When writing an essay, it may seem overwhelming to write a ton when you have no idea where to start. Here is a few tips to get you through the process.

Prewriting:
• Start with ideas and group them together.
• Can not think of ideas? Use this website to take a main idea of your essay and it will give you words that go along with it
• Skip the introduction until you know for certain what you are actually talking about.
• Have a few ideas to write about (make sure they have evidence with them)
• Show how all the ideas connect together by giving a brief preview to each in order to create a thesis

Body Paragraphs:
• Use TREE (Transition, Reason, Evidence, and Explain) to length your essay • Beginning sentence should look something like this: (Transition word such as First, next, then, or lastly), (insert the first idea to talk about).
• Give a reason why this is important and then use CITED evidence
• Give an explanation or two as to why this relates to the theme or idea of the paragraph
• Then use CEE (Claim, Evidence, and Explain)to fill up the rest of the essay
• It is the exact same as the REE part of TREE
• Wash, rinse, and repeat as needed!

Introduction:
• Have a hook (quote, cool fact, or story) that relates to the topic to give the reader a reason to read the essay
• Have a sentence that explains why it relates and then state thesis
o See if your teacher prefers a single sentence thesis or a few sentenced out thesis

Conclusion:
• RESTATE thesis, do not just copy and paste.
• Explain why everything proves your thesis
• Summarize each paragraph
• Have the ending sentence relate back to the hook with a joke or something interesting to do with the topic

Editing:
• Ask someone else to read the essay or put in Google Translate and listen to it for mistakes (Tip: If you can not get a real person to read or you are short on time use this website)
• Do not use contractions in a formal essay (Tip: Find them easily by hitting Crtl+F then ‘ on your computer)
• Show something that you learned from that class!
• Spell check is your life saver
• Do not forget all citations (Tip: Use this website for free MLA citations)


Good luck!~