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Essay writing is a tough nut to crack, no matter the setting. Students take the craft seriously in high schools. They get to learn from instructors and then provided hands-on exercises and prompts to hone their skills. After graduating, these writing skills could help them not only admission to a prestigious college but even a scholarship.
This is the highest honor that a student can get at an institution. That’s why there is even stiffer competition for scholarships than at the admissions level. The problem with many aspirants is that they do not know how to write a good scholarship essay.
In this blog, we will share scholarship essay help on how to write a good scholarship essay. For those who want to earn a scholarship but can’t produce riveting prose, PerfectEssay is the best option for a well-researched scholarship essay.Â
Rationale For Writing Scholarship Essay
Every form of writing can be identified and even defined completely by its purpose. Fiction is written to entertain the readers. Research papers are written to educate readers about developments in a particular field.
When it comes to writing a scholarship essay, the adjutant committee wants to gauge the thinking and writing levels of the candidates to pick the best one. Since there are many applicants for these scholarships, they are obligated to choose the right candidate. The obvious and most natural form of criteria is writing and editing. Hence, scholarship essays should cover the prompt and all the prescriptions detailed by the committee so that their purpose is fulfilled.
Whether researching or writing the text of the essay, aspirants should keep this thing in mind all the time if they want to succeed with their scholarship essays.
How To Write A Scholarship Essay
Now that the purpose and rationale behind writing a scholarship essay are out of the way, we can get on with the writing phase. Writers should keep in mind that merely writing an essay is easy; what goes inside and around the essay matters a lot. That’s why we have designed our guide to cover all the bases for readers who can emulate all the steps in real life to produce excellent essays.
So, without further ado, let us explore each of the steps in the scholarship essay writing guide.
Going Through The Prompt
Hastening, in the beginning, could lead to disasters down the road. Many writers make this mistake and waste precious time. The first order of business is always reading and rereading the prompt. Often, it has subtle ideas and hints that can change the focal points for the writers.
Finding The Focal Point
Every essay has a hinge or a central idea around which all of its ideas and elements revolve. It can also be called a focal point. While going through the prompt, writers need to find a focal point or a foundation in it. It will help them in building the whole essay around it. Unless there is a clear one in sight, writers should refrain from moving on to the next step.
Structuring The Scholarship Essay
In the preliminary stage, writers should also strive to create a structure for their essays. Although the traditional structure of essay writing works for the majority of essays, they need to build milestones and sections around the focal point. In this way, they will have something to work on when they are done with the prompt. Once this is dealt with, they can work on the outline and collection of the data.
Researching The Topic
This is a common pitfall that many novice writers and aspirants fall into. The moment they see that they have found a familiar topic or prompt in the scholarship essay, they move quickly toward writing it. The reality is different as students always need additional information and data to write a riveting opening, solid body paragraphs, and satisfying conclusion.
Scouring Through Primary & Secondary Sources
Instead of relying solely on creativity and memory, writers should go through primary and secondary sources to collect necessary data. The former cover publications and books are written by scholars in the fields. Whereas the latter cover commentaries and reviews on the primary sources. Whatever source they choose to rely on, it must be valid and reliable in the field.
Outlining The Essay – From Start To Finish
Students can save a lot of time if they combine two steps in one. Instead of dedicating time and effort to researching the topic and then outlining the essay separately, they can do both at the same time. This can help them in defining the scope of the essay and collect relevant data in one go.
Coming Up With A Thesis Statement
No essay is complete without a thesis statement and scholarship essays are no exception. A thesis statement is the summary of the writer’s views about a certain topic or subject. It is in a bold and brief form, often in a single sentence. Before writing the essay, writers should come up with a thesis statement. For instance, if the essay is argumentative, the thesis statement would be a sentence about which side the writer is on and why that is the case.
What A Thesis Statement Should Be
Many writers get stumped while writing a good thesis statement. In reality, it has to have certain traits to be considered a good one. These are the characteristics that they can keep in mind:
- Boldness and brevity
- Clarity
- Relevance with the topic
- The hinge or theme of the essay
- No more than a short passage
How To Write Good Scholarship Essays
Even if you are not a gifted writer, you can write a solid scholarship essay after going through the steps illuminated in the guide. The pre-writing phase is as important if not more than the writing phase. That’s why we have focused more on it because almost all the guides on the internet skipped that part.
Basing the succeeding sections on the previous ones, let’s cover the major sections of your scholarship essay.
Acing The Introduction
This is one paragraph of the five in the complete essay. It starts with a hook to grab the attention of the readers. After that, the writer must provide background information on the main topic or focal point of the essay. It should not be too long or too short but strike a perfect balance. Once it is out of the way, the writer should put down the thesis statement in the closing lines to bridge this section with the main body.
Justifying The Main Body
All of the fuss, if you call the introduction and the conclusion of the essay, is about the main body of the essay. The opening eases readers into it and the conclusion ties all the ends. The body should be what the essay promises to the readers through the title. Whether you are writing an argumentative essay or a narrative one, all the elements get to play and balance one another in this section.
Closing With Solid Conviction
This is often the most overlooked section of the essay because writers could be exhausted with the opening and the main body. Yet, it plays a vital role in making a good essay great. The conclusion should revisit the thesis statement, in the beginning, to circle the contents. Then, it should summarize all the major points from the body before signing off with catchy departing thoughts. Writers must close the essay on a high note.
Proofreading & Reviewing The Scholarship Essay
Whether a student is a master of a craft or just a novice, there is just no way around proofreading and reviewing the scholarship essay. Even involuntarily, many errors and inconsistencies are left in the text. So, there is always a need for a dedicated session to get the essay in its best form.
Following are some of the most common issues that must be resolved from the prose before turning it in:
- Grammatical errors
- Spelling mistakes
- Contextual inconsistencies
- Sentence flow
- Bridging between paragraphs
- Logical cohesion between sections
These areas must be visited and strengthened in the proofreading session so that the finished product is the best of its iteration.
Summing Up The Discussion
There is no denying that writing a scholarship essay comes with its expectations and uncertainties. The stiff competition and lack of tools and training make things harder for the writers. In our guide for writing the best scholarship essays, we have highlighted the process based on its major sections. In addition to this, we have also covered the pre-writing phase, including researching, outlining, and developing a riveting thesis.
We aim to equip students with the training and tools to compose winning scholarship essays.Â
Still, for those who are not up for the challenge, PerfectEssay offers pre-written scholarship essays. We have a team of professional writers with ample experience in writing scholarship essays for our clients. So, get the prestige and financial honors with our writing services!
Courtesy of PerfectEssay
