Writing an essay is one of the most important ingredients in any part of a student’s academic career. Students with a flair for writing use essays to build their professional writing skills. The other students however usually find essays to be tiresome, without realizing what they’re missing out on. Not only do students miss out on developing their writing skills, they also miss out on important grades.

Students should realize that essay writing isn’t all that hard when one is focused enough and interested in the topic at hand. Keeping a positive mindset will ensure that essays get done more smoothly and without exerting too much effort.

Here’s a checklist that you as a student can follow in order to make sure your essay is worth the effort:

1. Don’t put it off till the last minute. Professors tend to dump research assignments on students, who in turn lose their enthusiasm resulting in delays to meet their deadlines. Leaving out all research work, writing etc till the eleventh hour is a potential risk for shoddy research, careless citations, and lackluster writing.

2. Verify authenticity of resources. You can easily use the internet to conduct in-depth research over your essay topic. There are many viewpoints and information sources on the web [both fact and fiction] which you can use to build your essay. All that’s required is rationality and intelligence on your part to back your findings and eventual point of v view.

3. Say NO to slang. This is looked down upon as one of the major causes of getting bad grades. Writing in an informal style is a critical error while writing an essay. While informal writing is okay for practice and creative writing, it is unacceptable while writing academic essays.

4. Critique your own work. Imagine yourself as an examiner and review your essay once you’re done. Proofreading will allow you to notice any weaknesses or errors in the essay, so you can correct them before your examiner docks out potential grades.

5. Don’t be too hasty. Carelessness in completing your essay will lead to undesired results, as examiners can easily identify half-hearted work. Make sure to put in the required time to polishing your essay so that examiners get the feeling that you’ve written it with utmost dedication.

6. Stay within [size] limits. You may think that using larger font sizes and page margins to create more pages will help meet your page quota, but professors are professors for a reason [i.e. they’re smarter], so don’t even think about it. Look for quality in your material, and quantity will follow.