The (ghost of the) above node by corbynjames was an excellent factual how-to when constructing the ubiquitous standard essay, but now you can refer to BookReader's excellent How to Write an English Paper, which contains the same factual info. Whenever an English teacher assigns one to their class they cringe a bit inside. There are few things that are more boring than grading 30+ mechanically produced essays, which explains why so many are shunted off to the PhD students doing their teaching rounds.
Heck, when my oldest daughter received her first essay assignment in school (maybe third or fourth grade), I walked her through how to write a ninth-and-above essay just like corbynjames' node. My daughter hated that I was making her do all this extra work. When she turned it in, her teacher contacted us with a concern that my daughter was cheating or plagiarizing. I explained that I had given her extra training and that I could verify she wrote that paper. The teacher was impressed that my daughter could handle the advanced training. I wasn't, since I knew my kids were smart and they could soak up new ideas like miniature sponges. Most kids are, to be honest.
Do you want to stand out when you have to write an essay? Here's what I did, and I normally wrote my essays the morning when they were due.
- Know your target audience.
Do you have a curmudgeonly old coot who wants you to write one of those boring, brain-numbing essays using their exact sentence-by-sentence construct? Fine, do that. You can stop reading this node.
Do you have an instructor that appreciates trying to go beyond the rote construction? Excellent! Sticking to the general essay formula, make the essay more personable. Think of it like a conversation with a friend and you're trying to explain or convince them that something (your thesis) is good or bad. Anime is fantastic! Here are three reasons why, with suggested examples. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is bad, and here's why you should skip this movie.
- Avoid using blatant transitions as suggested.
Instead of using the usual suggestions (secondly, also, further, etc., all of which are valid to use), try to make the transitions more natural like in conversation. I used to make my essays sound less formal as though I was talking to the reader, more like a blog post (even though I wrote most of these before the Internet even existed). My essays would always stand out because they contained the required elements but didn't sound like I was building a verbal brick wall between me and my reader.
- If the person grading your paper has a good sense of humor, exploit it.
My 11th grade English teacher absolutely detested science fiction. Naturally, every one of my essays were about some of the most schlocky old pulp sci-fi like The Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison. I would do my best to convince my teacher to give science fiction a try by regaling him with tales of wonder. I never convinced him but he always got a good laugh, and in the end I always received an "A".
- If you can't make the crusty old teacher crack a smile, baffle them with bullshit.
In ninth grade, my English teacher was not well liked by anyone. I decided to write an essay on the effects of lyman-alpha radiation waves on solar atmospheres. I looked at some ancient Sky & Telescope magazines for some terms and chemistry information and just made up everything off of the top of my head. She couldn't even grade the spelling on the paper. She brought it to my Physics & Chem teacher (good old Mr. Zimmerman, a gentleman and a scholar!) and he read it through. He told her honestly that he was familiar with some of the terms I used but the paper was above his understanding. My English teacher was forced to give me a 100%, and she NEVER gave out a perfect score previously. Of course, when Mr. Z asked me about the paper, I told him the true story and he had a great laugh about it.