How to Improve your Essay Style

A good essay style will bring you extra credit

What exactly turns an essay into a “good” essay? There are some basic things: organization, facts display, proper quoting, the required word count and, of course, good grammar and spelling. But the essay style is also important. That means, the way you write your sentences, how you direct yourself to the reader or underline your points of view. All of it provides the work with a professional look not all essays have.
You may probably be wondering by now: how can I improve my essay style? Keep reading and you will find out.

Vary your sentence extension

The best written essays alternate between long sentences and short sentences. That makes them easier to read. An essay full of short sentences will seem written by a seven year old: “The best day of my life was two years ago. I was living in Miami. I went there to visit some relatives. I needed a job. Then I got hired in a bar”. On the other hand, an essay full of very long sentences will be difficult to read since the reader will get bored pretty quickly.

Use plenty of synonyms

Improving your essay style also means not repeating constantly the same words and expressions. One very simple thing you can start by doing is using the thesaurus and changing some words into their synonyms. Of course, always make sure they still make sense when changed, since not every synonym is appropriate in any context. You can also use pronouns or relative clauses to avoid repetitions, always keeping into account what we explained before about varying the sentence lenght.

What about the majestic plural?

Also known as editorial we, it is the use of plural some essay authors use when they try to include the reader in their reasoning. But, is it really appropriate using the majestic plural when writing an essay? Not always. When it comes to personal or autobiography essays (very common topics in college applications) it is better to use the first person (I) all the time. A majestic plural would sound artificial and presumptuous.

An appropriate register

Always keep in mind there should be a formal distance between you and the potential reader (that is, the teacher correcting and grading your essay). So improve the style by changing phrases like “I think” or “I believe” by others a bit more formal, such as “Based on my experience”, or “In my opinion”.

Ok, so maybe writing is not something you particularly enjoy. Maybe you even hate writing essays. Or maybe you are running out of time and you know you’ll never meet this deadline. Don’t worry! You always have the choice to buy a custom made essay, written by professional academic writer which will provide your work with a unique essay style. And the best part is, it is an original essay that will never be re-used or published online. Just as if it had been written by you!

Tags: essay style, Essay Writing, good essays