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Staff, Line and Auxiliary Agencies | Government | Public Administration

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In the interest of the efficiency and economy, it was considered desirable that the departmental organization should be broken into two new directions. These new directions were ‘staff agencies’ and auxillary agencies’ as distinct from ‘line agencies’.

Staff Agencies:

The term “staff agency” has been borrowed from military terminology and is commonly used in contradistinction to the term “line agency”. As the growth of armies became complex, the field commanders who were engaged in the task of actual fighting felt the need for special­ized services which led to the formation of the general staff with subsidiary staff agencies under them.

With the growth of large corporations particularly in the United States, the need was felt to adopt a system similar to the army staff to advise on matters which were not directly con­nected with business. The system took its roots first in the private business managements and later on, travelled to the government organisations. As we know, the Chief executive has to perform diverse type of functions.

If these functions are to be performed efficiently, the head of the service must have full information about the problems which he has to meet. Whenever the service is one of magnitude, and the functions are of a technical character, the need for such information and technical advice of officers having expert knowledge become all the more im­portant.

As Willoughby points out for this advice reliance cannot be placed entirely upon the officers subordinate to the head of the service because these officers are:

Firstly, the ones who for the most part raise questions to be answered; they are interested parties seeking something which it is the duty of the head to determine whether to grant it or not.

Secondly, these officers know only their own side of the question and are not usually aware of the other side.

Thirdly, to reach a decision a careful investigation of the factors involved in the question may be neces­sary. Experience shows that only to a limited extent it is desirable to entrust to officers these investigations.

These officers may not have time, ability and that equipment which is required for the work.’ Naturally it follows from these considerations that special organizations to make research and act as the technical adviser or aid the head of the service should be set up. These special organizations are designated as ‘staff agencies.

Henry Fayol has rightly observed “Whatever their ability and their capacity for work the needs of great enterprises cannot fulfill alone all their obligation. They are thus forced to have recourse to a group of men who have the strength, competence and the time which the Head may lack.

This group of men constitutes the staff of the management. It’s a help or reinforce­ment a sort of extension of the managers’ personality”. Charles worth, “a staff officer is one who specializes in research, observation, and study, and who draws up plans and proposals for approval by the top executive, to whom he is attached collaterally.”

F.A. Cleveland also says, “The staff agencies reach conclusions and help the management reach conclusions, both about what happened and what is proposed; their function is to know the facts and with knowledge they make and submit plans, but there they stop. The responsible controlling personnel of the management must decide.”

According to Mooney, the staff is “an expansion of the personality of the executive. It means more eyes, more ears, and more hands to aid him in forming and carrying out his plans.”

Characteristic Features of Staff Agency:

The most characteristic features of the staff agencies are:

(i) That they have no responsibility or authority for the actual performance of the duties for the performance of which the services are created and maintained.

(ii) Their function is exclusively of a research, consultative and advisory character.

(iii) They possess no power to give orders.

Functions of Staff Agencies:

The main functions of the Staff Agency have been summarized by L.D. White as follows:

(i) To ensure that the Chief Executive (and other officials at the top) is adequately and correctly informed;

(ii) To assist him in foreseeing problems and planning future programmes;

(iii) To ensure that matters for his decision reach his desk promptly, in condition to be settled intelligently and without delay, and to protect him against hasty or ill-considered judg­ments;

(iv) To exclude every matter that can be settled elsewhere in the system;

(v) To protect his time;

(vi) To secure means of ensuring compliance by subordinates with established policy and executive direction.

Pfiffner has categorized staff agencies in three units, viz., general staff, technical staff and auxiliary staff. The general staff helps the chief executive in administrative work generally by collecting information, by research, by sifting the information received so that it acts as ‘filter and a funnel’ to the executive.

Like a funnel, it receives all business intended for the chief executive but ensures like a filter that what passes to him is only that which is essential to decision-making. The functions of the general staff are of an administrative kind and do not require a very high degree of technical skill or knowledge.

Auxiliary staff consists of units which perform certain duties and functions to meet the material demands of other departments.

The functions of the staff agencies have broadly been termed by Pfiffner as follows:

(a) Advising, teaching and consultation.

(b) Co-ordination not merely through plans but also through human contacts.

(c) Fact-finding and research.

(d) Planning.

(e) Contact and liaison.

(f) Assisting the line.

(g) Sometimes exercising delegated authority from the line commander.

According to Mooney, there are three functions of staff agencies, namely:

(i) Informative,

(ii) Advisory, and

(iii) Supervisory.

The informative function of the staff is to collect for the chief executive all the relevant information on which his decisions may be based. This also involves research, study and en­quiry.

The advisory function means that the staff in addition to supplying the relevant data for decision, also advises the chief as to what, in its opinion, the decision should be.

The supervisory function is to see that the decision taken by the chief is duly communi­cated to, and implemented by, the line agencies concerned.

F.A. Cleveland rightly observes “The staff agencies reach conclusion; their function is to know the facts and with knowledge they make and submit plans.”

Thus, the main functions of the Staff Agency are to furnish to the executive all relevant information regarding the case, to put up at the proper time and to offer its own advice on the matter. But it should not go beyond that. Sometimes there develops a tendency on the part of the staff to take executive power in its hands or on the part of executive to assign it primary activities which is not a desirable tendency.

The staff agency stands outside the main line of administrative hierarchy. Its function is not to command but to advise. It is not a part of the main executive but only, if we may so call an adjunct to it. In the words of Henri Fayol the staff “….is a help or reinforcement, a sort of extension of the manager’s personality to assist him in carrying out his duties….”

Some Examples of Staff Agencies:

Executive Office of the President of USA, White House Office, National Security Council set by National Security Act 1947, Bureau of Budget in the USA and British Treasury, Cabinet Secretariat, Cabinet Committees are the examples of staff agencies.

In India the Department of Economic Affairs, Finance Ministry, Cabinet Secretariat, Cabinet Committees, Planning Com­mission, Administrative Reforms Commission and Administrative Vigilance Commission, Home Affairs Department, Prime Minister’s Office fall in the category of staff agencies.

2. Line Agencies:

The principal agencies which are organized on the basis of major substantive purpose, and are concerned with the provision of services for the people, or regulating their conduct in par­ticular fields are termed ‘line’ agencies.

They are concerned with the primary objects for which government exists. From top to bottom a single “line” of authority extends downwards from Secretary through the Deputy Secretary, Under Secretaries, Superintendents and clerks.

The activities of line agencies are primary, i.e., “those which they perform in order to accomplish the purpose for which they exist”. For example, the primary activity of the Secretary of Home Affairs Department is to maintain peace and order in the country.

The line agencies are thus concerned with the fulfillment of the primary objects of the government. They deal directly with the people and implement policies laid down by the Leg­islature. The people come directly in touch with the line agencies which constitute the pivot of administrative structure. The major line departments of Government of India are Defence, Home, Health, Education, Railway and Transport.

Line agencies are of three kinds, viz.,

(i) Department,

(ii) Corporation, and

(iii) Independent Regulatory Commission.

Department is the largest and most prevalent form of administrative organization. The public corporation is a new organizational device imported in public administration from private business administration. The Independent Regulatory Commission is a mixture of the departmental as well as corporation system. At the top it has a corporate character, but internally it has a departmental structure.

In view of the fact that the main duties of a staff officer are to advise, assist and suggest rather than to operate, he requires the qualities of an expert and not of an administrator.

Firstly, he must have a sound general knowledge of the entire administration and not an expert knowl­edge of one particular department only.

Secondly, he should have the capacity to negotiate rather than command.

Thirdly, he should prefer to work from behind the curtain. His function is to advise and after advice to withdraw so as to give the executive time to take his decisions.

Lastly, he should be willing to accept the decisions of the executive. It is no business of his to see that the executive accepts his advice or not. He should not grudge if the executive does not accept his advice. He should ungrudgingly go on assisting the executive.

The Report of the President’s Committee on Administrative Management (1937) nicely sums up the general nature of the staff in the words “These aides would have no power to make decisions to issue instructions in their own right. They would not be interposed between the President and the Heads of his departments. Their function would be to assist him (President) in obtaining quickly and without delay all pertinent information possessed by any of the executive departments so as to guide him in making his responsible decisions and then when decisions have been made to assist him in seeing to it that every administrative depart­ment and agency affected is promptly informed. They would remain in the background, issue no orders, make no decisions, emit no public statements. They should be men in whom the President has personal confidence…. they should be possessed of high competence, great physi­cal vigour and a passion for anonymity.”

3. Auxiliary Agencies:

Pfiffner does not distinguish between staff and auxiliary agencies. He includes auxiliary agencies within the term ‘staff’. According to him, there are three kinds of staff services general staff, technical staff and auxiliary staff. The general staff is the staff which helps the chief or other officer in his administrative work by advice, collection of information, research and sifting of important issues from the unimportant ones.

The technical staff consists of the technical officers such as engineers, doctors, financial experts, etc. The auxiliary staff consists of officers or units which perform certain duties and functions common to the various adminis­trative departments but which are incidental in character.

Willoughby calls them “institutional” or “house-keeping” activities. Gaus names them “auxiliary technical staff services.” L.D. White prefers to use the term ‘auxiliary services’. According to Willoughby and White, these services may not be called ‘staff because they do not render any advice or assist in the sense in which ‘staff units do. They render certain services of house-keeping nature to the departments.

Auxiliary agencies are the agencies which serve the line agencies rather than the public. They perform functions common to all the departments.

A line agency in order to perform the primary duties for which it exists must provide itself with and maintain a plant; it must estab­lish and operate a system for the recruitment of its personnel; it must perform the work entailed in contracting, purchasing, storing and issue of supplies; it must contain a system for keeping of accounts.

