The National Honor Society (NHS) is an American organization that offers students numerous academic and professional opportunities. To gain membership in this prestigious institution, young individuals write essays for consideration by the admission committee. In this case, writing a national honor society essay is an activity that allows students to make a case for why the committee should give them the NHS membership. To achieve this aim, applicants should satisfy the committee’s evaluation standards and expectations. In turn, these aspects include formatting, structuring, and composing the paper in line with academic standards, and ensuring the essay is free of any grammatical and other errors. Hence, students need to learn how to write a national honor society essay to provide well-organized academic papers.
General Guidelines for Writing a National Honor Society (NHS) Essay
Writing is an essential discipline that creates opportunities for students in various areas of professional endeavor. For example, writing is one of the essential requirements of getting admission to the National Honor Society (NHS). Ideally, students who wish to be affiliated with the organization write essays that, in essence, provide them with unlimited opportunities. Through these essays, the NHS chooses exceptional students – those who excel in social services, school activities, volunteering, scholarships, and internships, among other fields. Even without an excellent GPA (grade point average), a student can still write a national honor society essay and access unlimited opportunities. Hence, NHS essays allow students to demonstrate their personality and skillset.
Definition of a National Honor Society Essay
A national honor society essay is an exercise that provides students with access to membership in a highly prestigious American organization. In particular, the essay’s primary purpose is to demonstrate to the admission committee that a student is fit to access advanced learning opportunities. Basically, the organization sets specific standards that help to evaluate the most exceptional membership candidates. Consequently, the organization spells out certain expectations for students writing an admission essay. In turn, one can argue that writing a national honor society essay is an activity that students undertake to increase their exposure to academic and professional opportunities.
Evaluation Standards
Evaluation standards that underscore an effective national honor society essay include formatting, structuring, and composing the NHS essay as per established standards; incorporating a personal anecdote in writing to demonstrate one’s achievements and capability and readiness to take up leadership roles; and capturing one’s ethical and moral commitments, as well as exceptional character traits.
Expectations
On expectations, the NHS requires a national honor society essay to exhibit an in-depth analysis of the subject matter through a critical examination of diverse points of view. In this case, students have to rely on scholarly texts, such as journal articles, to gather information. Then, another expectation is that NHS essays must be free of mistakes: spelling and grammatical errors and inconsistencies in arguments. Therefore, students should proofread their work and correct such mistakes before submitting academic papers to the admission committee.
Writing a National Honor Society (NHS) Essay: Step-by-Step Guide
Based on the preceding section, writing a national honor society essay requires a student to conduct in-depth research on the chosen topic. Basically, this aspect means using academic sources, such as online databases, to gather useful information for an essay. In this case, the use of scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles as sources of evidence is advisable. Then, brainstorming on relevant ideas helps identify good essay topics that writers can use for a discussion in their texts. Consequently, creating an essay outline enables students to organize their thoughts for a more comprehensive and understandable paper. Lastly, authors must proofread their works to make sure it is free of grammatical and other errors.
Step 1: Preparation
Preparation is the first step in writing a national honor society essay. Basically, it is the stage where students plan their work by defining the chosen topic and arranging their ideas with their audience in mind. In essence, writers use external credible sources to find the best topic, one that they can find information about through research. Deciding on the topic allows authors to brainstorm ideas that resonate with the target audience. In essence, preparing to write NHS essays is all about getting the topic that resonates with the target audience and ensuring that there is enough evidence to back up the writer’s claims and arguments.
Step 2: Setting Up
Set up is the second step in writing a national honor society essay. Here, writers use reliable sources identified through research, such as journal articles, to make notes and create an outline and an annotated bibliography, as applicable. Basically, note-making is about taking the information relevant to the topic and defining how it would advance the writer’s thesis statement. Moreover, the outline provides students with a plan on how to go about writing the essay. In other words, it gives the paper its structure. Regarding the outline, authors set out their introduction and highlight reasons for wanting to join the NHS membership. In turn, they discuss some of their accomplishments, such as social initiatives they have participated in, whether at school or in the community. Also, students explain why they think the NHS is good for them and why it inspires them.
Annotated Bibliography
While not many instances of academic writing require an annotated bibliography, students need to make one. Basically, an annotated bibliography serves to provide writers with a summary of sources that they would use or have used to gather the information that enriches their claims and arguments. Therefore, when writing a national honor society essay, students can prepare an annotated bibliography as an overview of arguments that they would make in their papers.
Step 4: Writing the First Draft of a National Honor Society Essay
Like in most academic texts, including theses and dissertations, writers must start with a first draft. Basically, this paper ensures that students have an opportunity to go through their work and make improvements. In this case, authors organize their thoughts to make papers have a logical flow of ideas. In turn, the most critical aspect of the draft is the definition of the thesis statement, which becomes the central argument that writers focus on in academic papers. Hence, every paragraph in the main text should use this statement as the referent point.
