How To Write a Winning Scholarship Essay

Scholarship essays are one of the basic requirements for scholarship application. Through the written essay you show your writing skills and interest in the scholarship you applied for.

Scholarship essays are just like every other essay where you will be given a topic or you choose one to write on. You are to base your writing on the topic. This essay will tell how good you are at writing. Below are guidelines on how to write winning scholarship essays

Guidelines on how to write Outstanding Scholarship Essays

1. Choose a topic that you have an interest in

It’s important you focus on the essay topic. Although you might be given the opportunity to choose a topic by yourself based on the theme. Write on a topic with great meaning, and value and has an influencing point.

You will definitely do better when you create the basics for your essay, if you really put your mind on it. With this you can come up with an outstanding Scholarship essay.

2.Adhere to the principles of writing a strong essay

Just like I mentioned earlier, Scholarship essays are just like every other school essay. So when you are writing maintain the principles of writing essays.

Make sure you are able to communicate well with your readers. let your readers flow with you as they go through your essay and digest it. The content should not go outside the central topic. Don’t write out of point and learn to maintain the pitch when writing. Let the paragraphs link as well.

Start the essay with a captivating sentence that would draw the readers attention. This is more like a “Hook” to keep your readers glued to your essay..

3.Get use to what makes the essay inspiring and focus on it.

Look properly at the captivating parts of the essay. Some may have different themes for the essay, meaning that part that makes up the central point of the essay where you draw the meaning and get clue on how to coin your words properly.

If the essay does not have a question that you can answer which will help you write a good essay then you need to create something else that will help you have an outstanding essay.

4.Know the word/character limit

There is always a word limit for every essay including Scholarship essays. It can be pretty difficult to come up with 300 words. In order to write such winning essays you have to maintain the word count that it’s expected. Don’t write beyond it. Get a word count app to help you count the words after writing.

Do well to proofread your essay when you are done writing and have a word count checker, you can find that on Microsoft word.

It’s important you maintain the word limit because you might be disqualified if you exceed it. This shows how thorough and concise you are.

5.Create and plan

Before you begin an essay you must plan how to create your words. Planning here has to deal with your research work and how you intend to arrange your points so it won’t loose meaning and the flow.

The first thing to do is to get natural ideas and facts prior to your research that way it will be easier for you to understand and pen down something unique.

Once you have a good idea of the essay you’re writing then you can prepare an outline. A lot of students neglect this aspect. When you have an outline it gives you guide and keeps you on track so you won’t write off point. The outline will make your work faster and easier.

The essay outline depends on the word count. Essay outline includes what should be in the introduction, body, and conclusion, it’s that easy to arrange as long as you follow the format.

6.Be honest

Some students most times come up with unrealistic details just to suit the readers all because they want the scholarship fund. In Writing a winning scholarship essay, you have to be honest with your story. Don’t cook up lies that are sweet.

What makes your essay outstanding is the uniqueness and sincerity of the essay. No matter how good your lie sounds it will still be perceived. There is nothing good as your honesty. It’s very easy to spot an hogwash in an essay.

7.Make Some research

Do a research work on the scholarship scheme organizing the essay. Know more about them and why they award Scholarships and what their goal is. Once you get the needed information about them you can get a clue on how to draft your essay properly.

Some Scholarship scheme display a little profile on the past winners which may include their essays or the best essay. Go through those profiles and try to get points from them. You can get a clue on how to write a better essay from the highlights on the best essay.

8.Be professional but still maintain who you are

Being professional is very important when writing. The principles of writing must be seen in your writing. But even when you want to be on the right page you still have to be real. In this case write in your own tone don’t copy someone’s work. Every reader expects the writer to be creative enough to write in their voice. It must not be a lengthy essay for it to be genuine.

9.Be brief with your “thank you”

At the point of appreciation be brief and go straight to the point. A simple thank you is enough. You don’t need to use all the kind words to say thank you.

Majority of this essays are short, don’t use the word count given for appreciation. Be concise and write your essay thoroughly because you have the main point to talk about and not just thank you alone.

If you have space, a brief thank you is thoughtful and appropriate. But you’ll want to be as concise as possible. For example, at the very end of your essay, you can simply say something like, “Thank you for this opportunity and for taking the time to read this essay”,  that’s it! Just be Polite.

If you find it difficult to add appreciation in the essay you can wait till you are awarded the Scholarship. Then you can write a thank you letter, where you can appreciate them enough for awarding you the scholarship.

10.Pause, proofread, and revise

After you have pen down your words, take a break, go through your work and revise it to check for any mistake. There’s is a saying that goes “There is no good essay but there is a good re-writing. Proofreading your essay will enable you make some corrections where necessary.

Another good way of proofreading your work is by giving it to someone else like a friend, family member or your teacher/lecturer in school whom you trust so well. They can edit your work and give it back to you, at least you have the opportunity of knowing someone else’s view about your essay.

Conclusion

Writing a winning scholarship essay might sound stressful but it’s easy when know what you are writing on. Before you start writing that essay go through the aforementioned guidelines properly to avoid writing baloney for an essay.

ALSO, READ Top 10 Basic Scholarship Requirements