In the not too remote past, each department performed these functions separately, i.e., it kept its own accounts, handled its own funds, purchased all its supplies and equipment and made its own contracts. But today with specialization of functions in public administration it has become desirable to organize these functions under separate agencies called Auxiliary Agencies.

Advantages of Auxiliary Agencies:

The organization of these separate organizational units called Auxiliary Agencies has the following advantages:

(i) The officers in ‘line’ agencies who have the responsibility for the performance of primary activities are relieved of the duties not directly pertaining to the performance of such activities and thus will be in a position to devote themselves exclusively to their duties.

(ii) This system ensures specialization of functions and it is but desirable that if they are to be effectively performed, they should be put under the charge of those persons who are expert in those fields.

(iii) It secures economy in administration as it avoids duplicity of work. A single auxiliary agency does a particular work common to all the departments and thus saves time and money, e.g., the Printing and Stationery does all the printing work for all the departments.

(iv) The system secures the advantage of closer supervision of the auxiliary functions. Improved methods may be rapidly introduced as each agency is concerned with only one type of activity.

(v) It will have the advantage of increased scope of operations and reduced unit costs, such as in large-scale purchasing, common Godowns, etc.

Disadvantages of Auxiliary Agencies:

Auxiliary agencies have been criticized on the following grounds:

(i) The establishment of auxiliary agencies means “tearing the department” which tends to weaken the responsibility of the ‘line’ agencies.

(ii) The auxiliary agencies may make encroachments upon the responsibilities of the ‘line’ agencies and thus conflict may ensue between them.

(iii) The auxiliary agencies tend to consider their mission superior to the objects sought by the line agencies and hence happen to subordinate questions of welfare to economy or mere symmetry.

(iv) Sometimes undue delay results in getting the required services or goods on account of long negotiations with the auxiliary agencies, e.g., the students may not get a lecturer for a very long time who is to be selected by the Public Service Commission or the college office may not get stationery for a long time from the Printing and Stationery Department.

It happens many a time that the amount sanctioned for a building by the Finance Department lapses because the Public Works Department” does not undertake work in time.

The dangers inherent in auxiliary agencies have been well stated by Willard N. Hogam. He argued that the system resulted in a division of authority and responsibility; that the auxiliary agencies had pushed beyond their limit of usefulness; that they had evolved into a position to hinder and harass executive policies and decisions.

Thus it is difficult to lay down any hard and fast rule on the point. L.D. White is of the opinion that the auxiliary agencies are “one of the important means of ensuring unity in the executive branch, partly in the control of programme and policy, partly in the area of admini­stration. In a vast enterprise they have become a sine qua non of executive leadership and administrative integration. It would be impossible to carry on the business of any large juris­diction without them. Moreover, there are clear gains in the direction of economy due both to a large-scale common operation and to the accumulated experience of experts specializing in the various management fields. On the other hand, that the management services can handicap the line agencies by ’empire building’ on their own account is beyond doubt ; this is a risk to meet which requires not only internal restraint on their part but a firm hand on the part of the chief executive whom they serve.”

In conclusion it may be remarked that the case for establishing an auxiliary agency regard­ing any matter should be adjudged on the exigencies of the situation. “While the auxiliary agencies have ample justification under favourable circumstances, there is a point of marginal utility beyond which the unity and sense of full responsibility of the line department becomes the greater good”.

We should never forget that the nature of an auxiliary agency is primarily facilitating rather than controlling.

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Line and staff: public administration (definition and functions).

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Read this article to learn about the definition, relationship and functions of line and staff in public administration.

Definition and Origin :

Another administrative principle popular in public administration is Line and Staff. Some public administrationists call it a “defective hierarchy”. In any organisation, it is said, there are generally two types of employees—one type is called line and the other is called staff. Every enterprise or organisation has certain goals and it is the function of the members of the line to translate the goals into reality. On the other hand, the members of the staff agency help, in all possible ways, the members of the line to achieve the objective.

For example, in the construction of a bridge, both line and staff are involved in the construction work. The line members are directly engaged in the construction of the bridge. But the line members alone cannot complete the construction work if they are not assisted by other members or employees or workers.

These employees are known as staff. Their function is to supply materials, assist the line members in their work. Hence both the line and staff employees are crucial in the attainment of goal. White maintains: “They (line) are the central elements of any administrative system” From the observation of White it is quite clear that line employees are very important for the management of any organisation. But equally important are staff members.

As to the origin of the principle it may be observed that the line and staff concept was originally introduced in military services. Peter Self says that originally the public administration was plagued by many problems and in order to solve them some public administrationists borrowed this principle from military services and then applied it to general public administration. Peter Self writes: “They generally have used this notion of staff in a restricted sense.

The staff’s function is to assist the chief executive by providing information, formu­lating possible courses of actions, coordinating decisions and reporting on results” Gulick calls these functions of staff agency as “Knowing, Thinking and Planning”. Regarding line and staff Peter Self says: “The ruling idea was that the actual decision-making is the exclusive responsibility of the chief executive, and of the line operators who work under his control, and that staff assistants exercise no power beyond the influence of their ideas upon the chief himself. In this way the model of a hierarchi pyramid can be faithfully respected”.

In the opinion of L.D. White, “A staff is an agency advisory to the high-ranking official, but without operating responsibilities”. In other words, the staff members are simply the assistants of the chief executive. They are very crucial for the management of the organisation, but, unfortunately, they hold no responsibility.

We thus find that in the concept of line and staff there is a clear hierarchy and in the military services this hierarchical structure prevailed. The hierarchy is, of course, inevitable because of the fact that in every form of organisation there are some employees who are very important for both policy-making and leadership-providing functions.

This type of function cannot be expected from all types of employees and, naturally, a hierarchical structure must arise. There is, of course, ample scope of promotion. But that does not rule out the hierarchical structure. White and Gulick have observed that for better and effective manage­ment of an organisation the live and staff system is very important.

Relationship :

(1) In the hierarchical structure generally more importance is given to line agency or members of the line and less importance to staff members. According to Nigro and Nigro the line employees are important for the management of the organisation. Policy-making is the most important part of an organisation and this job is done by the line members. Particularly this happens in United States of America. But the members of the staff help the line members in numerous ways such as to furnish data, to suggest new process, to give advice. The line members never ignore these.

(2) The members of the line are important officers and they are directly involved in the decision-making process. But making of decision is not all. This must be executed and generally this job is performed by the staff employees. Generally complexities arise and the staff employees solve them. In practice it has been found that on every problem the staff members cannot consult the line members. This creates an important aspect of the relationship between the two.

(3) According to Nigro and Nigro in any metro there are different types of services which the members of the metro receive. But some of the services are very important such as fire brigade service, law and order maintenance service, water supply, electricity service etc. These services are under the direct super­vision of line. On the other hand park, transport, recreation, etc. are generally maintained by the staff department of metro administration. It is to be noted here that the two separate departments perform or provide metro services —they are not quite different from each other. Both line and staff constitute a complete whole. Name and nature of service may be different but, together, they constitute a whole.

(4) The personnel of the line agency are very important and many of them hold vital position in the organisation. But it is to be remembered that these vital persons of the organisation cannot start their functions from zero. From the analysis of organisation we come to know that the staff members prepare the field from which the line members begin their activities. Remembering this Nigro and Nigro have observed: These services (personnel, materials, finance, instru­ments etc.) are supportive in nature or indirect in their contribution to the organisation’s objective.

What Nigro and Nigro have wanted to emphasise is that the towering importance and personality of a particular individual is not capable of the over-all improvement of the organisation. In many countries of the world there are public service commission’s whose function is to select right persons for the right posts. The Public Service Commission selects persons for both line and staff agencies and it also decides the eligible persons for both agencies. From this it transpires that the Public Service Commission gives due importance to both agencies.

(5) Dimock and Dimock, in their Public Administration, have made the following comment on the relationship between the two agencies: “Generally speaking, line constitutes action, staff advice, line is hierarchical, staff collateral, line is authority, staff influence. What the correct relationship should be between the two types of activity has long been a matter of debate.” The exact relationship between the line and staff has not yet reached a stable phase and it will never reach. But the fact is that for a better management of an organisation both these agencies are indispensable. Every student of public administration must remember this point.

(6) The well-known public administrationist, Mooney, has drawn our attention to another aspect of relationship between the two. The members of the staff agency supply necessary data and important facts which are necessary for the line agency. While doing this work the members of the staff agency guide and dominate the line members. In numerous instances it has been found that the members of the line agency depend upon the help and service of the staff members.

Let us quote Mooney: “Though all decisions must remain with the directing head, it is imperative that these problems should come to him predigested with all the thought and research that organised staff service can bestow upon him. In the opinion of Mooney the members of the staff can be compared with the eyes, ears and hands of the line. Let me again quote Mooney: “The staff is an expansion of personality. It means more eyes, more ears and more hands to aid turn m forming and carrying out his plans”.

(7) Strictly speaking the line and staff are two sides of the same coin. The progress of the organisation depends on the cordial relationship between the two branches of public administration. These two divisions are hierarchically ar­ranged but m practice they coordinate with each other. “Line and staff are coordinates operating not in hierarchical relationship but on horizontal plane.”

Functions of Line Agency :

The line agency of Tan organisation performs the following functions:

(1) The most important function of the line agency is policy-making and decision-formulating. L.D. White and many other theoreticians of public admin­istration have suggested that for the proper management of an organisation clear- cut policy formulation is to be ensured and the chief executive along with other important members of the line agency formulate policy and take decision. White has said: The capacity to make decisions is an essential quality in the line hierarchy. Of course behind every decision there is an important role of the chief executive and other top officials and the decision is a collective product

(2) In parliamentary system of government the function of line agency is different. The ministers generally provide a general outline of policy and the departmental heads keep those guidelines in mind and, in accordance with those formulate the policy. It is to be remembered that the main work of policy or decision is done by the members of the line.”

