A Guide for Writing a Business Essay

The most important aspects of business essays are persuasive content, credible arguments, and qualified references. Whether you writing an essay for Management, Finance, or any other business topic there are several considerations that need to be consistent and present in a business essay.

In order to be organized and effective, you should break up the writing process in stages and follow them consistently. The following tips will serve as a guideline for this process and will help you to write a well-structured, insightful, and compelling business essay.

1. Identify the Question

The first step is to analyze the essay question. That is, you need to identify exactly what the title of the essay is asking you to address.

Pay close attention to the keyword that appears in the question. Some of the most frequent keywords that define what you have to do are ‘examine’, ‘discuss’, ‘analyze’, ‘illustrate’, ‘compare’, ‘describe’, ‘criticize’, ‘interpret’, ‘review’, or ‘explain’.

If you don’t identify correctly what is your task, you can easily go in the wrong direction.

For example, it is not the same if your topic asks you to ‘examine’ or ‘discuss’. A question that includes the keyword ‘examine’ needs to include an in-depth presentation of the issue and an investigation of its implications. On the other hand, to ‘discuss’ a topic means to review key arguments and give reasons for and against.

2. Brainstorm

Now that you clearly understand what you need to write about, you should brainstorm different ideas.

Think about various approaches to the subject and what you want to cover.

Brainstorming is a great way to get your creative juices flowing and surface some thought-provoking ideas.

You should consider what you want to include in your essay, how can you make it different and interesting, and which key terms will you use in your research.

According to The University of Iowa, “By throwing ideas down on a page you can see what you remember about a given subject, spot weak points in what you know, and draw connections between different ideas without having to be organized in your thinking.”

3. Do the Research

Without thorough research, you can’t compose a high-quality essay.

Business essays especially demand relevant statistics, experts’ claims, and valid references.

Only use reputable academic resources because they are the only ones that count. Use different books from the library or simply search the web for available published articles or credible posts.

Some of the academic websites you can use are:

• Google Scholar
  
• Emerald Insight
  
• Questia
  

Make sure that you organize your research, make notes, and note down all the important details such as the title, author, publisher, page number, and place and date of publication. This will make it easier for you to reference back to the sources.

4. Make an Outline

For a well-organized and well-structured essay, making an outline is crucial.

This will help you to place your ideas and main points in the logical and cohesive order.

Take all your findings and write down key points that you want to include within your introduction, central body, and ending. Once you have the outline written out, you’ll be able to spot if something is sticking out, if you need to make some changes or re-organize your thoughts.

Analyze all the details and in case you have someone to take a look at your outline that would be of great help. It won’t take them much time since it is not a completed essay and another pair of eyes can give you a different perspective.

If you get stuck at some point and get insecure about how you organized your topic, you can always find some online writing service and get academic help.

5. Pay Attention to the Structure

Lastly, keep your essay within the standardized structure.

How you present your work is as important as what you are presenting. Unless your professor has emphasized how you should structure your essay, just use the usual essay structure.

In case you need a reminder, here is an essay format for writing a business essay:

1. Preface
   
2. Introduction and background
   
3. Findings
   
4. Conclusion
   
5. Bibliography/references list
   
6. Appendices
   

Over to You

Being organized is a very important part of any task and writing is no exception. These guidelines will help you to stay focused and compose an exceptional essay.

Besides organizing your thoughts and the writing process, this guide will also show you that writing an essay doesn’t have to be a stressful process as long as you apply a few helpful tips.