Using the Right Essay Format
May 15th, 2010Most of us know that the way to write an essay in the most basic format is to break it up into parts. The first part is the introduction to the essay, the next is the main body part and the final part is the conclusion. This is the basic essay format; however your essay length will depend on what your topic is and how many words you are supposed to write.
Your essay introduction will cover the major aspects of the essay, and your chance to make an impact on the reader begins with the introduction. In this paragraph, outline the subject of the essay, and describe the structure of the essay in brief. For instance, if your essay is about a historical event, you can mention how you divided your essay to cover all aspects of the historical event. Also, ensure that you state in the introduction what you hope to achieve at the end of the essay.
The body of the essay will cover the major portion of your writing. This can go on to two, three or as many paragraphs as your word limit allows. In the body, elaborate on what you mentioned in the introduction, give supporting evidence, facts and figures. If you have multiple instances or features to discuss and many examples to support them with, make sure that you divide each feature into a separate paragraph and discuss it at length. This will also assist in guaranteeing that the essay format is following the right and prescribed guidelines.
Your conclusion should reinstate your thesis statement that was outlined in the introduction and should be a summary of what you wanted to speak about and what inference you drew from your analysis. Try to restrict your conclusion to a few sentences because you’ve already discussed enough in your other paragraphs. After all, you don’t want your reader getting bored with your conclusion after enjoying the whole essay!
While the above is the basic essay format, when we come to formatting styles for academic writing, APA style of writing and MLA style of writing are the most commonly followed and adhered to styles. Harvard style of writing is also a popular style. All these styles differ in the styling of titles and headers, paper and font sizes, margins, page numbers, space allocation etc. In the Harvard style, the author’s name, the year, place and title of publication are required to be included. In the APA style, double spacing with a one inch margin is used and in the MLA essay format, the last name of the writer along with the page number makes up the heading.
Whatever be the essay format, remember that the most important thing is the content of your essay. However, following the right format is also important and having both, that is the right format and useful content will ensure that your essay is well written.
