When your teacher gives you the freedom to pick an essay topic of your own, it can be stressful. After all, there are dozens of different themes you could choose to explore, and you want to make the right choice. Even if your writing sounds flawless, writing about the wrong thing can be the difference between passing and failing. In order to pick a topic that won't disappoint your professor, here are a few tips for picking an essay topic that'll earn you an A:
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1. Read All of the Guidelines Given
This is the most obvious step, but it's also the most important. If your teacher gives you any sort of guidelines for your essay, make sure that you read through all of them thoroughly. You should also remember to keep the title of your class in mind. If you're in a Medieval History class, then your professor probably wants you to focus more on the historical aspects of the book that you read than on the character's emotions.
2. Pick Something That Actually Interests You
Maybe everything about the class bores you. Even if that's the case, you need to pick a topic that bores you the least. If you're at least somewhat interested in the topic that you've chosen, then you won't be as reluctant to spend a lot of time writing your essay and doing research for it. That means you're bound to end up with a better grade.
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3. Pick Something You Can Find Sources on
If your essay requires sources, make sure you look online for viable sources before you get your heart set on your topic. If you can't find any information that will support or even deny your claims, then you're going to have a hard time creating the type of essay your teacher wants to read.
4. Don't Repeat What Was Said in Class
It's perfectly fine to pick a topic that was brought up in class before. However, you shouldn't jot down the words that your teachers and other students have said in order to include them in your essay. Your writing should be your work, not theirs.
5. Choose a Topic You're Knowledgable about
If you can, choose a topic that you already know a few things about. That way, you won't have to stop writing every five minutes in order to look things up. You'll already have the information you need in your head.
6. Make It Broad, but Not Too Broad
You need to make sure that your topic idea is long enough to fill up all of the pages of your paper. However, you don't want that topic to be so broad that you can't even begin to get down everything that you want to say. Try to find a place in the middle.
7. Ask Your Teacher about It
Even if your teacher seems rude during class, most professors tend to be nicer during office hours. So if you're unsure if your topic is a good one, stop by their office after class or shoot them an email. That way, they can give you their opinion long before they start grading your work.
As long as you follow these tips, you should end up acing your essay. Do you have any other tips for picking an essay topic?
Comments
Aaron: 👍✌️😱😱😱😎😎😎👌🤑🤑
polarbearsoat: For book reports/5 paragraph essays, I usually pick an honor book, or books with awards. Gary Paulson's "Hatchet" scored me an A+ in 8th grade honors English for our final essay(this was 20%of our grade!) Most of my peers, mostly because my teacher was very harsh in her style of grading, had gotten a "C" or lower. Of course, she did have the standard guidelines i.e 7sentences per paragraph, 5 paragraphs (intro, body, closure), and complying with word choice and reader appeal that doesn't make us sound like 3rd graders. This wasn't hard to comply to, but there is some charisma that leads teachers to give you either good marks or bad ones. Usually, teachers like to see that you put some thought into your essay and hadn't just chosen a book because it was on the recommendation list of books last summer or a certain number of pages long. I feel like while writing an essay, you need to include yourself and incorporate yourself into the essay. Please don't choose to write fun facts about yourself or become to opinionated during your essay. You are trying to get an "A", not write an autobiography. What I have done is slipped in something that most readers wouldn't have noticed in the book to show I fully analyzed and comprehended the book. Maybe write a statement about how Daniel Defoe's style of writing changed your outlook not only on the plot of the story, but on the time period in which it was written(1607, I believe). I am now a freshman, so do not take my word for everything in my comment(most of you will not read it to this point).
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