The first months of college or postgraduate courses can be rather frustrating for you. Much to your surprise, instructors may be dissatisfied with your papers even though you do your best. Indeed, passage from high school to college and from college to postgraduate writing is often not that smooth.
 
If it seems that you might react to another negative feedback from your tutor with hysterical screams, you definitely need this information on how to understand your tutors’ requirements and how to write a good essay. Let’s look at what makes a good essay in high school, college and after graduation.
 
A good essay: how to state your premises
 
In high school. To impress your school teachers, you need to go beyond the obvious claims about your chosen topic. Choose some aspects or issues that are less than obvious and clearly communicate your position and arguments. This will make an interesting essay and you can count upon praise for it.
 
In college. A good essay should be more thoughtful to encourage readers to learn more. College tutors expect you to provide good evidence to support your arguments and make them more believable. Also, you should consider possible counterarguments from your audience. Try to put yourself into your tutors’ or peers’ shoes reading your papers. Attempt to predict their objections to your claims if you want to write a good college essay.
 
After graduation. Try to predict counterarguments and be realistic about weaknesses in your argumentation, but find ways to support your claims. In good essay examples, postgraduates touch upon limitations of their perspective, but include reasons why it is still plausible.
 
A good essay: appropriate tone
 
In high school. Express your opinion clearly and try to sound convincing.
 
In college. Share your knowledge of the subject with others to show them why they might agree with you. Try to use careful language because college students are expected to understand that what they think or write is never an absolute truth. Use such constructions as “it seems that”, “this evidence suggests that”…
 
After graduation. Try to make the tone of your essay amiable. Note that the main goal of your writing is not to make readers share your views, but to get to the roots of the problem cooperatively together with your readers who are knowledgeable and interested in the discussed issues.

A good essay: is there any place for summary?
 
In high school. You may summarize some readings to show that you understand them before offering your own views.
 
In college. You may only briefly summarize some points if they are necessary for your discussion.
 
After graduation. There is no place for a summary as such. Make sure to respect your readers and acknowledge the fact that your audience is knowledgeable in the field that you discuss.
 
A good essay: format
 
Generally speaking, format requirements are identical for all study levels. The difference is only higher standards of colleges and postgraduate courses. In other words, all students should formulate a strong thesis statement and make their discussion coherent. However, high school teachers may overlook minor flaws in your papers, but college tutors (and even more so the instructors of postgraduate courses) are unlikely to. . The main recommendations are:

• make up an outline before writing an essay;
• make sure to include an introduction, a thesis statement, body paragraphs, topic sentences and conclusion;
• pay special attention to the format of your in-text citations and bibliography entries;
• watch the length of your paragraphs;
• avoid “hamburgers” in your discussion that is making one claim, skipping to another topic and returning to the first claim again.

Even if you are a high school student, you should not rely on the fact that some mistakes might go unnoticed. The earlier you learn the principles of good essay writing and correct formatting, the better.
 
You are welcome to use the information above to understand the requirements of your tutors and make your essays just perfect at any study level.