A Simple Guide For Writing An Excellent Short Essay

Essay writing is a common academic writing task given to high school and college students. Yet, students are often confused about how to write a short essay, how a short essay is different from a long essay, how long is a short essay and so on. In this article, we will answer all your queries related to writing short essays and will provide you with some essay help expert tips on short essays.

What is a Short Essay?

A short essay involves putting all your ideas and arguments in a limited capacity. Generally, an essay is 1000 words long. But a short essay is just 200-500 words in length. This means you have to present all the information in just two to five paragraphs. Now, you must be thinking about why short essays are tough? Anyone can write 500 words on a topic, right?

Well, that is the main highlight of short essays. You cannot write just anything. You need to ensure that the information that you are providing in the 500 words should be of the best quality. You might have a lot of ideas in mind, but you have to organise and prioritise them to create an impactful essay.

Short Essay Guidelines

Although your assignment instructions would include the complete guidelines about writing a short essay, we are sharing some common guidelines about writing short essays. These include:

• The main difference between a short essay and a long essay is the length. A short essay must not exceed 500 words. This means a short essay would not take more than 1-2 pages.
• A short essay may be descriptive, persuasive, expository, compare and contrast, rhetorical and so on. You might have to state your personal opinions in the essay.
• Short essays are precise and clear. No storytelling, no lengthy explanations. Just state the argument, support it with an example and you are good to go.
• A short essay must have an introduction and conclusion. Writing a short essay does not mean that you will skip any of these important parts of an essay.

Format of a Short Essay

Essays have a standard format that includes three main parts – Introduction, Body Paragraphs and Conclusion. Short essays are also written based on this format. Let us see how to write a short essay in detail.

#1 Introduction

This is the first paragraph of the essay and is used to introduce the essay topic to the reader. You will write what you will be discussing in the essay in this paragraph. Do not extend this paragraph. Keep it short, clear and concise.

Example: Suppose you have to write a short essay on the following topic – “Some people believe that children should not be given homework every day while others say that homework is very important to reinforce learning. Discuss both sides and give your opinion.”

You may write the introductory paragraph as:

Our education system promotes that students should be given homework every day so that they can revise what they have learned in class. While many people disagree with this practice. In this essay, I will discuss both views and state my opinion about the same.

 

#2 Body Paragraphs

It is recommended that you should create at least two short paragraphs in this section where each paragraph concentrates on one argument. You may follow a rule called “PEE” where P stands for Point, E stands for Explain and E stands for Example. This means first you will state your argument. Then you will explain it and give an example to support it.

Example: Consider the essay topic given in the above example. Here is how you can write a body paragraph for that essay.

Homework benefits students in many ways. Not every student follows a study schedule at home, especially in early classes. Homework ensures that they study something after going home. This way students can revise the concepts learned in class, practice similar problems that they solved in the classroom and ensure that they understand the concepts. The University of California recently conducted a survey where almost 1000 school students participated. Almost 75% of students revealed that they are able to maintain a study routine at home because they get homework every day.

 

#3 Conclusion

This is the last section of a short essay that summarises the main points of the essay and states the conclusion. You must make sure that you have answered the question correctly in the conclusion. It should be clear, crisp and eye-catching.

Example: Consider the essay topic given in the above example. Here is how you can write a conclusion for that essay:

In a nutshell, homework benefits students in many ways. But, excessive homework might lead to stress amongst students as they get no time to spend with family and friends. In my opinion, homework should not be banned at all in schools as it helps students in reinforcing what they have learned in the classroom. However, teachers can limit the amount of homework so that students can get enough time for socialising.

Write a Short Essay in Just 5 Steps!

GoAssignmentHelp essay writers have come up with a 5-step method for writing a short essay. Just follow these steps and you will be able to complete your essay assignment without any help in no time.

#1 Choose few arguments

Since you are writing a short essay, you must focus on one or two arguments and explain your point. If you try to include many arguments in the short essay, you will not get the chance to explain them and provide examples to support your claims.

#2 Collect references

Find examples, statistics or facts related to your main arguments. Make sure you choose trusted sources or databases for that. Austin, one of our assignment help experts says, “many students think that since they are writing a short essay, there is no need to cite the sources. However, that is not true. You must cite the sources according to the correct format like MLA, APA, Harvard etc.”

#3 Create an outline

It is very important to create an outline of the essay so that you can decide what to include in the essay. Otherwise, you may lose track and provide unnecessary information. Given below is how you should create the outline of a short essay using the PEE technique that we discussed above.

#4 Write your essay

Now it is time to fill in the outline of your essay. Consider it as your roadmap and start writing the essay. Do not worry about the word count here. Write all the words that come to your mind. We can cut down the unnecessary sentences later.

#5 Edit your essay

This is quite an important step that will shape up your essay for assessment. Firstly, read your essay and underline all unnecessary sentences, words or phrases. Then, look out for grammatical errors, poorly constructed sentences and punctuation mistakes respectively. At last, create the final draft of your essay and read it again to ensure everything is correct.

Last few Tips about Short Essays

Before we end this article, we would like to share some quick and easy short essay writing tips from our essay writers and assignment helpers.

#1 Always choose an interesting topic. You might always have enough information for writing a short essay. But, choosing an interesting topic would enhance its quality further.

#2 Read a few examples before you write. It might seem easy to write a short essay. But we advise you to read a few short essay examples to understand the format and pattern of short essay writing.

#3 Avoid distractions while you write. Switch off your phone, block websites and stay away from social media while you write. This way you can focus on writing the essay and it would ease your editing task.

#4 Do not lose hope! If you are finding it tough to write a short essay. Do not worry and consult a professional essay writer. Share your essay writing challenges with them and seek guidance accordingly. Keep practicing and soon your skills will improve.

Write Best Short Essays With GoAssignmentHelp

Seek help in understanding how to write, research, edit, proofread and prepare a short essay easily with GoAssignmentHelp. Our essay experts hail from the best universities and have years of experience in academic writing. We guarantee 100% unique essays with a quick turnaround time. Send us a quick query today and connect with our essay assignment help experts. We are working 24/7!