How to Write Essays of Any Kind

Writing good essays is a tough task. You have to be focused. You need discipline, strategy, and flexible research abilities. If you do everything right, you’ll be happy with a result. Generally, any paper, such as a college essay, research paper, or even some kind of an office paper will be easy for you if you follow the proper strategy.

Many students discovered that due to their own experience. Those who use a proper approach can easily write any paper really fast. Some methods become some popular that even teachers include them in an English curriculum to let students know the right way of writing different papers. In 2007, the Spartan System of writing was published on the internet. Since then, thousands of students have an opportunity to appreciate all the advantages of this method. The author of the Spartan System managed to write more than 70,000-word long book. The whole writing process took just two months.

What Is the Secret?

The author of this method was interested in Greek history, and in military tactics of the ancient Greeks, in particular. He thought that the approach that allowed generals rule a 10,000 army, moving it across the country, may help students who need to write a lot of words in a short time.

This is what their strategy looked like: they brought troops together, keeping supplies in a center of a square-shaped unit. The strongest soldiers were placed at the front and back. Every time they faced any danger, these troops left their positions to just repel an attack, and then moved back immediately. This structure was impenetrable. They easily demoralized their opponents and could travel long distances even under the most difficult circumstances. Xenophon wrote that their idea was that, when the attack happens, they don’t plan defense on the go but immediately use soldiers who were specifically trained for this situation.

The Spartan method of essay writing works exactly the same way: you create an introduction that determines the shape of your “army”, and then write paragraphs, creating the strong sides. Your paragraphs may act independently sometimes, but they should always follow the purpose of the entire formation. You have to maintain the square because it’s the key to success. When writing an essay, you write a text that consists of many sentences. It includes an introduction, a topic, a thesis, a mini-thesis at the beginning of each paragraph, and a conclusion that sums up everything written before and explains the general meaning of your paper. These four sentences are basic models that determine everything else. All sentences correspond to these universal models and create an undefeatable square. If you take a look at Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, you will notice that every time the plot moves in a new direction, it immediately returns back to remind the main point.

Now, forget boring prompts that you’ve been given. Forget all these “Commentary/Details” stuff, and let’s think about real work.

Here is the example of the outline for a five-paragraph paper:

Introduction

  1. Start with a catchy and broad hook. Consider it as a meta-topic of your paper.
  2. Write your thesis. Here you have to specify and develop the idea of your hook, taking into account your prompt and the subject of your paper.
  3. Write the sentence that forms the basis for the first body paragraph.
  4. Do the same thing for the second body paragraph.
  5. …and repeat this step for the third body paragraph.
  6. Take a look at your hook and thesis and write a cohesive transitional sentence that will lead your readers to the first body paragraph.

Some people say that the thesis must be written at the end of the introduction, but this point is quite controversial. The point of an essay is to come up with an idea and then support it. You can’t support a thought that hasn’t been written yet.

The First Body Paragraph

  1. Rewrite the thesis of the first body paragraph.
  2. Support this mini-thesis with facts and analysis.
  3. Restate the mini-thesis in a context of the general thesis of the paper.

When supporting a thesis with evidence, always begin with the strongest piece of evidence. Start with broad ideas, then move to more specific ones. After this, draw a conclusion.

Make sure that your quotes are properly integrated into the sentence. Don’t make your quotes longer than 5-7 words.

The Second Body Paragraph

  1. Rewrite the thesis of the second body paragraph.
  2. Support this mini-thesis with facts and analysis.
  3. Restate the mini-thesis in a context of the general thesis of the paper.

The Third Body Paragraph

  1. Rewrite the thesis of the third body paragraph.
  2. Support this mini-thesis with facts and analysis.
  3. Restate the mini-thesis in a context of the general thesis of the paper.

The Conclusion

  1. Restate the meta-theme (the hook of the introduction).
  2. Restate the general thesis statement once more.
  3. Write one sentence for the first body paragraph.
  4. Write one sentence for the second body paragraph.
  5. Write one sentence for the third body paragraph.
  6. Write a conclusion sentence based on your hook and your thesis.
  7. The last sentence of your essay must address a broad issue that is worth further consideration. It also must reflect the value of your point.

That’s it. No, really. Now you can understand why such a method simplifies your task. You only need six original sentences, and then you play with them and write all the rest. You can apply this method when writing 500-word papers, as well as when working on 500-pages texts. This method allows you to write an essay that is self-supporting, self-generating and self-concluding.

Follow this method and you’ll feel like a Greek general who built the square and trained troopers in advance so that they can do what they are supposed to do, while you don’t need to improvise. You follow the pre-determined boundaries, so you control the whole situation. Every sentence of your essay has its particular purpose. Now you shouldn’t worry about professors checking your essay with a prompt because you made the structure first and filled it with the content later. The middle of the square is the place where your readers are. You arrange everything around them and they can understand you clearly, being protected from doubts and misreadings.

The introduction and the conclusion are where you write your strongest points. These thoughts lead your readers through the essay and push them forward. In the hook, you look in the future. In the conclusion, you look back. Everything between these two parts is just details. Your thesis statement is the backbone of the essay and it represents the whole paper, just like it’s supposed to do. Once you’ve written the thesis statement, the whole paper is almost done. After this, you won’t have any problems with filling the body part with evidence and other details. The meta-theme is directly related to the central theme, just like all the mini-themes.

The interesting thing about this method is that you follow the pre-defined rigid structure that gives you the real freedom. Once you’ve created the structure, all you need is to fill it with ideas, placing each point in its specific place. This is your opportunity to take the topic and the thesis statement to a completely new level, making your papers understandable like never before. Obviously, it’s your simplest and fastest way to get high grades. The Spartan System allows you to reduce stress and write papers easily, regardless of the topic or length.

Just try this system now and see how it works. Set a certain goal and a time limit. For example, 10 pages in 4 hours. You’ll see how a big A+ will appear on the front of that paper!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *