Essay Writing: 6 Things That Will Help You Achieve Clarity
03 Mar 22
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What is clarity in essay writing? Clarity is always one of the must-haves of essay writing. Professors always expect that every student will write an essay clearly. Yet, not every student even understands why their paper lacks clarity.
In brief, you achieve perfect clarity in an essay when your reader understands your concept fully. No matter what reaction the readers will have, first and foremost they have to comprehend an idea.
The clarity in an essay writing doesn’t mean directness exclusively. It’s a complex of transparency, certainty, precision, and simplicity withal.
Let’s quickly move on to tactics of improving your essay’s apprehensibility!
1. Brevity Is Better Here
Essay writing can be artistic like creating literary works. Yet, academic writing is rarely about fictional things. And factual things don’t always need vivid and incandescent depictions. Moreover, remember that in essay writing you are answering a question. You are not demonstrating your eccentricity.
The easiest tactic is to find the wordiest sentences. The wordy ones are those that have more than 9 words. Try condensing their meaning in 7. Then try writing a sentence with the same meaning in 5.
So, if it is possible, shorten it. Yet, of course, if you can’t express an idea in this small capacity, it’s fine. One or two bulky sentences won’t ruin your essay. Just make sure not all your sentences are a mile long.
2. Eliminate All Grammatical and Punctuational Errors
Literacy is always obligatory but not because it teaches you to never ignore artificial rules. It must be there for clarity yet again. Even when you have errors, your essay still might be understandable. But the readers will stumble on the problematic components which will make them rethink what they’ve read. And no essay author wants those interruptions.
3. Make Your Paragraphs Smaller Too
A vast paragraph is always hard to read, especially when it contains multiple ideas. Try breaking the biggest paragraphs of your essay into smaller ones. You can still connect them with transitioning phrases. But if you have more blocks, your reader will see the commencing of a new idea better.
4. Avoid Ambiguity and Vague Descriptions
Equivocal depictions and conclusions are prerogatives of modern and postmodern literature. In an essay, a student has to answer a question and find a solution to the stated issue. Almost every essay topic means that there is a problem that needs your opinion on solving. And you can’t consider it a half of a problem. It is either a problematic case or a normal and harmless one. Your reader needs your explanation. And if you leave your audience high and dry without coherent positioning of your idea, then you need to work extra.
5. Don’t Change Your Tone Abruptly
The essay tone might seem secondary compared to the content. Yet, it plays a significant role. Your tone:
- demonstrates your attitude to the objects of study;
- emphasizes components that you think are important for your readers to note;
- highlights compelling moments that might make your readers only more curious;
- conveys feelings and affects the emotional reaction of your readers after perception;
- affects the subconscious of your readers.
Choosing one particular tone for clarity in your essay is difficult but not impossible. The first thing you have to choose is whether you will be formal or informal in essay writing.
Remember that you can change your tone when talking about separate objects. For instance, one object might give you hope, and another seems impractical, so you show indifference. But don’t alter your overall tone. Like, you can’t be cheerful at the beginning and severely depressed in the conclusion. Such a drastic shift will confuse your reader and deteriorate their perception.
6. Simplify Some Words by Using Common Synonyms
There are words like interiorization, the significator, disposition… And many more sophisticated terms of that kind. But why write “disposition” when you can say “tendency”? How about “leaning”? Or you can use the word “preference”. That all depends on the context.
Gladly, we live in an era that lets us have access to the best dictionaries without going out of our room. So, you don’t have to waste eons of time on finding the best word. Yet, note that this works only if your professor doesn’t demand the usage of those complex terms. But even in this case, you can juxtapose the term with its simplified synonym.
In Conclusion
Your essay will never be 100% clear right after you complete it. So, you will have to proofread and edit it in any case. To make this process as efficient as it can be, combine all the listed things. If you manage to take it all into account, your professor will only mark your essay up!
