Written assignments are the most common types of written tasks students get while studying in college. A 500-word essay can be of many types: analytical, argumentative, narrative, descriptive, or any other type. The trick is that it has a word limit of 500 words. While some students might think that this is a pretty short essay, it has this limit with a goal. Professors want to rapidly assess the abilities and knowledge of students. Moreover, this type of essay helps you polish your writing and organizing skills. As you have a word limit, you need to select the most important information and ideas and build powerful sentences to express your opinions.
Even though 500 words do not sound much, this type of paper can sometimes turn out to be one of the most difficult ones. It is quite a paradox, as it can also be the easiest to write one. To write a powerful and compelling 500-word essay, you need to put your skills to the test and practice. Logical reasoning, critical thinking, and summarizing are the ones that will help you the most.
How long are 500 words?
This is one of the firsts questions that arise in the mind of students when they need to write a 500-word essay. How long is a 500-word essay? Well, it depends on the spacing. With one single space, it would take you one page and with double spacing, it would take two pages. How many paragraphs are 500 words? Well, it depends on how you organize the information. This is up to you. Some paragraphs might be longer than others, but an average would be approximately five to six paragraphs.
Writing a 500-word essay can sound challenging for many students. Our writers at EssayWritingLand have built this guide that can help you create a high-quality 500-word essay. Discover below a few tips and information that will support your academic pursuit.
Structure of a 500-word essay
Every piece of writing relies on the same core structure: the introduction, body, and conclusion. Other paragraphs or sections can be included as well, but this is the case with more complex pieces of text.
Introduction
The introduction of a 500-word essay is the first contact the reader has with your essay and idea. It should be interesting enough to have the reader keep continuing till the end. Even though it may sound impossible, some 500-word essays are so poorly built, that the little information presented is not interesting at all. Even though you may feel that you need more words to impress the reader, this is not impossible when you have a word limit.
Creating a hook by choosing to present an interesting fact, a popular myth, or a powerful quote or statement is the winning solution. The introduction is the paragraph where you also state your thesis and introduce the topic of your essay. The thesis statement should be one sentence long so that you will develop and back it up with arguments and facts in the body of the essay.
Body
The body of an essay is the section where you explore the implications of your thesis statement. Depending on the type of essay you need to write and the given or chosen topic, you might need to argue your opinion, critique, or describe something. You will have many ideas that support your thesis statement and it is better to discuss each of them in a separate paragraph. This will also help you to build a high-quality 500-word essay that will impress your professor. This structure helps you organize your ideas better and more logically and coherently.
The order you choose to present your ideas and paragraphs is important. A 500-word limit for an essay is a test many professors give to their students to see their ability to structure their ideas. So, how to better use this word limit to enrich the ideas you want to send or the points you want to prove? Here are some methods.
Hamburger method
Although it has nothing to do with food, this method of stating your arguments is a pretty efficient one. Depending on the nature of your arguments, you surely have some that are stronger than others. This means that you need to find a method to emphasize the stronger one. If you put it in “contrast” with a weaker one, you will get the desired effect. This is what the hamburger method of stating your arguments is about. Begin with a weaker argument, the bun of the burger, continue with the strongest ones, the meat, and end with a weaker one, the other bun.
Direct order
You could also begin the body of your essay by stating the strongest argument firstly. This is a nice and effective method to catch the attention of your readers and have them continue reading. But keep in mind that if you use this method, the reader might be disappointed at the end because the latest arguments will also be the weakest ones.
Reverse order
But to counterattack the effect of a direct order exposure of arguments in the body of an essay, you could present it the other way round. Start with your weakest argument and end in style with the strongest one.
Conclusion
The conclusion of an essay is the section that will remain the most vivid in the minds of the people that will read it. It is therefore essential to make a summary of the main ideas discussed in the body, and also restate the thesis statement. Be careful to not include or talk about new details because this will cause confusion.
Considering the fact that you have a word limit of 500, the conclusion should be at most 100 words. Aim for anything between 50 and 100 words. For your readers to remember your conclusion, there are a few writing techniques that could help you build an impressive and compelling one.
End with a quote
Even though this is the simplest way to conclude your essay, it could be the most powerful one if you choose the right quote. Some people simply said it better, so why not give them credits. Make sure that the source of your quote is reputable and it is not one of those popular quotes on the internet misattributed to famous people.
Restate the thesis statement
You can end your essay in a harmonious way by restating your thesis statement, just to emphasize it more. However, this does not mean that you should copy it word by word. Paraphrase it and find other words to send the same idea.
Recap each paragraph
This way of building your conclusion could be the most accessible one. You need to present the main idea of each paragraph, and in this way, the reader will get the overall picture of the entire essay.
Further development ideas
An interesting way to build your conclusion is to give the reader hints about further development ideas. Maybe proving your thesis statement can come with implications and further development ideas. You can leave the reader some food for thought.
End with a question
It may sound counterintuitive, but this question is actually for your readers. If you have written about a controversial topic, maybe asking a provocative question related to it will have your readers thinking about your essay.
When you are first given the essay requirements, you may find yourself lost. You may don’t know where to start and which are the steps of building a powerful and compelling essay. We hope that this guide has shed some light on how an essay should be structured. But we come with something more that will add value to your process of writing. Some short tips that could help you organize your tasks better:
- If you do not have a topic, choosing the right one could be difficult. Depending on your field, you can find online many topic ideas to get some inspiration. Afterward, you can edit it however you want.
- Always do your research and note the most important ideas from the literature review.
- Make an outline to help you structure your ideas better and adapt your writing methods to the type of essay you need to write.
This guide might make the process of writing a 500-word essay sound simpler. However, it does come with some challenges and many students might first let themselves be defeated by it. At EssayWritingLand the US essay writing service, we have built a large team of expert writers that are ready to help students with anything they need. No matter it is research for your essay, writing or proofreading it, we are more than willing to help you. We always stick to the provided essay requirements and submit the work till the agreed deadline. The quality is exceptional and if it does not meet your expectations, we are open to your feedback and editing it according to it.
