that you have convinced them. It belongs in persuasive writing and almost nowhere else — which is why so many essays end with one that should not have.
· 8 min read
College Essay Checkers: What They Catch and What They Miss
“Checker” covers at least five tools that do completely different jobs, and people routinely buy the wrong one. Here is which is which, the things no checker can tell you, and the checks that actually decide the mark.
· 8 min read
What Is a Claim in an Essay?
A claim is any statement a reasonable person could disagree with and that you intend to support. Most of what goes wrong in an essay goes wrong because something that looked like a claim was not one.
· 7 min read
How Long Is a Short Essay?
Usually 500 words, about five paragraphs. But “short essay” is not a defined unit, and what it means depends entirely on who set it — so the number below is a default, not an answer.
· 9 min read
How to Make Your Essay Longer
If you are under the word count, the problem is almost never that your sentences are too short. It is that the essay is missing a move it should have made anyway — and that is good news, because adding it raises the mark.
· 8 min read
How to Make a Hook for an Essay
A hook is not an attention-grabber bolted to the front of your essay. It is the first piece of information your essay gives, and it either earns the next sentence or wastes it.
· 9 min read
Essay Sentence Starters That Aren’t Filler
A sentence starter is a signpost for a logical move. If the move isn’t there, the phrase is just a longer way of beginning. Here are ones that do real work, grouped by the job they do.
· 7 min read
How to Start an Informative Essay
Almost everything written about opening an essay assumes you are about to argue something. An informative essay is not, and that changes the first paragraph more than people expect.
· 8 min read
The Best AI Essay Writer: What to Actually Look For
“Best” depends entirely on what you need it for. Here are the five things that actually differ between these tools, and a five-minute test you can run on any of them.
· 7 min read
What Is an Informative Essay?
An informative essay explains something clearly without taking a side. The hard part is that its thesis works differently from every other essay you have been taught to write.
· 7 min read
What Is an Outline for an Essay?
An essay outline is a plan that states what each paragraph will argue and what evidence it needs. It is the highest-return fifteen minutes in the whole process, and most people skip it.