Use credible academic sources for your research. Search for academic journals and databases, anthologies of critical essays and primary sources. If you read a source that quotes another source, find the original text that is being quoted.
Take detailed notes, placing direct quotes in quotations and making note of the source so that you can avoid accidentally plagiarizing.
Unify your materials and ideas with brainstorming. Write down everything you have in mind for your essay, and then look for direct relationships you can draw between ideas. Focus on the ideas that are directly related and eliminate extraneous material.
Organize your material in an outline, including main topics and subtopics. You may place quotations and other specific information within the outline for extra organization before you begin writing.
Write a clear thesis with a topic or idea and a comment on that idea. Keep the thesis narrowly focused. As you write, constantly highlight the relationship of your statements to the thesis.
Watch your diction for slang terms, casual phrasing or other nonstandard language. Be aware of your audience and how your words sound to that audience. Watch for terms or ideas that may be offensive to or dismissive of your audience.
Look for natural transitions between ideas. It is easier to move between subtopics that are closely related than it is to establish a contrived transition. Your essay will read more coherently with natural transitions.
Use the correct citation format, whether MLA, APA or another format. Cite the source everytime you quote directly or paraphrase another source in your own words.
Remind the reader of your introduction and the key points of the essay in the conclusion, while also bringing up a new, related idea for the reader to consider. Go back and revise the thesis if your main idea has evolved as you wrote the essay.
Revise the paper as necessary to check for grammar flubs, typographical errors and formatting and citation errors. Ask others to read the paper to make sure that you have communicated your ideas effectively. You can even have a friend read your paper aloud to you so that you can hear what it sounds like from another perspective.