How to Write an Essay

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Recommended: My experience in academic writing

The written word is a robust contrivance that has been used for thousands of years to endow knowledge and emotion upon its audiences. Academic writing is one of the many different types of writing. Academic writing conveys different formalities of writing when compared to a basicity that is Personal writing. Academic writing needs a more organized, formal structure whilst using attire such as in-text citations and references to backup information presented within the script. Academic writing also deals with basal theories and causes ascendant processes and practices in ones everyday life, as well as exploring alternative substitutes for these events according too author Jagg Xaxx. The following is a reflection on my own academic essay writing which aims to critically discuss my strengths and weaknesses and develop a plan for development.

Before writing an essay, there are certain procedures that are gone through too ensure a well organized/ structured assignment piece. When the topic is received, I tend to time the writing time as to 2 hours as that is the time given at examination procedures. This allows me to practice my essay writing procedure and helps me better it in various aspects. Depending on the word count asked for, I allocate certain minutes to each parts of the essay; more to parts that require greater depth than others; whilst also granting myself a solid time towards the end of the 2 hours for a final check-up and edit of the essay. Then, an investigation consisting of research on the topic and brainstorming using mind-maps was also done to create a well-organized visual reference of the topic. After the research was made and background information was found, my next step would consist of paragraph structuring and...

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...tion given. Another goal is also to maintain focus whilst writing my essay keeping the audience in mind whilst writing and to try to avoid using long sentences when possible. The final and most important goal I believe is to donate more time to the entire essay write up process. Fortunately, the flaws of my essay writing skills are not too complex and can be easily looked over and improved through a simple session of research and analytical thinking. For example: my lack of referencing can be taken away by a re-run of the Power Point Presentations given throughout the semesters. Also, after receiving a criteria based on the Heriot Watt University marking guidelines, I can now use these guidelines whilst writing up my future pieces of academic writing to insure that I am within these guidelines and insure myself with a strong, accurate, well-organized piece of work.

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