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"On top of knowing how to write a good paper of any sort, an essay needs to make a stand on a topic, stick to it, and (hopefully!) persuade the person reading it that you&amp;#039;re on to something. So persuade, persuade, persuade! Here&amp;#039;s how. Use a formula: Save your originality for coming up with an original statement that you want to prove \u2014 don&amp;#039;t waste your energy trying to come up with a structure out of nowhere. You&amp;#039;ll be able to think more clearly if the basic outline is there already, so try using a template to get the hang of an argumentative essay. Pick a thesis \u2014 not a fact: Too many students write essays about nothing \u2014 they pick an interesting fact on the material discussed in class and write more facts about it, but that&amp;#039;s a topic, not a thesis statement. A thesis is a clear point you want to prove. In American history, for example, a topic would be that the 1960s were a time of political and cultural tumult. A thesis would be that the political tumult of the 1960s resulted in a distrust of government by the American public. See the difference? Make each paragraph count: You might be tempted to list everything you&amp;#039;ve learned and all the ideas you&amp;#039;ve thought of, but that will just lead you into the tangent trap. Don&amp;#039;t do it! Everything in your paper should be relevant to your thesis. Maybe you&amp;#039;re writing your essay on Macbeth&amp;#039;s quest for power. Go through the text, write down anything you find that connects to this theme, and don&amp;#039;t stray from it. Don&amp;#039;t start talking about Lady Macbeth&amp;#039;s madness or the symbolism of the three witches unless you&amp;#039;re using it to support your claim. Don&amp;#039;t plagiarize: This may sound like a big &amp;quot;duh,&amp;quot; but it&amp;#039;s easy to plagiarize without realizing you&amp;#039;re doing so. It&amp;#039;s great if you want to do research on what others have written on similar topics before, and if you can find info to support your thesis statement, all the better. But you have to cite where you&amp;#039;re getting your information. Your teacher won&amp;#039;t hold it against you that you&amp;#039;re doing research (research is a good thing!). But she will hold it against you if she can sense that your work is basically a collection of stuff other people have thought of. Do your research, cite your sources, and let it support your own thoughts. Don&amp;#039;t rewrite your introduction as your conclusion: How many times have you read the last paragraph of an essay and thought, &amp;quot;Wait \u2014 haven&amp;#039;t I read this before?&amp;quot; For some reason, students think the conclusion is supposed to restate everything they already said in the introductory paragraph. This is just not true: Your conclusion is supposed to neatly tie up your ideas and leave the reader believing your thesis. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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