Writing an academic essay can be intimidating if you have never written it before or have not written it for a long time. By following the five steps below, you can develop a theme and write an essay without undue stress or anxiety.

The first step in writing your academic essay is to identify your topic and develop a thesis statement, which is simply a summary of the main idea of your essay (for example, "Dogs are Better than Cats").

When you are given the task of writing an academic essay, your tutor may give you a specific topic or ask you to write a specific application for your dissertation. Sometimes your instructor may ask you to write one of four essay samples:

• A narrative essay tells a story about what happened in an author's life.
• Narrative essays are used to describe something, such as a place, person, or work of art.
• Exposition essays provide information on a topic.
• Narrative essays are used to make an argument or to convince a reader to feel a certain way or to believe in something concrete.

If your instructor has asked you to choose your own topic, think about which topics are of interest to you. Are you a film buff who has been asked to write a descriptive essay? Describe how you feel when you watch your favorite movie. Have you been asked to write a narrative essay?

Think about important events such as your most memorable vacation and write a story about what happened during your vacation.

Explore and take notes

Once you have decided on your dissertation, it is time to start your research, if necessary. If you are writing an essay that describes your personal experience or feelings about a particular topic, your research may not be necessary. For other types of essays, however, it is important to find information from reputable sources to support your arguments or provide accurate information.

When considering how to write an academic essay, do not wait until the last minute to begin your research. You may find that the information you need is not readily available online, so you may need to visit your local library or conduct a deeper search on the Internet. The staff at your local public library or at your institution's library will be happy to help you, but you should never stop by the night before you write your essay expecting to find all the information you need quickly.

Find the right sources

When you are looking for authoritative sources, look for academic journals, newspapers, government or organizational websites, or websites written by someone who has experience and authority in the subject area you are studying. In general, information on wikis (including Wikipedia) is not credible, since anyone can change this information at any time. However, visiting sources that are linked at the bottom of a wiki page is a great way to find authoritative sources.

Once you have collected the information, write down important dates, numbers, names, etc. so that you have all the information you need at hand when you start writing. You can also print out articles and web pages and highlight important information to make it easy to find when you start writing.

It is vital to record or save bibliographic information for all your sources, including websites. This information includes the author's name, the title of the article or web page, page numbers (for printed materials), the date the source was published, and the URL (for websites). When you write an essay, you will most likely have to refer to this information and include it at the end of your essay.

Create an outline

Once you have collected your research, think about how you want to organize it. A simple essay consisting of five paragraphs should begin with the introductory paragraph, include three paragraphs containing information or arguments, and end with the final paragraph. If your essay is longer than five paragraphs, it should still begin with the introductory paragraph and end with the final paragraph.

Each paragraph in the body of the essay should be dedicated to a single idea. When writing your essay outline, you may arrange the ideas in these paragraphs in different ways, such as chronologically or from the least important to the most important. It is important that the paragraphs flow from one paragraph to another to form a coherent essay.

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