Writing Ideas: How To Compose A Strong Process Essay


A process essay is often called a how-to essay, which ideally illustrates the main purpose of such a paper – developing an instruction or guidelines of how to accomplish a task or perform a procedure. This type of essay can also be compared to a recipe. If your tutor gives you the freedom to choose the topic for a process essay, you can describe any procedure that seems interesting to you.

Remember that brainstorming is a great step to take before starting to write a process essay paper. The following steps will help you create a strong process paper with ease.

  1. Divide a sheet of paper into two columns.
  2. One of them will be called “materials” while the other will be called “steps.”


  3. Express your ideas.
  4. You are free to write down every step that you find important for accomplishing the chosen task. Here, you should not bother about the sequence of the steps; just note everything that comes to your mind.


  5. Organize your thoughts by placing a number in front of every step.

  6. You can interchange or move them in the process of ordering. Take your time to think what step follows the previous one.

  7. Create the outline of your paper.
  8. There are some options here: your paper can be in the form of a list (like the one you are looking through now) or look like a traditional narrative essay. If your teacher expects you to write a process essay without a numbered list, your paper should have the following elements: introduction, main body, and conclusion. With such a structure, an introduction is aimed to illustrate why you find the chosen topic relevant.


  9. The first paragraph of your process essay should describe the materials that are necessary to carry out the procedure. For example, if the topic is “how to walk a dog,” you should speak about the equipment needed to walk a dog depending on its size, time of year, etc.

  10. The following paragraphs of your essay should illustrate what steps should be taken next, and how they should be carried out to run the process.

  11. In the summary paragraph at the end of the paper, your aim is to explain what outcome you will get if every step is accomplished correctly. Also, you can once again stress the importance of accomplishing the described task.