How To Format A College Essay?

College essay writing

In order to be best at the craft of college essay writing, it is very important for a student to give credit to the purpose and value of essay writing assignments in their educational life. Writing a scoring essay demands good vision, creativity, and knowledge to compose one’s views and structure thoughts in an efficient manner. Professors can gather a lot of information about a student’s understanding and writing skills by just glancing at the way they compose their essays. In reality, there is no method to draw a distinction between essays and academics both of them are too inseparably linked. Essays, usually are found to, have two critical parts both of them being, the content and the structure. Content is the material that a writer writes in an essay whereas the structure of an essay is the design or arrangement within which the content is arranged.

Even though the content of a composed essay holds the highest value, there is an essential need to format the essay by addressing it first and trying your best to get the structure right. This is important because the professors and evaluators would not even think twice about slashing your essay and giving an F if the format is not accurate. 

For example, if a student has been directed to use the American Psychological Association (APA) method of formatting and they overlook adhering to it while writing their essay, a professor might feel like they are not even competent to follow basic and trivial guidelines. 

Hence, there is more than just the content of an essay that an examiner looks for while assessing and evaluating a student’s paper, they also assess their level of enthusiasm and understanding in following the proper format in the essay. That is why it is very essential for students to understand the importance of format in a college essay. Students should pay lots of attention to how they format their papers.

How to Structure A College Essay

  • Font Size/Style, Margins, and Line Spacing

Using a 12-point font in the Times New Roman style is usually advised, and also considered as the default font size and style for writing custom essays. This font and its size are globally acceptable for mostly all types of scholastic papers. It is essential to note that a student cannot choose to write less in a bigger font size. The margin size should at least be one-inch on each of the four sides, left, right, top, and bottom, of every page. One-inch margins can easily be created in MS Word or any other writing platform. 

  • Adding Page Headers

Page headings should always be put on the top left edges of every page. A student can also have an indentation set so it is automatically set to the left side. 

The following is the heading format you should use in your essays:    

  • The first line of the header should contain the writer’s own name.
  • The second line should include the name of the course mentor.
  • The third line should have the title of the subject under which the essay is being written and subject code if any.
  • The last line should include the date of submission.

Basic Structures To Format A College Essay

No matter what the type, academic, instructive, or personal essay – the structure of an essay remains the most essential when one looks for how to format a college essay.

The basic structure of every essay format, MLA, APA, or Chicago, should have is:

  1. The Title Page
  2. Abstract: usually comprising of three paragraphs, adding up to 300 words, with 100 words each. 
  • Paragraph 1: Should incorporate a research question, thesis, and outline of the importance of the essay.
  • Paragraph 2: Should include the key resources, scope and limitations of the research, etc.
  • Paragraph 3: Is usually a conclusion that the student has already reached in their essay.

     3. Table of Contents or Index (should contain the page numbers)

  • Research question
  • Thesis
  • Introduction
  • Arguments
  • Sub-headings
  • Conclusion
  • Appendix
  • Works cited (bibliography)

     4. Introduction

  • The address the research question

     5. Body

     6. Conclusion

     7. Bibliography (Citation to all the references)

Four Rules of Formatting

  1. Sentences while writing an essay should be as simple, clear, and concise as possible. A student should always attempt to make the best use of active voice in essays. It not only has a better impact on the sentences on the readers but also helps the writer to communicate their ideas and thought more efficiently.
  2. It is very necessary for a student to have in-depth knowledge and complete understanding of the topic that they have chosen or have been allocated to them or one can go with online essay help. In the process of composing an essay, a lot of students end up getting distracted in what they are writing about because it is very easy to deviate from the subject and drift from the chief topic.
  3. A flow and a connection between the sentences and paragraphs in the written essay should be evident as the reader reads it. Every sentence should be linked to the one that follows it. 
  4. Essays should always focus on applying a clear structure. It is essential to formulate an essay plan with a clear pre-determined structure before a student begins writing their essay even it is followed by essay editor services also.

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