(3) After the formulation of policy the members of the line agency send it to various departments of the organisation, explain it among them and, if there is any controversy or conflict of opinion, the line agency explains and clarifies In parliamentary system some important decisions are sometimes taken by the President or Prime Minister and the responsibility of elaborating or explaining falls upon the members of the line agency.

(4) There is a chain of function. The minister may order the line agency to collect data or material required for the formulation of policy. But the members of the line agency themselves do not do the job. The staff members also always do not do the job, it is done by subordinates.

(5) Preparation and implementation of plan falls upon the shoulder of the line agency. During the last five or six decades many countries have adopted the system of planning as a means to achieve the targets of development. The general outline of planning is done by a body known as planning commission or any other body. But preparation of planning (in all its forms and divisions) is, in fact done by the line agency. White has said: “There is an immense amount of planning m the field of city administration at all levels, municipal state regional and national”

(6) The preparation of planning is important and more important is resource” collection. This job is done by the members of the line. In mixed economy the resource collection is very difficult and the members of the line agency do this job and shoulder the trouble.

(7) Planning is a comprehensive term. In it is included development of industry, agriculture and numerous other sectors of the economy. The members of the line agency take full responsibility of all these. Again, there is another related function—the distribution of the fruits of planning among all sections of society is an important matter and the line looks after it.

(8) Line consists of top ‘bureaucrats and in democracy general public have no favourable assessment about it. Nepotism corruption etc., are levelled against it. In order to guard bureaucracy against these charges the line agency adopts the principle of self-control and self-criticism. It also rectifies its own faults.

(9) Line agency, to meet the requirements of time and change, reorganises itself. It tries to find out how to raise the level of efficiency and to devise ways to meet the growing demands of the people.

Functions of the Staff :

(1) The data, materials and other ingredients essential for the determination of policy or decision are supplied by the members of the staff agency. If these are not properly furnished by the members of the staff, line could not proceed at all.

(2) Gulick has divided the function of staff into three categories such as knowing, thinking and planning. These are interesting and important functions.

(3) Peter Self has analysed the functions of staff from another perspective. He says: “If the staff do function as extensions of their chief persona, it is clear that their tasks cannot be precisely specified. They will have to attune themselves to the chief’s personal predilections and style of administration, and concern themselves with those matters which he considers most urgent” .

(4) Many administrationists argue that the functions of the staff largely depend on the size of the organisation. This is correct everywhere. In large organisations the responsibilities of the members of line agency are quite large. Naturally the functions of staff cannot be fixed or stated beforehand.

Let us see what Dimock and Dimock say on this issue; “In addition to the advisory function, staff departments now begin to get over the line actions including issuing order directly to persons in the line of command. A finance department performs the staff functions of devising better methods of cost accounting, but also performs the line functions of keeping books and disallowing expense vouchers” It appears from this observation that, for the betterment of the organisation, both the line and staff agencies perform duties of each other and the classical difference of duty is temporarily withdrawn or forgotten. This is inevitable.

(5) Sometimes the merit, intelligence and some other qualities of the staff members are better than those of the line members. In many organisations, these are recognised and duly prized. The staff members, having these special qualities, are entrusted with the duties of the line agency. Very often this happens. Sometimes it has been found that the chief executive officer, by virtue of his higher qualification, is appointed to important post. But he lacks the abc of management; and, in that situation, the chief executive seeks advice from his subordinate or an ordinary employee.

The study of public administration reveals that this is no exception or rare case. In this connection we can also note that an ordinary employee of the staff is politically powerful which means that he has political influence and, in such a situation the executive of the line agency may seek advise or assistance from the staff member.

(6) It is generally said that the primary duty of a member of staff agency is to tender advice or suggestion to the line agency. But the advice giving duty is sometimes vague and, naturally, for the improvement of the organisation, both line and staff work hand in hand. This is the picture of the real situation.

(7) In an organisation there exists a chief executive officer. The burden of responsibility may be excessive, but he cannot avoid this. In that situation he is compelled to take any type of administrative help from his subordinate who belongs to the staff agency. The members of the staff solve many crucial problems faced by the members of the line. In this way the line and staff follow a principle of co-ordination and co-operation among themselves.

Line and Staff in Cabinet System :

We have so far discussed the line and staff concept in general. Peter Self believes that the concept has a different meaning and application in cabinet form of government.Let us start our analysis with his comment: “When we turn to the place of staff services in a system of cabinet government, rather different issues emerge.” His argument is that, in the cabinet form of government, the principle of line and staff is not prominent at all. In the cabinet system of United Kingdom both the executive and legislature are separate organs and their functions are separate since the functions of the executive are clearly well- demarcated. This particular principle has lost its important part of prominence. Only on definite issues the line agency and staff agency work. In general, public administration or in the administrative system, line and staff idea is so much important that this cannot be ignored.

There is another special aspect of this issue in Britain. According to Peter Self, the lines of coordination and control are horizontal rather than vertical. In Britain the superior or powerful officers are generally not found to control or substantially dominate the subordinate staff. In other words, the chief executive does not enjoy enormous power and authority and the subordinate officers or employees are simply order-carrying and implementing persons. In administra­tive system there are parallel departments and each department imposes collec­tive discipline and responsibility upon itself. In fact, there is no higher officer to do this job. In general system of line and staff, this is not available.

In U.K. the general administration is mixed with politics because a minister, who is out and out a political person, is the head of a department and the civil servants work under his authority. Under the supreme authority and guidance of the minister the policy is formulated and decision is taken. The chief executives or the departmental heads have some role to play but it is the minister who is empowered to utter the final word. This is not in consonance with the general line of administration.

The treasury department is highly powerful and it is a cohesive branch of government. At the same time, it is a political organ because the ministers are political persons. Again, there is an administrative system consisting of bureau­crats and other officers or employees. The emergence of controversial issues is not a very common affair in cabinet system because the decision of the minister is final. The minister is committed to do something and this commitment is to the electorate. Naturally, the bureaucracy cannot change the decision of the minister. The scope of controversy in cabinet system is not very wide and when a controversy arises it does not take much time to die down.

In this connection Peter Self further observes: “In terms of the staff and line theory the position of the British Prime Minister has caused frequent confusions The power of the Prime Minister rests upon his right to hire and fire other ministers, his personal and political appeal as party leader and his role as the chief representative of the nation in foreign relations” In the cabinet the British Prime Minister is not an all-powerful person or a dictator, he is simply primus nitre pares. Because of all these reasons the principle of line and staff has not full implication in the British Cabinet system.

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Exploring Line-Staff Organizations: Features, Pros, and Cons

March 22, 2024

Introduction

In today's rapidly evolving job market, both job seekers and employers face unique challenges in finding the right match for their needs. Job seekers often struggle to identify companies that offer growth opportunities and a supportive work environment, while employers grapple with structuring their organizations in a way that fosters efficiency and productivity.

One organizational structure that has gained popularity in recent years is the line-staff organization. Understanding this model, along with its features, pros, and cons, can provide valuable insights for both job seekers looking to join such organizations and employers considering implementing this structure.

Understanding Line-Staff Organizations

In today's complex organizational structures, understanding the concept of a line-staff organization is crucial for both job seekers and employers. This model defines the relationships between different roles within a company and how authority and communication flow through these roles.

Definition of Line-Staff Organizations

A line-staff organization is a type of organizational structure where staff units support and advise line units to achieve the company’s objectives efficiently. Line units are involved in the core operations of the business, such as production or sales, while staff units provide specialized support and expertise, like HR or legal departments.

Roles in Line-Staff Organizations

In a line-staff organization, line roles are responsible for directly contributing to the primary activities of the organization, making critical decisions, and driving the business forward. Staff roles, on the other hand, offer specialized knowledge and assistance to line functions, enhancing their effectiveness and efficiency.

• Line Roles: These positions are involved in the execution of tasks directly related to the core functions of the business, such as manufacturing products or delivering services.
• Staff Roles: Staff members provide support, guidance, and expertise to line units, ensuring that operations run smoothly and in compliance with regulations.

Interactions in Line-Staff Organizations

Communication and cooperation between line and staff roles are essential in a line-staff organization. Line managers rely on staff specialists for advice and recommendations, while staff personnel depend on line managers to implement their suggestions effectively.

Understanding the dynamics of a line-staff organization can help job seekers identify the type of structure they prefer to work in and assist employers in optimizing their organizational design for maximum productivity and efficiency.

Features of Line-Staff Organizations

Line-staff organizations are characterized by a unique structure that combines both line functions and staff functions. Understanding the features of these organizations can provide valuable insights into how they operate and what sets them apart in the business world.

Distinct Hierarchical Structure

• Line-staff organizations have a clear hierarchical structure where line positions represent roles directly involved in the core operations of the business, while staff positions provide support and expertise.
• This structure allows for a division of labor between employees who focus on executing tasks (line) and those who offer specialized knowledge and guidance (staff).

Dual Authority System

• In line-staff organizations, employees report to two supervisors – their functional manager (in charge of line operations) and their staff manager (responsible for providing support and guidance).
• This dual authority system ensures that both operational tasks and strategic decisions are adequately addressed within the organization.

Clear Role Differentiation

• Roles in line-staff organizations are clearly differentiated based on their functions and responsibilities. Line positions focus on day-to-day operations, while staff positions concentrate on planning, analysis, and support functions.
• Employees in line roles are accountable for achieving specific operational goals, while staff members offer expertise and recommendations to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

Specialized Expertise

• Staff positions in line-staff organizations bring specialized expertise to the table, offering valuable insights, advice, and support to line managers and employees.
• This emphasis on specialized knowledge helps bridge the gap between strategic decision-making and operational execution, leading to improved organizational performance.

