How To :: Write An Essay From An Article

Over the summer, I had homework to do for my AP classes. My history assignment was to read eight articles (the amount of pages ranged anywhere from 16 to 42 - yikes!) and then write an essay using the thesis "What is the author trying to convince the audience?" I developed a little plan on how to be the most efficient when it came to reading the articles and writing the essays, so I thought I would share it with you guys because the strategy can be used for any class.

{one} print

If the articles/pieces of work you need to read are online, it's a good idea to print them. Having a hard copy makes the whole process a lot more easier because you can highlight and write on the articles, which I'll get to soon!

{two} thesis

Write your thesis statement on another piece of paper so you can easily figure out the three items needed to go in the thesis statement. For example, for the article "War is the Health of the State" (as shown above), my thesis statement was, "War tears a country apart because..." Writing your thesis statement like that will allow you to easily fill in the three parts to your thesis underneath it.

{three} highlight

If you read something that would be helpful enough to include in your essay, highlight it. It will make it much easier to find it while writing the essay. You don't have to do this, but I like to number the highlighted points to go along with which part of the thesis they belong to. That way I can easily find the right information by number.

{four} write

Take notes on a separate piece of paper. Underneath the thesis, you can include the three points made in thesis statement and number them. It will make your writing process easier!

I'm not saying that all of you have to do this process, but it's just something that has worked for me. I told my friends about it, and they thought it was actually a really good idea and they would try it out for their own history articles. It's a great way to stay organized and focused. You can use this whole process, use part of the process, or not even use the process - whatever works for you!

How do you write an essay from an article?