Step 5: Wrapping It Up
After completing the draft, students should take the time to go through it to ensure that it is free of mistakes. In writing academic texts, authors make various kinds of mistakes, including grammatical errors and inconsistencies in arguments. Basically, the former makes it harder for readers to understand the text, while the latter undermines the logical flow of the paper. In turn, both kinds of mistakes make academic papers unexciting to read, which can deny students to get their NHS membership. Therefore, authors of NHS essays must read through their drafts and revise documents to correct any mistakes.
Structure of a National Honor Society Essay
1. Topic Sentences
When writing a national honor society essay, students should start every paragraph in the main text with a topic sentence, which draws the reader’s attention to the thesis statement. Basically, topic sentences serve as an introduction to the content of the paragraph, which should be focused on proving the thesis. What follows the topic sentence is evidence from an external source backing up the writer’s claim, which authors should cite in parentheses or the sentence. Then, the third element is an explanation, which means that students connect the claim made in the topic sentence with the evidence offered.
2. Concluding Sentences
Every paragraph in national honor society essays, like any other academic texts, should have a concluding sentence. Here, students should provide concluding thoughts about the content in the paragraph, linking the topic sentence with the thesis statement. More importantly, writers should prepare readers for the following paragraph by using a transition. In short, concluding sentences should create a logical flow of ideas or arguments from one paragraph to another.
3. Transition
Transition is the element that creates a logical flow of thought, ideas, and arguments in academic writing. Generally, writers should use transitionary words within the paragraph or in the concluding sentence of a paragraph. In turn, examples of transitionary words include: consequently, furthermore, hence, thus, equally important, moreover, and so on.
4. Peer Review
In academic essay writing, writers need to ensure their texts pass the test of credibility and reliability. Indeed, it is what qualifies them to be scholarly, academic texts. An example is journal articles. For an article to be published in a journal, it must undergo rigorous scrutiny to ensure it is of high quality. Then, what determines this quality is being free of grammatical errors and lacking inconsistencies in arguments. When writing a national honor society essay, students should give the first draft and even the final draft to a friend, instructor, or mentor to assess its quality. In turn, these individuals would help review academic papers for quality before submission to the admission committee.
4. Final Draft
As discussed previously, a student must start a national honor society essay by writing the first draft. Basically, it is only after submitting this draft to a rigorous review that a student should write the final draft. In essence, the final draft is a refined paper, usually free of grammatical mistakes and other errors, such as inconsistent opinions, claims, and ideas. Although the final draft should be an improved version of the first draft, a writer should reread it to be confident it is of high quality. After being satisfied with its quality, a student can submit this draft to the NHS admission committee.
Writing Each Part of a National Honor Society Essay
Generally, academic texts, including research essays, admission essays, theses, and dissertations, have structures that students should strictly observe. For essays, this structure involves having three main parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. In turn, research-themed papers, such as theses, usually have additional parts, such as abstracts, literature review, methodology, findings, and discussion. Therefore, when writing a national honor society essay, students should be keen to capture essential details in the introduction part, body paragraphs, and conclusion.
1. Introduction
The introduction part of a national honor society essay sets out the intent of the writer. Since the purpose of the essay is to convince the NHS admission committee of the suitability of the candidate for NHS membership, the introduction should be relevant, concise, and catchy. In this case, students should concisely state their primary reasons for wanting to become a member of the NHS community and mention the advantages that they bring to the table. Also, they should give their understanding of the NHS to indicate their interest and provide some excellent hooks to make the audience interested in reading the entire essay.
2. Body Paragraphs
Body paragraphs provide authors of national honor society essays with an opportunity to tell their whole story to convince the admission committee on why they should be members of the organization. Basically, the story should be concise, meaning that the content should focus on why a student is best qualified to join the NHS membership. Moreover, writers can describe their recent activities to give the audience a clue about the advantages that they would bring to the organization. When giving this story, students should use a strict writing style. In other words, they follow the exemplary model of an academic paper by avoiding exaggerations. Nevertheless, authors should show some creativity in their writing, such as telling the audience how they can affect the present world. Also, the content should be of high quality, meaning that there are no grammatical errors.
3. Conclusion
While the introduction and body paragraphs are essential in laying out the case of why students want to become members of the NHS, the conclusion offers them an opportunity to make the final impression. Here, writers should not focus on giving the committee new information but on leaving the members with a positive impression, which is essential in persuading them to grant them NHS membership. In this case, students should make a brief statement as to how the organization would benefit from their membership. In general, authors should reiterate what they have already stated in the introduction and body paragraphs. For example, these elements include the purpose of the text, professional and personal skill set, leadership experience and qualities, and a call to action. In turn, the call to action is about asking the committee to consider students in their application and grant them NHS membership.
Techniques for an Effective NHS Essay
The focus of any admission essay is to convince the audience of the writer’s suitability for membership in the institution or organization. In this case, students must use a writing technique that makes their case strong. Regarding the national honor society essay, students should focus on satisfying the admission committee’s evaluation standards and expectations. Basically, the technique includes formatting, structuring, and composing the NHS essay as an academic text. To make essays more powerful, authors should provide a personal story in which they give the audience an insight into their strengths and weaknesses. Also, writers should use academic sources to back up their claims. In turn, it is essential to convince the audience that they take the matter seriously and research specific issues, including the NHS itself.