Collaborative Work Environment

• Line-staff organizations foster a collaborative work environment where employees from different functions work together to achieve common goals.
• By leveraging the strengths of both line and staff functions, organizations can benefit from diverse perspectives, innovative solutions, and enhanced decision-making processes.

Understanding these key features of line-staff organizations is essential for both job seekers and employers looking to thrive in today's dynamic business landscape.

Pros of Implementing a Line-Staff Organization

Implementing a line-staff organization can offer various benefits to both employees and employers. Let's explore some of the advantages:

Increased Efficiency

One of the key advantages of a line-staff organization is the potential for increased efficiency. By clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and reporting structures, employees can focus on their specific tasks, leading to improved productivity and streamlined operations.

Specialization and Expertise

In a line-staff organization, employees are divided based on their areas of expertise. This specialization allows individuals to hone their skills in specific domains, leading to higher quality output and innovative solutions to complex problems.

Clear Hierarchical Structure

Line-staff organizations typically have a clear hierarchical structure, with well-defined levels of authority and responsibility. This clarity helps employees understand their role within the organization and promotes effective decision-making processes.

Improved Communication

With distinct lines of communication established in a line-staff organization, information flows more smoothly between different levels of the hierarchy. This seamless communication fosters collaboration, feedback exchange, and overall cohesion among team members.

Strategic Focus

By separating line and staff functions, organizations can align their resources more strategically. Line managers can concentrate on achieving operational goals, while staff experts support them by providing specialized knowledge and guidance for long-term planning.

Employee Development

Line-staff organizations often emphasize employee development through training programs, mentorship opportunities, and career progression paths. This focus on nurturing talent can lead to higher job satisfaction, increased retention rates, and a more skilled workforce.

Adaptability and Flexibility

In a rapidly changing business environment, line-staff organizations can quickly adapt to new challenges and opportunities. The division of labor allows for flexibility in reallocating resources as needed, ensuring the organization remains agile and responsive to market demands.

Overall, implementing a line-staff organization can enhance operational efficiency, promote specialization, foster clear communication channels, enable strategic decision-making, support employee growth, and improve organizational flexibility.

Cons of a Line-Staff Organization

While the line-staff organization structure offers numerous benefits, it also comes with its own set of challenges. It is crucial for both job seekers and employers to be aware of the potential drawbacks before fully embracing this model.

1. Lack of Communication

One of the main drawbacks of a line-staff organization is the potential communication barrier between line and staff members. The hierarchical nature of this structure can lead to miscommunication, delays in decision-making, and difficulty in sharing information effectively.

2. Limited Flexibility

In a line-staff organization, roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, which can result in limited flexibility. This rigidity may hinder innovation, creativity, and the ability to adapt to rapidly changing business environments.

3. Potential for Conflict

The distinct separation between line and staff functions can sometimes create friction within the organization. Line managers may feel threatened by staff specialists, leading to power struggles and conflicts that can impact teamwork and overall productivity.

4. Unequal Power Distribution

In some cases, the line-staff structure can result in an unequal distribution of power. Line managers often wield more authority and decision-making power compared to staff specialists, which can lead to feelings of resentment and inequality among team members.

5. Difficulty in Implementing Changes

Implementing changes or introducing new initiatives in a line-staff organization can be challenging due to the established hierarchy and resistance to change. Staff specialists may face difficulties in getting buy-in from line managers, slowing down the implementation process.

6. Dependency on Line Managers

Line managers play a significant role in decision-making and overseeing day-to-day operations in a line-staff organization. This heavy reliance on line managers can create bottlenecks, delays in approvals, and a lack of autonomy for staff specialists.

Despite these drawbacks, many organizations have successfully navigated the challenges associated with line-staff structures by implementing effective communication strategies, fostering collaboration between line and staff members, and promoting a culture of openness and flexibility.

Expert Opinions on Line-Staff Organizations in the USA

Julia thompson, hr consultant at talentexperts llc.

"In the USA, line-staff organizations play a crucial role in defining the hierarchy and workflow within companies. The clear distinction between line and staff functions allows for better coordination and specialization."

John Matthews, Professor of Organizational Behavior at Harvard University

"Line-staff organizations in the USA promote efficiency by focusing on core operational activities while enabling staff units to provide specialized support. This structure enhances decision-making precision and resource allocation."

Sarah Reynolds, Director of Human Resources at Stellar Solutions Inc.

"In my experience, line-staff organizations facilitate a balance between strategic planning and day-to-day operations. This dual focus ensures that both long-term goals and immediate needs are met efficiently."

Liam O'Connor, Management Consultant at Visionary Ventures

"Line-staff organizations offer clarity in roles and responsibilities, creating a framework for effective communication and collaboration. This structure fosters innovation and agility in rapidly changing industries."

International Perspectives on Line-Staff Organizations

Understanding the dynamics of line-staff organizations is crucial not only in the USA but also on a global scale. Different countries may have varying approaches and perspectives towards this organizational structure, shaping the way businesses operate and employees collaborate worldwide.

European Insights

In Europe, line-staff organizations are prevalent across various industries and are seen as an effective way to maintain a clear hierarchy while allowing for specialized support functions. Companies in countries like Germany, France, and the UK often adopt this model to streamline decision-making processes and enhance operational efficiency.

Asian Practices

Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, also embrace line-staff organizations but may prioritize collective goals over individual roles within the organization. This approach fosters a strong sense of teamwork and ensures that both line and staff functions work cohesively towards achieving strategic objectives.

African Outlook

In Africa, line-staff organizations play a vital role in balancing operational responsibilities with advisory functions. Countries like Nigeria and South Africa value the delineation between line and staff roles to maintain organizational clarity and promote accountability among employees.

Overall, the international perspective on line-staff organizations showcases a diverse range of practices and beliefs regarding organizational structures and employee roles. By understanding these global viewpoints, businesses can gain valuable insights into optimizing their own line-staff arrangement for enhanced productivity and effectiveness.

Statistics on Line-Staff Organizations

Statistics play a crucial role in understanding the impact and prevalence of line-staff organizations in the modern business landscape. Let's delve into some key figures and insights related to this organizational structure:

1. Adoption Rates:

According to a recent survey conducted by HR Insights, approximately 65% of medium to large companies in the USA have implemented a line-staff organizational model in their operations. This indicates the widespread adoption of this structure across various industries.

2. Employee Satisfaction:

A study by the American Management Association revealed that employees working in line-staff organizations reported higher levels of job satisfaction compared to those in traditional hierarchical setups. Around 82% of employees expressed contentment with the clarity of roles and responsibilities within such organizations.

3. Productivity Metrics:

Research published in the Journal of Management Studies found that companies following a line-staff model experienced an average productivity increase of 15% within the first year of implementation. This boost in productivity is attributed to better communication channels and streamlined decision-making processes.

4. Revenue Growth:

Analysis by the US Chamber of Commerce indicated that businesses structured as line-staff organizations witnessed a 20% faster revenue growth compared to their counterparts using traditional models. The collaborative approach inherent in line-staff setups often leads to more innovative solutions and quicker response times to market demands.

5. Organizational Resilience:

A study by the Society for Human Resource Management highlighted that line-staff organizations demonstrated higher resilience during economic downturns. Companies leveraging this structure were able to adapt swiftly to changing market conditions and modify strategies efficiently, leading to sustained performance even in challenging times.

These statistics underscore the significant advantages that line-staff organizations offer in terms of employee satisfaction, productivity, revenue growth, and overall adaptability to market dynamics. As businesses continue to evolve, embracing innovative organizational structures like line-staff models can pave the way for enhanced operational efficiency and sustainable growth.

In conclusion, understanding the dynamics of a line-staff organization is crucial for both job seekers and employers in the USA. By delving into the features, pros, and cons of this organizational structure, individuals can make informed decisions about their career paths and business strategies.

The concept of a line-staff organization offers a clear distinction between those directly involved in core operational activities (line) and those who provide support and expertise (staff). While this model can enhance efficiency and specialization within a company, it also comes with its own set of challenges.

Exploring real-life examples of successful line-staff organizations sheds light on how this structure is implemented across various industries, showcasing its adaptability and effectiveness. Hearing from experts in the field provides valuable insights into the practical implications of adopting a line-staff approach, offering diverse perspectives and recommendations.

Statistics on line-staff organizations underline their prevalence and impact on the global business landscape, highlighting trends and best practices that companies can leverage to stay competitive. Recognizing the significance of this organizational framework is essential for staying ahead in today's rapidly evolving job market.

COACHING + PUBLISHING

FORMATTING + DESIGN

FREELANCE COMMUNITY

• Staffing Agencies for Freelance Writers: 7 Insider Tips from a Recruiter

Evan Jensen

Meet creative staffing agency recruiter John Fischer

1. linkedin is the holy grail of networking for writers, 2. a portfolio (even a simple one) raises your writer status, 3. personalized messages jump you to the front of the line, 4. your contact information must be easy to find, 5. every freelancer should know the basics of seo writing, contract and freelance projects may include:, 6. picking up the phone is a game-changer, 7. staffing agency gigs can be modified for the right freelancer, need freelance work add staffing agencies to the mix.

Definitely. But you need to know what happens behind the scenes when a recruiter is trying to find a writer for their client.

Here’s what usually happens. A staffing agency recruiter posts a contract job for a writer that looks something like this:

“Our client needs a copywriter who’s a natural at writing copy that’s on brand, fun, helpful, and authentic for a major health and beauty company.”

Looks like a good writing gig for a solid client, right? So you fill out a few details online and click send. Hundreds or maybe even thousands of writers do the same thing.

One writer gets the gig, and it’s not you. You never hear back. Sound familiar?

