Examples of college essays can be very helpful

In the case of writing your college essay, example is a great teacher. In other words, you don’t have to be a world class writer to write a great college essay if you have some examples to look at and use as a pattern or guideline.

Example essays don’t even have to be on the same topic as the one you’re writing. You might be wondering how someone else’s essays could possibly help you with yours. Writing is a craft. If you have a pattern to follow, you can be a good writer too.

Of course, you must choose well-written essays to use as your examples so you only learn from something good. A poor essay would only teach you poor skills.

How an example essay can help your essay writing:

• Ask yourself what makes the example a good essay? Write down your answers.
• Is the essay clear and concise? Does it make its point effectively?
• Check the logic of the claims the author made. Does it flow well from one main idea to another?
• How about the structure of the essay? What order did the author use? Would it work well for yours?
• Does the writer’s evidence sound good? Is it credible and justifiable? How did the writer present the facts, and were they relevant to the claims?
• Did the writer fully address and give answer to the thesis of the essay?
• Was the introduction captivating and interesting? What did the writer do to accomplish this?
• Make a map if you can, of the example essay. Write down the steps and how they flow from one to another. Copy this flowchart in your own essay.

Think of the example essay as kind of like a recipe. While your ingredients (topic) will be different, you can use it as a guideline on how to put everything together in a successful way.

It’s common for students to use example essays when writing. Often the teacher will display essays from past students to show you what he or she expects in a top quality piece of writing.

An example essay should never take the place of the teacher’s instructions. If you have been given implicit instructions for the format, style or contents of the essay, they have first priority over anything you want to adopt from the example essay.

Remember that using an example essay has nothing to do with plagiarism. You won’t be copying any of the words at all. It’s used only as a pattern to show you how to put your own originally written essay together. It’s essential to remember that. Using an essay from another field of study is a good idea for that reason. You won’t be tempted to copy any material because it’s a different subject.