Major Mistakes and Problems in Writing a National Honor Society Essay
There are several mistakes that students make when writing a national honor society essay. For example, the first one involves neglecting a thesis statement. Basically, this statement is critical in shaping the writer’s arguments in the entire essay. Also, failing to state the thesis creates problems for authors. These problems include writing a directionless paper, thus complicating the reading experience. In turn, the best way to solve this problem is to capture the thesis statement in the introduction and make it catchy to make the audience interested in reading the entire essay. Besides, placing the thesis in the concluding sentence helps to blend the introduction with body paragraphs. Then, the second mistake that students make is writing an essay being too detailed with information and facts, which creates the problem of burdening the audience. As a result, the solution is to make the writing precise – stick to the thesis statement.
Example of Writing a National Honor Society Membership Essay
I. Introduction Sample of a National Honor Society Essay
Membership in a professional entity is essential in exposing individuals to numerous professional and personal opportunities. For a long time, I have desired to become a member of the National Honor Society (NHS). I have read so much about the entity and have come to learn that it was at the forefront of creating change in our present world. I am writing this essay to convince you of my desire to become a member of this prestigious organization. For me, joining the NHS membership is not only a destination but also the start of a journey to more excellent work that ultimately leads to personal and professional fulfillment.
II. Examples of Body Paragraphs for a National Honor Society Essay: The Case for Membership
A. Description
The National Honor Society (NHS) is an organization of great value and importance in society. I understand that it is an entity that helps students become agents of change in their communities in diverse areas, including taking care of children and senior citizens and giving voluntary service in non-profit organizations. In this case, I have always dreamed of being a member of the NHS because of my passion for helping people and making a change in my world. Since the organization exposes students to immense opportunities, I believe that being a member will provide me with access to opportunities that allow me to pursue and accomplish my passion. Moreover, I firmly believe that, as I pursue this passion, I will contribute positively to the organization by putting into use my professional and personal skillset. I am delighted that my tutors and select community leaders have chosen me to become a member of the NHS. Hence, I consider this gesture an honor that society has bestowed upon me, and I confirm my dedication and willingness to contribute to the community.
B. Strengths
In essence, becoming a member of the NHS is not a destination for me, Basically, it is the beginning of a challenging future. I perceive this future as a service to the community. In this case, I look forward to exploiting my skillset to attain specific goals. Moreover, my one short-term academic goal is to join an Ivy League higher learning institution, while my long-term goal is to become a political scientist. Then, creativity and keen observation are my greatest strengths, and I believe they are vital in developing a great political career. As a people-person, I consider myself easy to relate to, and I believe this to be an essential attribute in service delivery at NHS and my future career. I have a personal drive to succeed, and that is why I have always participated in various professional activities, such as essay writing competitions and competitive sports. My impressive GPA is a testament that I am self-driven and keen on excellence.
C. Weaknesses
However, I am also aware of my weaknesses. I tend to be too observant and committed to details. In particular, these habits tend to limit my viewpoint by making me too focused on perfection and failing to see opportunities. Therefore, I believe being a member of the NHS will expand my viewpoint and help me turn my weaknesses into strengths.
III. Conclusion Sample of a National Honor Society Essay
Joining the NHS membership has been a lifelong dream for me. Given the organization’s role in exposing students to numerous professional opportunities, I seek membership to exploit these opportunities. However, I come with the mentality that I should give and not just take. In this sense, the NHS membership is a platform for a more exceptional contribution to society.
Summing Up on How to Write a National Honor Society Essay
A national honor society essay is a critical tool for students wishing to become members of this prestigious organization. Like any other essay, students should write a national honor society essay by observing academic writing conventions. For greater effectiveness, the focus should be on the evaluation standards and committee expectations. Here, authors should pay attention to the paper’s format and structure. Doing so helps to compose a paper that meets the standard of an academic text. Also, students should also use external evidence to support claims, observations, and arguments.
Tips
In summary, students should master the following national honor society writing tips:
- Start the essay by writing the first draft of a national honor society essay.
- Create an outline to organize thoughts.
- Be precise about the purpose of the essay by creating a thesis statement in the concluding sentence of the introduction part.
- Give a clear picture of yourself, such as a high school student.
- Talk about your professional and personal skill set, including personal attributes.
- Highlight your scholarship achievements.
- Indicate your short-term and long-term goals.
- Include an introduction part where you mention reasons for wanting to become a member of the NHS. Include the significant advantages you bring to the table. Ensure the thesis is precise and catchy.
- Include body paragraphs where you outline your short- and long-term academic goals. Here, students should give details of their scholarship, leadership qualities, and personal attributes. The focus should be on convincing the admission committee to grant the NHS membership.
- Include the conclusion section to reiterate the purpose of the essay, the thesis statement, and all other essential details. In turn, the conclusion should be a summary of the content in the introduction and the body paragraphs. Also, ensure that the concluding remark leaves an impression on the audience.
- Mention your weaknesses and state how being a member of the NHS would help you to turn them into strengths.