If you want to connect with staffing agencies to find freelance work, there’s something you need to know…that kind of lazy marketing will fail you almost every time.

So what’s the secret to landing freelance work with staffing agencies? We talked to a veteran copywriter and staffing agency recruiter to find out.

John Fischer

Long before John Fischer was a staffing agency recruiter, he was a journalist, copywriter and content marketing pro. He’s been on both sides of the fence as a staffer and freelance writer, and worked for some of the largest staffing agencies in the world.

Today he’s a recruiter at Wunderland Group for creatives like freelance copywriters, graphic designers, and content marketing pros. And he regularly connects writers with short-term and long-term contracts for clients.

Want to connect with staffing agencies to land freelance work? Here’s what you need to know.

There’s more than one way to find freelance writing clients,  but LinkedIn is one of the easiest and fastest ways to grow your network, get referrals, and land assignments.

“Every freelance writer should be on LinkedIn,” says John.” “It’s a powerful tool. Maybe I’ve drank too much LinkedIn Kool-Aid over the years. But if you work the system, you can literally connect to thousands of people who can help you find freelance work. As a recruiter, I basically live on LinkedIn.”

Tip: Interested in a staffing agency gig you saw online? Connect with the recruiter on LinkedIn and start a conversation. If you’re LinkedIn profile needs a little help, check out this resource .

Even if you only have one writing sample, you need a portfolio. It’s one of of the key indicators staffing agencies use to evaluate your skill.

Too busy to create a portfolio? It could cost you big-time.

Here’s an example: One of John’s colleagues is a former magazine editor and publisher with years of experience writing and editing, too. He’s pursuing a freelance work now, but he hasn’t taken the time to create a portfolio.

“It doesn’t seem fair, but he’s kind of dead in the water without a portfolio,” says John. “You need a portfolio. I know it’s not the best way to measure talent, but it’s part of the game if you want staffing agencies to notice you.”

“When you try to stand out among other writers without a portfolio or without sending samples, you’re just not going to be competitive. In a lot of cases, a recruiter won’t even consider you a candidate without one.”

Need help setting up a portfolio? You can add samples to your LinkedIn profile, create a portfolio page on your website , or use a resource like Coroflot , Behance , Contently .

Once you track down a staffing agency recruiter about a contract assignment, there’s a simple way to jump to the front of the line and get noticed.

Take five minutes to learn a few details about the recruiter. LinkedIn is perfect for this. You can find out things like:

• Where they went to college
• How long they’ve been at their current job
• Awards and accomplishments
• Endorsements from people they’ve worked with
• Favorite sports teams, hobbies, or interest groups, or
• Current activity based on LinkedIn posts and updates

Tip: “When you send a recruiter an email or LinkedIn message, mention something like their alma mater or another detail,” says John. “People respond to that. It means a lot that you’d take a little time to personalize your message. Get out of your shell, introduce yourself to recruiters and personalize every message.”

In the middle of the popular song “Bad Guy,” by singer Billie Eilish, there’s a hypnotic beat playing while Eilish rides a red go-cart down the street. The she stares directly into the camera and says… Duh!

It seems like common sense that your contact information should be easy to find, but every day staffing agency recruiters run into problems…like the perfect candidate for a contract assignment, only the writer’s contact information is incognito.

Don’t make this mistake, OK?

Tip: “Put your email address and phone number on your LinkedIn page, on your website, in your portfolio,” says John. “There’s nothing worse for a recruiter than finding a great writer for a client, and the writer is hard to contact. Time is of the essence for recruiters. We just won’t call you if your contact information is hard to find, even if you look great on paper.”

Contract work for staffing agencies comes in all shapes and sizes:

• There’s short-term project work that might last 3-6 months.
• There’s long-term contract projects where you’ll work on a variety of things.
• And there’s contract-to-hire gigs. But that doesn’t necessarily mean mean you’ll be chained to the 9-5 again (see #7).
• Request for Proposal (RFP) writing
• Content marketing campaigns
• New product literature and marketing materials
• Long-form sales copy (yes, it still exists)
• Short-form ad copy
• Press releases and PR news
• SEO writing

“There’s a lot of work out there for writers who have the ability to write believable, reader-friendly copy about very dry things,” says John. “…But I think the critical skill every freelancer should learn is SEO writing. More and more companies recognize it’s essential for organic search traffic.”

Tip: Some staffing agencies work with a wide range of clients in different industries. Others focus on serving clients in one specific niche.

For example:  Wunderland Group regularly hires creatives for contract work with the heath insurance company Cigna, the diagnostic testing service Quest Diagnostics, and other health and medical-related businesses. But check out staffing agencies in Silicon Valley, and you’ll find more work for tech companies.

“Maybe it’s old school, but if the name of the game is connecting with people to get more work, pick up the phone,” says John. “It might sound silly, but as a recruiter, that’s the person I’m going to call back 9 times out of 10 and twice on Sunday.”

• But what if you’re a shy freelancer?
• Or you’re worried about sounding stupid?
• Or you’ll forget all the questions you wanted to ask the recruiter?

“Change the way you think about this,” says John. “When you call a recruiter, you’re going to stand out for taking just a few minutes to track them down. Pick up the phone and think, ‘This person might be able to help me.'”

Tip: When staffing agencies get a new contract to find a writer, recruiters usually tap their existing network first…writers they know, writer’s they’ve worked with in the past, writers recommended by people in their network.

Curious about connecting with staffing agencies yet to find freelance work?

There’s hundreds of staffing agencies of all types that hire freelance writers. Search the sites for writing jobs, and you’ll uncover a mix of remote and on-site contract writing work.

Maybe you find the perfect writing job in your niche, but it’s hundreds of miles away. Or there’s no way you’re going back to a 9-5. Don’t let that stop you.

• Connect with the recruiter.
• Complete the screening process.
• Submit your portfolio.
• Then pick up the phone, and ask some questions.

“You know, introduce yourself to the recruiter,” says John. “‘I saw this job and sent my portfolio over. Can we talk about it?’ I’ll call that person back every time. You’ve got nothing to lose. If you’re the right fit, we may be able to work something out.”

Check out these staffing agencies that work with freelance writers:

• Artisan Talent
• Creative Circle
• Kelly Services
• Paladin Staffing
• The Creative Group
• Wunderland Group

If you’re ready to level up your marketing efforts to find freelance work, don’t forget about staffing agencies. Connect with recruiters. Let them know what you’re looking for. Ask about remote work or limited office time. And you’ll tap into their network of clients that need writers.

Have you landed freelance work with staffing agencies? Share your tips in the comments.

Evan Jensen  is the blog editor for Make a Living Writing. When he’s not on a writing deadline or catching up on emails, he’s training to run another 100-mile ultra-marathon.

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Essay on the Difference between Line and Staff Organisation

Different between Line and Staff Organisation are given below:

Line and staff agencies are essential for the executive head of an organization to enable him to properly perform his duties. Though an effort is made to distinguish between the two, yet that distinction is more of degree rather than that of kind.

Image Source: upload.wikimedia.org

The staff is of different kind and much is expected out of efficient and capable staff. There are also auxiliary services which the staff agencies are required to perform.

These are also called House-keeping services and thus very much essential. Today both-line and staff, agencies, are drawing more and more attention because on their proper organization depends successful working of an organization, both, in the public and private, sectors.

Line agency is responsible for the execution of decisions taken by the chief executive in an organisation. This work is done by organizing various departments which are more or less independent of each other. Sometimes these departments are grouped together and are either integrated or disintegrated.

There is no uniform system or basis for organising a department but certain principles are usually followed, though each principle has its own advantages and disadvantages. Independent Regulatory Commissions and Public corporations are some of the other line agencies.

Line structure consists of the direct vertical relationship which connects the positions and tasks of each level with those who are above and below. The presents the structure in a direct vertical relationship through which authority flows. Line organisation is the oldest and the simplest form of organisation structure.

Under this form of organisation line of authority flows vertically from the top most executive to the lowest subordinate. A variation of pure line organisation is the departmental line under which the activities of the business are divided into several departments and the authority flows down from the chief executive through departmental managers to the lower levels in the organisation.

Every person is in the direct chain of command under the line organisation. The line of authority not only becomes the avenue of command to operate personnel but also provide the channels of communication and coordination in the organisation.

The essence of line authority is that a superior exercises direct command over a subordinate. The authority relationship is thus a direct line between superior and subordinate. Each member knows from whom he receives order or to whom he reports. The essential features of a line organisation are as under:

1. Line organisation consists of direct vertical relationship.

2. Authority in line organisation flows from top level to the lowest level.

3. Each member knows from whom he has to receive orders and to whom he has to give orders.

4. A superior exercises direct command over his subordinates.

5. It consists of those who are directly responsible for the accomplishment of objectives of the enterprise.

Related Essays:

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Privacy Overview

A clear, arguable thesis will tell your readers where you are going to end up, but it can also help you figure out how to get them there. Put your thesis at the top of a blank page and then make a list of the points you will need to make to argue that thesis effectively.

For example, consider this example from the thesis handout : While Sandel argues persuasively that our instinct to “remake”(54) ourselves into something ever more perfect is a problem, his belief that we can always draw a line between what is medically necessary and what makes us simply “better than well”(51) is less convincing.

To argue this thesis, the author needs to do the following:

• Show what is persuasive about Sandel’s claims about the problems with striving for perfection.
• Show what is not convincing about Sandel’s claim that we can clearly distinguish between medically necessary enhancements and other enhancements.

Once you have broken down your thesis into main claims, you can then think about what sub-claims you will need to make in order to support each of those main claims. That step might look like this:

• Evidence that Sandel provides to support this claim
• Discussion of why this evidence is convincing even in light of potential counterarguments
• Discussion of cases when medically necessary enhancement and non-medical enhancement cannot be easily distinguished
• Analysis of what those cases mean for Sandel’s argument
• Consideration of counterarguments (what Sandel might say in response to this section of your argument)

Each argument you will make in an essay will be different, but this strategy will often be a useful first step in figuring out the path of your argument.  

