How to start and end an academic essay?

An academic essay is a subject based writing that intends to put forward the writer’s views on a particular topic with proper support of evidences. The academic essay tends to explore and cover various aspects of the topic. Academic essay writing includes critically analyzing the topic.Academic essay writing is an important part of academic process and every essay is assigned with a specific purpose. The purpose can be to explore a topic, to inform the readers, to challenge the facts, or to convince a new finding. Academic essay writing can sometimes be a very frustrating and tiring job if proper procedure is not followed. The procedure for academic essay is the same as in case of a dissertation but the words count of an essay is much less than that of a dissertation. This has an advantage of saving on time and labor. But at the same time, this also assigns the researcher with the responsibility to summarize a detailed concept in limited number of words.

The effectiveness of an academic essay depends largely on

How well the writer has understood the purpose of the academic essay?

Before starting to write the essay, the writer should be clear about the objectives of the academic essay. It is must that the writer understands the purpose this essay. This requires exploring the topic of the essay in detail. If the writer has not understood the objective, he/she may deviate from the objectives of the essay. The writer should try to gather information from varied sources. Secondary data can be gathered from  sources like books, newspapers, journals, websites etc. Data from various sources enriches the essay and enhances its quality. Also keep a track of all sources and cite it properly to avoid plagiarism.

How well the author can connect to the readers?

The effectiveness of an academic essay also depends on how well it connects with its readers. Proper flow of essay is of utmost importance to keep the readers connected. It is because the content may be available at various sources but the readers like to refer to the source presenting this content in an interesting sequence. The essay should therefore be given a perfect start and end. If the beginning is not good, the readers will not be able to connect to it and may leave unread. If the end is abrupt the essay loses its purpose.

How to start an academic essay?

The essay should be started with a brief introduction about the topic. The readers must be made aware of what this essay is all about. While writing the introduction of the academic essay, the writer must aim to inform the readers and evoke an interest among them about the topic. The introduction should also include a background of the topic and the focus should be placed on objectives of the essay so that readers can connect to the essay with the same objective as that of the writer. Correct beginning is very important because it provides direction to the readers about what the essay will serve them.

How to end the essay?

Correct beginning arouses readers’ interest to read further and they read through the main body of the academic essay. The body of the essay usually presents facts on the topic gathered from secondary sources. But unless there is a proper end to the academic essay, the readers would not be able to interpret and conclude the essay. Academic essay involves personal interpretation of the data. The essay should end with a summary of data along with a proper conclusion about what the writer has interpreted out of the data gathered. The conclusion should include both the positive arguments as well as the criticisms against the topic. This will give completeness to the essay and will help the writer secure good marks from the supervisor.