How do I write a good essay?

Essay rules

• Make sure your essay is legible, neatly written, and divided into three paragraphs (introduction, body, conclusion).
• Read through your essay several times after writing it to curb spelling and grammatical errors.
• Stick to the topic exactly when writing. Straying from the topic will result in an unsatisfactory grade.
• Formulate your narrative with easy-to-understand sentences. A reader who does not know your thoughts should be able to follow the story effortlessly. In each sentence there is a new statement that leads the reader further.

No-gos in essay writing

• Youth language such as mega, cool, super, bro, awesome. Use quality vocabulary of standard language.
• Unrealistic and implausible actions. Basically, you are expected to describe an experience that you could have had yourself. Therefore, refrain from fantasy elements, such as talking to animals, as long as the task does not explicitly ask for a fantasy story.
• Colloquial abbreviations and expressions. Examples: How's it going / Let's go! / I heard it once, too. → The essay is to be written in standard language throughout.
• At the end of the essay write "End". 
• Drawing on the page or drawing hearts as i-dots. This indicates childlike behavior and suggests poor maturity for gymnasium.

Writing an essay step by step  

The best way to write an essay is step by step.

Step 1: Read the assignment carefully 

The assignment, the instructions and the given text must be read through calmly and with concentration in order to understand exactly what the essay should be about, what type of essay you should write, how you should write the essay, what you should possibly take from the given text, whether you should formulate the title and what else you should consider and implement.

Step 2: Create a to-do list 

It is best to make a to-do list in which you list the individual points of the task to be completed and check at the end whether you have completed all the points on the to-do list and cross out the completed point when checking.  

Step 3: Take notes 

Think about what you want to write and make notes in bullet points. If you have received additional material for writing the essay, read through this material carefully, preferably several times, and mark important passages in this material.

Step 4: Outline the essay 

Create an outline of the essay - with an introduction, main body and conclusion as a rough outline. But also divide the main body into different sections so that you know the order in which you will write down your thoughts and incorporate your previously made notes and other things that occur to you into this outline as bullet points.  

Step 5: Writing the essay 

Now you can start writing the essay using the outline you have created, including the notes you have incorporated, whereby you should stick to the outline as if it were a red thread.  

Step 6: Proofread the text 

When you have finished writing the essay, you should read it through several times if possible to find any errors that you should correct straight away. Look for spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, grammatical errors and stylistic errors (such as two consecutive sentences beginning with the same word).

You should practise writing the essay and can have the essay corrected.