Strategy #2: Use subheadings, even if you remove them later  

Scientific papers generally include standard subheadings to delineate different sections of the paper, including “introduction,” “methods,” and “discussion.” Even when you are not required to use subheadings, it can be helpful to put them into an early draft to help you see what you’ve written and to begin to think about how your ideas fit together. You can do this by typing subheadings above the sections of your draft.

If you’re having trouble figuring out how your ideas fit together, try beginning with informal subheadings like these:

• Introduction  
• Explain the author’s main point  
• Show why this main point doesn’t hold up when we consider this other example  
• Explain the implications of what I’ve shown for our understanding of the author  
• Show how that changes our understanding of the topic

For longer papers, you may decide to include subheadings to guide your reader through your argument. In those cases, you would need to revise your informal subheadings to be more useful for your readers. For example, if you have initially written in something like “explain the author’s main point,” your final subheading might be something like “Sandel’s main argument” or “Sandel’s opposition to genetic enhancement.” In other cases, once you have the key pieces of your argument in place, you will be able to remove the subheadings.  

Strategy #3: Create a reverse outline from your draft  

While you may have learned to outline a paper before writing a draft, this step is often difficult because our ideas develop as we write. In some cases, it can be more helpful to write a draft in which you get all of your ideas out and then do a “reverse outline” of what you’ve already written. This doesn’t have to be formal; you can just make a list of the point in each paragraph of your draft and then ask these questions:

• Are those points in an order that makes sense to you?  
• Are there gaps in your argument?  
• Do the topic sentences of the paragraphs clearly state these main points?  
• Do you have more than one paragraph that focuses on the same point? If so, do you need both paragraphs?  
• Do you have some paragraphs that include too many points? If so, would it make more sense to split them up?  
• Do you make points near the end of the draft that would be more effective earlier in your paper?  
• Are there points missing from this draft?  
• picture_as_pdf Tips for Organizing Your Essay

How to Write an Essay

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Essay Writing Fundamentals

How to prepare to write an essay, how to edit an essay, how to share and publish your essays, how to get essay writing help, how to find essay writing inspiration, resources for teaching essay writing.

Essays, short prose compositions on a particular theme or topic, are the bread and butter of academic life. You write them in class, for homework, and on standardized tests to show what you know. Unlike other kinds of academic writing (like the research paper) and creative writing (like short stories and poems), essays allow you to develop your original thoughts on a prompt or question. Essays come in many varieties: they can be expository (fleshing out an idea or claim), descriptive, (explaining a person, place, or thing), narrative (relating a personal experience), or persuasive (attempting to win over a reader). This guide is a collection of dozens of links about academic essay writing that we have researched, categorized, and annotated in order to help you improve your essay writing. 

Essays are different from other forms of writing; in turn, there are different kinds of essays. This section contains general resources for getting to know the essay and its variants. These resources introduce and define the essay as a genre, and will teach you what to expect from essay-based assessments.

Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab

One of the most trusted academic writing sites, Purdue OWL provides a concise introduction to the four most common types of academic essays.

"The Essay: History and Definition" (ThoughtCo)

This snappy article from ThoughtCo talks about the origins of the essay and different kinds of essays you might be asked to write. 

"What Is An Essay?" Video Lecture (Coursera)

The University of California at Irvine's free video lecture, available on Coursera, tells  you everything you need to know about the essay.

Wikipedia Article on the "Essay"

Wikipedia's article on the essay is comprehensive, providing both English-language and global perspectives on the essay form. Learn about the essay's history, forms, and styles.

"Understanding College and Academic Writing" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This list of common academic writing assignments (including types of essay prompts) will help you know what to expect from essay-based assessments.

Before you start writing your essay, you need to figure out who you're writing for (audience), what you're writing about (topic/theme), and what you're going to say (argument and thesis). This section contains links to handouts, chapters, videos and more to help you prepare to write an essay.

How to Identify Your Audience

"Audience" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This handout provides questions you can ask yourself to determine the audience for an academic writing assignment. It also suggests strategies for fitting your paper to your intended audience.

"Purpose, Audience, Tone, and Content" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)

This extensive book chapter from Writing for Success , available online through Minnesota Libraries Publishing, is followed by exercises to try out your new pre-writing skills.

"Determining Audience" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This guide from a community college's writing center shows you how to know your audience, and how to incorporate that knowledge in your thesis statement.

"Know Your Audience" ( Paper Rater Blog)

This short blog post uses examples to show how implied audiences for essays differ. It reminds you to think of your instructor as an observer, who will know only the information you pass along.

How to Choose a Theme or Topic

"Research Tutorial: Developing Your Topic" (YouTube)

Take a look at this short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to understand the basics of developing a writing topic.

"How to Choose a Paper Topic" (WikiHow)

This simple, step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through choosing a paper topic. It starts with a detailed description of brainstorming and ends with strategies to refine your broad topic.

"How to Read an Assignment: Moving From Assignment to Topic" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Did your teacher give you a prompt or other instructions? This guide helps you understand the relationship between an essay assignment and your essay's topic.

"Guidelines for Choosing a Topic" (CliffsNotes)

This study guide from CliffsNotes both discusses how to choose a topic and makes a useful distinction between "topic" and "thesis."

How to Come Up with an Argument

"Argument" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

Not sure what "argument" means in the context of academic writing? This page from the University of North Carolina is a good place to start.

"The Essay Guide: Finding an Argument" (Study Hub)

This handout explains why it's important to have an argument when beginning your essay, and provides tools to help you choose a viable argument.

"Writing a Thesis and Making an Argument" (University of Iowa)

This page from the University of Iowa's Writing Center contains exercises through which you can develop and refine your argument and thesis statement.

"Developing a Thesis" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This page from Harvard's Writing Center collates some helpful dos and don'ts of argumentative writing, from steps in constructing a thesis to avoiding vague and confrontational thesis statements.

"Suggestions for Developing Argumentative Essays" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)

This page offers concrete suggestions for each stage of the essay writing process, from topic selection to drafting and editing. 

How to Outline your Essay

"Outlines" (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill via YouTube)

This short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how to group your ideas into paragraphs or sections to begin the outlining process.

"Essay Outline" (Univ. of Washington Tacoma)

This two-page handout by a university professor simply defines the parts of an essay and then organizes them into an example outline.

"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)

Purdue OWL gives examples of diverse outline strategies on this page, including the alphanumeric, full sentence, and decimal styles. 

"Outlining" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Once you have an argument, according to this handout, there are only three steps in the outline process: generalizing, ordering, and putting it all together. Then you're ready to write!

"Writing Essays" (Plymouth Univ.)

This packet, part of Plymouth University's Learning Development series, contains descriptions and diagrams relating to the outlining process.

"How to Write A Good Argumentative Essay: Logical Structure" (Criticalthinkingtutorials.com via YouTube)

This longer video tutorial gives an overview of how to structure your essay in order to support your argument or thesis. It is part of a longer course on academic writing hosted on Udemy.

Now that you've chosen and refined your topic and created an outline, use these resources to complete the writing process. Most essays contain introductions (which articulate your thesis statement), body paragraphs, and conclusions. Transitions facilitate the flow from one paragraph to the next so that support for your thesis builds throughout the essay. Sources and citations show where you got the evidence to support your thesis, which ensures that you avoid plagiarism. 

How to Write an Introduction

"Introductions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page identifies the role of the introduction in any successful paper, suggests strategies for writing introductions, and warns against less effective introductions.

"How to Write A Good Introduction" (Michigan State Writing Center)

Beginning with the most common missteps in writing introductions, this guide condenses the essentials of introduction composition into seven points.

"The Introductory Paragraph" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming focuses on ways to grab your reader's attention at the beginning of your essay.

"Introductions and Conclusions" (Univ. of Toronto)

This guide from the University of Toronto gives advice that applies to writing both introductions and conclusions, including dos and don'ts.

"How to Write Better Essays: No One Does Introductions Properly" ( The Guardian )

This news article interviews UK professors on student essay writing; they point to introductions as the area that needs the most improvement.

How to Write a Thesis Statement

"Writing an Effective Thesis Statement" (YouTube)

This short, simple video tutorial from a college composition instructor at Tulsa Community College explains what a thesis statement is and what it does. 

"Thesis Statement: Four Steps to a Great Essay" (YouTube)

This fantastic tutorial walks you through drafting a thesis, using an essay prompt on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as an example.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (WikiHow)

This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through coming up with, writing, and editing a thesis statement. It invites you think of your statement as a "working thesis" that can change.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (Univ. of Indiana Bloomington)

Ask yourself the questions on this page, part of Indiana Bloomington's Writing Tutorial Services, when you're writing and refining your thesis statement.

"Writing Tips: Thesis Statements" (Univ. of Illinois Center for Writing Studies)

This page gives plentiful examples of good to great thesis statements, and offers questions to ask yourself when formulating a thesis statement.

How to Write Body Paragraphs

"Body Paragraph" (Brightstorm)

This module of a free online course introduces you to the components of a body paragraph. These include the topic sentence, information, evidence, and analysis.

"Strong Body Paragraphs" (Washington Univ.)

This handout from Washington's Writing and Research Center offers in-depth descriptions of the parts of a successful body paragraph.

"Guide to Paragraph Structure" (Deakin Univ.)

This handout is notable for color-coding example body paragraphs to help you identify the functions various sentences perform.

"Writing Body Paragraphs" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)

The exercises in this section of Writing for Success  will help you practice writing good body paragraphs. It includes guidance on selecting primary support for your thesis.

