How to Write a 500-Word Essay Guidelines

An essay is a philosophical, literary-critical, historical-biographical, or journalistic prose genre that combines the individual position with a casual presentation focused on spoken language. As a written assignment, it is a type of creative task, written independent work of students, in which they need to state their thoughts, experiences, judgments, intentions. Teachers often ask to write an essay of a certain length: 250-word, 500-word, or 1000-word. This type of exercise completes preparation for the independent presentation of thoughts and ideas.

The main features of any essay are a specific topic (problem, question) and the expression of the author’s impressions, thoughts on the topic (problem, issue) with an emphasis on the author’s personality (feelings, world view), a relaxed manner of storytelling, and attention to details. This article will focus on the guidelines on how to write an excellent 500-word essay. For 500-word essay examples and samples, see this article.

How to Write a 500-Word Essay Guidelines

The purpose of a 500-word essay writing is to develop independent creative thinking and the ability to express one’s thoughts. The main criterion for writing an excellent 500-word essay is fluency in the topic. To logically structure your work, the first step is to think over the outline of your essay. Usually, it consists of separate short theses on a given topic, which, as they unfold, must be reasoned and supported by evidence. They will be the basis of your 5-paragraph essay structure:

1. The introductory paragraph. This part should set an emotional mood, bring the reader to the issue under consideration, interest him/her, prompting to read the text to the end. The number of words in the introduction should ideally be from 70 to 75.

2. The main body is comprised of 3 paragraphs. Here, the author puts forward theses, finds justification for them, thereby proving his/her point of view. Every section of this part should start with an idea, followed by an argument to support it. Do not forget that the author’s task is to convince the audience of the proposed point of view’s legitimacy. Therefore, the argumentation should be as strong and as straightforward as possible. Each paragraph of this section should be at least 100 words and not exceed 130 words.

3. The conclusion paragraph. It sums up everything said in the central part, and the author draws a general conclusion. The number of words of this paragraph should ideally be from 70 to 75.

The introduction aims to interest the reader. In contrast, the conclusion should add integrity to the overall picture, induce reflection, or, conversely, leave no doubt about the viability or legitimacy of the ideas expressed by the author.

The rules for writing a 500-word essay are very relative, which allows the author to fully demonstrate creativity, non-standard and flexible thinking, the ability to express ideas in writing and convincingly argue his or her point of view. These skills are enormously appreciated not only by teachers and professors but also by employers. That is why candidates for vacant positions are often asked to write a 500-word essay before a job interview.