How to Start an Essay

Jun 29, 2021 • 4 min read

Nobody says writing is easy. Whether you’re working on academic research or you’re typing up an industry report, there’s no easy way around writing an essay. And usually, the beginning is the toughest part. For this reason, Smodin prepared some pointers on how to start an essay that is both informative and engaging. You may have the perception that writing is natural for some people, and that you are not one of them.

How to Title an Essay and Other Important Tips

Brainstorm essay titles using your main ideas.

Many people get stuck the moment they try to name their essays. This is primarily because of two factors — making sure people know what the essay is about and writing a headline that makes people want to read more.

The best way to move forward and come up with a striking title for your essay is to look at the foundations of your content. What’s the main topic of your essay? What’s your objective for writing that piece of content? What do you want readers to learn from it? Brainstorm using these questions and your title will turn out just fine. You can use Smodin’s AI Author to expand your text.

How to Start a Paragraph in an Essay

There’s really no easy way around it, even for people who have been writing essays for years. 

For you to get started with an essay, you simply have to sit down and force yourself to write. You shouldn’t wait for inspiration to strike — rather, you should gather sufficient references and filter what you can use for citations. From there, it’s a matter of putting your ideas and informed opinions together.

And remember: the first draft will never be perfect. Just keep writing. And when you’re done, go over the content and point out the areas you can trim down and the ideas you can elaborate on.

Plagiarism can complicate things

in some cases; a plagiarized paper can get you expelled from your program. This was the case of a student, who tried to defend having completely copied an article from Wikipedia, at John Hopkins University.
In short, do not steal other people’s work, give them credit and cite your sources, and if you are not sure what constitutes plagiarism, check with your university to find out what they consider plagiarism before it could bring you trouble. You can also see our blog about what is normally considered plagiarism.
Also, our plagiarism-checking tool will help you to make sure your essay is okay.

How to Make an Essay Longer

Longer content isn’t always better content. But if you’re trying to hit a word count, or if you think there’s something missing from your essay, here are some ideas to make your essay longer:

• Add supporting evidence to the ideas you presented.
• Give examples and hypothetical situations to illustrate your point.
• Use reliable quotations to back up your ideas and solidify your arguments.
• Break up longer paragraphs into digestible bits of information.
• Make sure your conclusion answers the introduction’s main question.
• Use Smodin AI Author and let Smodin do the job!

If you have any other tips for fellow essay writers, share them in the comments below!

Writing does not happen when you are distracted

Several books talk about how our attention works, (Focus, the hidden driver for excellence) is one of them, and actually. Human beings can’t focus on several tasks at the same time, they can only put their attention on one thing at a time and alternate that attention, therefore, in reality, multitasking is often counterproductive, it is important to reduce other distractions as much as possible.