"The Writing Process—Body Paragraphs" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

The information and exercises on this page will familiarize you with outlining and writing body paragraphs, and includes links to more information on topic sentences and transitions.

"The Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post discusses body paragraphs in the context of one of the most common academic essay types in secondary schools.

How to Use Transitions

"Transitions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explains what a transition is, and how to know if you need to improve your transitions.

"Using Transitions Effectively" (Washington Univ.)

This handout defines transitions, offers tips for using them, and contains a useful list of common transitional words and phrases grouped by function.

"Transitions" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This page compares paragraphs without transitions to paragraphs with transitions, and in doing so shows how important these connective words and phrases are.

"Transitions in Academic Essays" (Scribbr)

This page lists four techniques that will help you make sure your reader follows your train of thought, including grouping similar information and using transition words.

"Transitions" (El Paso Community College)

This handout shows example transitions within paragraphs for context, and explains how transitions improve your essay's flow and voice.

"Make Your Paragraphs Flow to Improve Writing" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post, another from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming, talks about transitions and other strategies to improve your essay's overall flow.

"Transition Words" (smartwords.org)

This handy word bank will help you find transition words when you're feeling stuck. It's grouped by the transition's function, whether that is to show agreement, opposition, condition, or consequence.

How to Write a Conclusion

"Parts of An Essay: Conclusions" (Brightstorm)

This module of a free online course explains how to conclude an academic essay. It suggests thinking about the "3Rs": return to hook, restate your thesis, and relate to the reader.

"Essay Conclusions" (Univ. of Maryland University College)

This overview of the academic essay conclusion contains helpful examples and links to further resources for writing good conclusions.

"How to End An Essay" (WikiHow)

This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) by an English Ph.D. walks you through writing a conclusion, from brainstorming to ending with a flourish.

"Ending the Essay: Conclusions" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This page collates useful strategies for writing an effective conclusion, and reminds you to "close the discussion without closing it off" to further conversation.

How to Include Sources and Citations

"Research and Citation Resources" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)

Purdue OWL streamlines information about the three most common referencing styles (MLA, Chicago, and APA) and provides examples of how to cite different resources in each system.

EasyBib: Free Bibliography Generator

This online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style. Be sure to select your resource type before clicking the "cite it" button.

CitationMachine

Like EasyBib, this online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style. 

Modern Language Association Handbook (MLA)

Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of MLA referencing rules. Order through the link above, or check to see if your library has a copy.

Chicago Manual of Style

Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of Chicago referencing rules. You can take a look at the table of contents, then choose to subscribe or start a free trial.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

"What is Plagiarism?" (plagiarism.org)

This nonprofit website contains numerous resources for identifying and avoiding plagiarism, and reminds you that even common activities like copying images from another website to your own site may constitute plagiarism.

"Plagiarism" (University of Oxford)

This interactive page from the University of Oxford helps you check for plagiarism in your work, making it clear how to avoid citing another person's work without full acknowledgement.

"Avoiding Plagiarism" (MIT Comparative Media Studies)

This quick guide explains what plagiarism is, what its consequences are, and how to avoid it. It starts by defining three words—quotation, paraphrase, and summary—that all constitute citation.

"Harvard Guide to Using Sources" (Harvard Extension School)

This comprehensive website from Harvard brings together articles, videos, and handouts about referencing, citation, and plagiarism. 

Grammarly contains tons of helpful grammar and writing resources, including a free tool to automatically scan your essay to check for close affinities to published work. 

Noplag is another popular online tool that automatically scans your essay to check for signs of plagiarism. Simply copy and paste your essay into the box and click "start checking."

Once you've written your essay, you'll want to edit (improve content), proofread (check for spelling and grammar mistakes), and finalize your work until you're ready to hand it in. This section brings together tips and resources for navigating the editing process. 

"Writing a First Draft" (Academic Help)

This is an introduction to the drafting process from the site Academic Help, with tips for getting your ideas on paper before editing begins.

"Editing and Proofreading" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page provides general strategies for revising your writing. They've intentionally left seven errors in the handout, to give you practice in spotting them.

"How to Proofread Effectively" (ThoughtCo)

This article from ThoughtCo, along with those linked at the bottom, help describe common mistakes to check for when proofreading.

"7 Simple Edits That Make Your Writing 100% More Powerful" (SmartBlogger)

This blog post emphasizes the importance of powerful, concise language, and reminds you that even your personal writing heroes create clunky first drafts.

"Editing Tips for Effective Writing" (Univ. of Pennsylvania)

On this page from Penn's International Relations department, you'll find tips for effective prose, errors to watch out for, and reminders about formatting.

"Editing the Essay" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This article, the first of two parts, gives you applicable strategies for the editing process. It suggests reading your essay aloud, removing any jargon, and being unafraid to remove even "dazzling" sentences that don't belong.

"Guide to Editing and Proofreading" (Oxford Learning Institute)

This handout from Oxford covers the basics of editing and proofreading, and reminds you that neither task should be rushed. 

In addition to plagiarism-checkers, Grammarly has a plug-in for your web browser that checks your writing for common mistakes.

After you've prepared, written, and edited your essay, you might want to share it outside the classroom. This section alerts you to print and web opportunities to share your essays with the wider world, from online writing communities and blogs to published journals geared toward young writers.

Sharing Your Essays Online

Go Teen Writers

Go Teen Writers is an online community for writers aged 13 - 19. It was founded by Stephanie Morrill, an author of contemporary young adult novels. 

Tumblr is a blogging website where you can share your writing and interact with other writers online. It's easy to add photos, links, audio, and video components.

Writersky provides an online platform for publishing and reading other youth writers' work. Its current content is mostly devoted to fiction.

Publishing Your Essays Online

This teen literary journal publishes in print, on the web, and (more frequently), on a blog. It is committed to ensuring that "teens see their authentic experience reflected on its pages."

The Matador Review

This youth writing platform celebrates "alternative," unconventional writing. The link above will take you directly to the site's "submissions" page.

Teen Ink has a website, monthly newsprint magazine, and quarterly poetry magazine promoting the work of young writers.

The largest online reading platform, Wattpad enables you to publish your work and read others' work. Its inline commenting feature allows you to share thoughts as you read along.

Publishing Your Essays in Print

Canvas Teen Literary Journal

This quarterly literary magazine is published for young writers by young writers. They accept many kinds of writing, including essays.

The Claremont Review

This biannual international magazine, first published in 1992, publishes poetry, essays, and short stories from writers aged 13 - 19.

Skipping Stones

This young writers magazine, founded in 1988, celebrates themes relating to ecological and cultural diversity. It publishes poems, photos, articles, and stories.

The Telling Room

This nonprofit writing center based in Maine publishes children's work on their website and in book form. The link above directs you to the site's submissions page.

Essay Contests

Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards

This prestigious international writing contest for students in grades 7 - 12 has been committed to "supporting the future of creativity since 1923."

Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest

An annual essay contest on the theme of journalism and media, the Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest awards scholarships up to $1,000.

National YoungArts Foundation

Here, you'll find information on a government-sponsored writing competition for writers aged 15 - 18. The foundation welcomes submissions of creative nonfiction, novels, scripts, poetry, short story and spoken word.

Signet Classics Student Scholarship Essay Contest

With prompts on a different literary work each year, this competition from Signet Classics awards college scholarships up to $1,000.

"The Ultimate Guide to High School Essay Contests" (CollegeVine)

See this handy guide from CollegeVine for a list of more competitions you can enter with your academic essay, from the National Council of Teachers of English Achievement Awards to the National High School Essay Contest by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Whether you're struggling to write academic essays or you think you're a pro, there are workshops and online tools that can help you become an even better writer. Even the most seasoned writers encounter writer's block, so be proactive and look through our curated list of resources to combat this common frustration.

Online Essay-writing Classes and Workshops

"Getting Started with Essay Writing" (Coursera)

Coursera offers lots of free, high-quality online classes taught by college professors. Here's one example, taught by instructors from the University of California Irvine.

"Writing and English" (Brightstorm)

Brightstorm's free video lectures are easy to navigate by topic. This unit on the parts of an essay features content on the essay hook, thesis, supporting evidence, and more.

"How to Write an Essay" (EdX)

EdX is another open online university course website with several two- to five-week courses on the essay. This one is geared toward English language learners.

Writer's Digest University

This renowned writers' website offers online workshops and interactive tutorials. The courses offered cover everything from how to get started through how to get published.

Writing.com

Signing up for this online writer's community gives you access to helpful resources as well as an international community of writers.

How to Overcome Writer's Block

"Symptoms and Cures for Writer's Block" (Purdue OWL)

Purdue OWL offers a list of signs you might have writer's block, along with ways to overcome it. Consider trying out some "invention strategies" or ways to curb writing anxiety.

"Overcoming Writer's Block: Three Tips" ( The Guardian )

These tips, geared toward academic writing specifically, are practical and effective. The authors advocate setting realistic goals, creating dedicated writing time, and participating in social writing.

"Writing Tips: Strategies for Overcoming Writer's Block" (Univ. of Illinois)

This page from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Center for Writing Studies acquaints you with strategies that do and do not work to overcome writer's block.

"Writer's Block" (Univ. of Toronto)

Ask yourself the questions on this page; if the answer is "yes," try out some of the article's strategies. Each question is accompanied by at least two possible solutions.

If you have essays to write but are short on ideas, this section's links to prompts, example student essays, and celebrated essays by professional writers might help. You'll find writing prompts from a variety of sources, student essays to inspire you, and a number of essay writing collections.

Essay Writing Prompts

"50 Argumentative Essay Topics" (ThoughtCo)

Take a look at this list and the others ThoughtCo has curated for different kinds of essays. As the author notes, "a number of these topics are controversial and that's the point."

