Need a vacation? Consider entering Oprah‘s essay-writing contest. If you can create a thoughtful, well-argued essay about why Elie Wiesel‘s book Night is relevant today, you could win a trip for two to Chicago. To get started, take a look at these six quick tips on how to write a great essay, from our forthcoming book Ultimate Style: How to Write an Essay.

You have the essay topic already—so your first step is to brainstorm ideas. What first comes to mind when you think about this book? Don‘t censor yourself—write down whatever comes to mind. Once you‘re tapped out, look at your list. You need to narrow it down so you have only two or three ideas that you‘ll focus on in your essay. For each idea you wrote down, ask yourself four questions:

Every time you answer "yes" to one of these questions, give the idea a star. By the time you‘ve gone through your list, some ideas may have four stars, while some may have none. The ones with the most stars should be the ones you focus on in your essay.

A thesis statement is your opinion on the topic you‘re writing about. Based on the ideas you have from your brainstorming, what is your opinion? Write it out in a sentence. Your thesis should be clear and succinct (usually just one sentence), and it should appear near the beginning of your essay (you‘ll probably want to put it at the end of the first paragraph). The most important thing to remember when you create a thesis is that is must be something that can be argued with. If you don‘t have an argument, you don‘t have an essay.

Once you have an idea for what your thesis should be (you can always revise it later), you need to think about the arguments you‘ll use to support it. Go back to your list of ideas from your brainstorming. Can you use any of these ideas as arguments for your essay? Circle the possibilities. Then do another round of brainstorming, coming up with all the ways you might support your thesis if you were trying to defend it to a friend. In a 1,000-word essay like the Oprah contest, you should try to come up with three or four arguments. You won‘t have room for much more.

Before you start writing, you should make an outline for your essay. Think this is an unnecessary step? Think again: when you create a detailed outline, half your essay-writing work is done for you. An outline helps you to clarify your ideas and figure out how they fit together. When you start writing, you have a roadmap—all you‘ll have to worry about is fleshing out these details in full sentences. Here‘s the basic structure for an outline:

Don‘t wait until the night before the essay is due to get started! You should write your first draft a few days in advance so you have plenty of time to come back to it and revise. When you do sit down to write, stay focused. Keep your outline close by, and work your way through it. As you write, you may find additional arguments you want to make that aren‘t on your outline, and this is fine. But be sure to take a moment and work your new thoughts into your outline so you can keep everything organized. There are important things to keep in mind when you draft your essay:

Drafting the Introduction: Your introduction should tell your readers why your topic is important and give a little background information (not too much—you only have 1,000 words for your whole essay!). When you draft the introduction, imagine a funnel—it starts off wide and narrows down. Your introduction should do the same thing. It should start off wide, with background information, and end narrow, with your thesis statement.

Drafting the Body: The most important thing to remember when you‘re drafting the body of your essay is that every paragraph must start with a strong, clear topic sentence that tells your readers exactly what that paragraph will be about. Each paragraph may not necessarily be a brand-new argument—but regardless, every topic sentence should introduce the idea you‘ll present in that particular paragraph.

Drafting the Conclusion: Imagine a funnel again—but this time, imagine it upside down. Your conclusion should start narrow, with the ideas in your essay, and then widen out, to a larger idea. The best way to make your conclusion effective is to show the broader implications of your topic, or to discuss the direction your topic is likely to take in the future.

Revising your work involves making large changes, such as reorganizing arguments or revamping your introduction, as well as smaller (yet still very important) changes, such as cleaning up your grammar, rewriting sentences for sophistication and style, and creating the appropriate tone for your work. You‘ve written down your ideas—and revising is how you make them shine.