"401 Prompts for Argumentative Writing" ( New York Times )

This list (and the linked lists to persuasive and narrative writing prompts), besides being impressive in length, is put together by actual high school English teachers.

"SAT Sample Essay Prompts" (College Board)

If you're a student in the U.S., your classroom essay prompts are likely modeled on the prompts in U.S. college entrance exams. Take a look at these official examples from the SAT.

"Popular College Application Essay Topics" (Princeton Review)

This page from the Princeton Review dissects recent Common Application essay topics and discusses strategies for answering them.

Example Student Essays

"501 Writing Prompts" (DePaul Univ.)

This nearly 200-page packet, compiled by the LearningExpress Skill Builder in Focus Writing Team, is stuffed with writing prompts, example essays, and commentary.

"Topics in English" (Kibin)

Kibin is a for-pay essay help website, but its example essays (organized by topic) are available for free. You'll find essays on everything from  A Christmas Carol  to perseverance.

"Student Writing Models" (Thoughtful Learning)

Thoughtful Learning, a website that offers a variety of teaching materials, provides sample student essays on various topics and organizes them by grade level.

"Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)

In this blog post by a former professor of English and rhetoric, ThoughtCo brings together examples of five-paragraph essays and commentary on the form.

The Best Essay Writing Collections

The Best American Essays of the Century by Joyce Carol Oates (Amazon)

This collection of American essays spanning the twentieth century was compiled by award winning author and Princeton professor Joyce Carol Oates.

The Best American Essays 2017 by Leslie Jamison (Amazon)

Leslie Jamison, the celebrated author of essay collection  The Empathy Exams , collects recent, high-profile essays into a single volume.

The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (Amazon)

Documentary writer Phillip Lopate curates this historical overview of the personal essay's development, from the classical era to the present.

The White Album by Joan Didion (Amazon)

This seminal essay collection was authored by one of the most acclaimed personal essayists of all time, American journalist Joan Didion.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace (Amazon)

Read this famous essay collection by David Foster Wallace, who is known for his experimentation with the essay form. He pushed the boundaries of personal essay, reportage, and political polemic.

"50 Successful Harvard Application Essays" (Staff of the The Harvard Crimson )

If you're looking for examples of exceptional college application essays, this volume from Harvard's daily student newspaper is one of the best collections on the market.

Are you an instructor looking for the best resources for teaching essay writing? This section contains resources for developing in-class activities and student homework assignments. You'll find content from both well-known university writing centers and online writing labs.

Essay Writing Classroom Activities for Students

"In-class Writing Exercises" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page lists exercises related to brainstorming, organizing, drafting, and revising. It also contains suggestions for how to implement the suggested exercises.

"Teaching with Writing" (Univ. of Minnesota Center for Writing)

Instructions and encouragement for using "freewriting," one-minute papers, logbooks, and other write-to-learn activities in the classroom can be found here.

"Writing Worksheets" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)

Berkeley offers this bank of writing worksheets to use in class. They are nested under headings for "Prewriting," "Revision," "Research Papers" and more.

"Using Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism" (DePaul University)

Use these activities and worksheets from DePaul's Teaching Commons when instructing students on proper academic citation practices.

Essay Writing Homework Activities for Students

"Grammar and Punctuation Exercises" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

These five interactive online activities allow students to practice editing and proofreading. They'll hone their skills in correcting comma splices and run-ons, identifying fragments, using correct pronoun agreement, and comma usage.

"Student Interactives" (Read Write Think)

Read Write Think hosts interactive tools, games, and videos for developing writing skills. They can practice organizing and summarizing, writing poetry, and developing lines of inquiry and analysis.

This free website offers writing and grammar activities for all grade levels. The lessons are designed to be used both for large classes and smaller groups.

"Writing Activities and Lessons for Every Grade" (Education World)

Education World's page on writing activities and lessons links you to more free, online resources for learning how to "W.R.I.T.E.": write, revise, inform, think, and edit.

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Getting College Essay Help: Important Do's and Don’ts

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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How to Format an Essay

Last Updated: July 29, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Carrie Adkins, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Aly Rusciano . Carrie Adkins is the cofounder of NursingClio, an open access, peer-reviewed, collaborative blog that connects historical scholarship to current issues in gender and medicine. She completed her PhD in American History at the University of Oregon in 2013. While completing her PhD, she earned numerous competitive research grants, teaching fellowships, and writing awards. There are 15 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 91,303 times.

You’re opening your laptop to write an essay, knowing exactly what you want to write, but then it hits you: you don’t know how to format it! Using the correct format when writing an essay can help your paper look polished and professional while earning you full credit. In this article, we'll teach you the basics of formatting an essay according to three common styles: MLA, APA, and Chicago Style.

Setting Up Your Document

• If you can’t find information on the style guide you should be following, talk to your instructor after class to discuss the assignment or send them a quick email with your questions.
• If your instructor lets you pick the format of your essay, opt for the style that matches your course or degree best: MLA is best for English and humanities; APA is typically for education, psychology, and sciences; Chicago Style is common for business, history, and fine arts.

• Most word processors default to 1 inch (2.5 cm) margins.

• Do not change the font size, style, or color throughout your essay.

• Change the spacing on Google Docs by clicking on Format , and then selecting “Line spacing.”
• Click on Layout in Microsoft Word, and then click the arrow at the bottom left of the “paragraph” section.

• Using the page number function will create consecutive numbering.
• When using Chicago Style, don’t include a page number on your title page. The first page after the title page should be numbered starting at 2. [5] X Research source
• In APA format, a running heading may be required in the left-hand header. This is a maximum of 50 characters that’s the full or abbreviated version of your essay’s title. [6] X Research source

• For APA formatting, place the title in bold at the center of the page 3 to 4 lines down from the top. Insert one double-spaced line under the title and type your name. Under your name, in separate centered lines, type out the name of your school, course, instructor, and assignment due date. [8] X Research source
• For Chicago Style, set your cursor ⅓ of the way down the page, then type your title. In the very center of your page, put your name. Move your cursor ⅔ down the page, then write your course number, followed by your instructor’s name and paper due date on separate, double-spaced lines. [9] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

• Double-space the heading like the rest of your paper.

Writing the Essay Body

• Use standard capitalization rules for your title.
• Do not underline, italicize, or put quotation marks around your title, unless you include other titles of referred texts.

• A good hook might include a quote, statistic, or rhetorical question.
• For example, you might write, “Every day in the United States, accidents caused by distracted drivers kill 9 people and injure more than 1,000 others.”

• "Action must be taken to reduce accidents caused by distracted driving, including enacting laws against texting while driving, educating the public about the risks, and giving strong punishments to offenders."
• "Although passing and enforcing new laws can be challenging, the best way to reduce accidents caused by distracted driving is to enact a law against texting, educate the public about the new law, and levy strong penalties."

• Use transitions between paragraphs so your paper flows well. For example, say, “In addition to,” “Similarly,” or “On the other hand.” [16] X Research source

• A statement of impact might be, "Every day that distracted driving goes unaddressed, another 9 families must plan a funeral."
• A call to action might read, “Fewer distracted driving accidents are possible, but only if every driver keeps their focus on the road.”

Using References

• In MLA format, citations should include the author’s last name and the page number where you found the information. If the author's name appears in the sentence, use just the page number. [18] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
• For APA format, include the author’s last name and the publication year. If the author’s name appears in the sentence, use just the year. [19] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
• If you don’t use parenthetical or internal citations, your instructor may accuse you of plagiarizing.

• At the bottom of the page, include the source’s information from your bibliography page next to the footnote number. [20] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
• Each footnote should be numbered consecutively.

• If you’re using MLA format, this page will be titled “Works Cited.”
• In APA and Chicago Style, title the page “References.”

• If you have more than one work from the same author, list alphabetically following the title name for MLA and by earliest to latest publication year for APA and Chicago Style.
• Double-space the references page like the rest of your paper.
• Use a hanging indent of 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) if your citations are longer than one line. Press Tab to indent any lines after the first. [23] X Research source
• Citations should include (when applicable) the author(s)’s name(s), title of the work, publication date and/or year, and page numbers.
• Sites like Grammarly , EasyBib , and MyBib can help generate citations if you get stuck.

Formatting Resources

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-englishcomposition1/chapter/text-mla-document-formatting/
• ↑ https://www.une.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/392149/WE_Formatting-your-essay.pdf
• ↑ https://content.nroc.org/DevelopmentalEnglish/unit10/Foundations/formatting-a-college-essay-mla-style.html
• ↑ https://camosun.libguides.com/Chicago-17thEd/titlePage
• ↑ https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/page-header
• ↑ https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/title-page
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/writing-speaking-resources/mla-8-style-format
• ↑ https://cflibguides.lonestar.edu/chicago/paperformat
• ↑ https://www.uvu.edu/writingcenter/docs/basicessayformat.pdf
• ↑ https://www.deanza.edu/faculty/cruzmayra/basicessayformat.pdf
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_in_text_citations_the_basics.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_the_basics.html
• ↑ https://monroecollege.libguides.com/c.php?g=589208&p=4073046
• ↑ https://library.menloschool.org/chicago

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We never engage in rewriting or adding text at Scribbr. Our personal statement editors will make grammatical corrections and leave suggestions using Word’s track changes and commenting feature. However, we always make sure that your perspective and voice remain front and center in your essay.

We know that waiting for feedback can be nerve-racking. If you select our faster deadline option, you’ll hear from your college essay coach in 12 hours or less – including on weekends and holidays.

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With this option, we’ll focus on improving your essay in a way that requires little additional work from you. We’ll provide you with targeted suggestions for how to refine your essay’s structure and narrative, but we will work within your current structure and topic. While you may have to make a few tweaks here and there, we’ll aim to return you a polished draft that’s ready to be submitted to your chosen colleges.

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