How to Write Family and Consumer Science Essay: Detailed Guide

Are you studying family and consumer sciences? It is an interdisciplinary program that is related to home economics and helps college students make informed decisions about their well-being, family relationships, and resources to achieve optimal quality of life. Students in this major learn about human development, family relations, personal and family finance, consumer economics, food science and nutrition, housing and interior design, fashion, textiles, and apparel.

Family and consumer science essays are used to assess how students understand specific ideas related to this field of studies and their ability to explain complex concepts and theories in their own words. When you have a task of writing a family and consumer science essay at college, it can be hard to know where to start but, actually, getting A for it is easier than you think. There is no need to be frustrated when you can’t cope with your family and consumer science essay because this detailed guide will give you everything you need to write an A+ academic essay.

What Is Family and Consumer Science Essay?

Family and consumer science essays are typically written in a discursive style. Students need to bring together interesting ideas, relevant evidence, and logical arguments to address a specific issue or a question. Your task is to persuade your readers that your idea is correct based on evidence. It’s important to develop a strong thesis statement and support it with relevant examples, evidence, and information from credible sources or academic texts.

All academic essays follow a particular structure: you have to outline your argument in the introduction, develop your argument in the main body (the middle section), and need to end your essay with your overall key message in the conclusion.

Although writing an essay is not a linear process it can be divided into a series of several manageable basic steps:

• Develop a topic. You need to understand your assignment requirements, find and explore the background information, and form the working thesis;
• Do in-depth research using scholarly sources on the subject. Read closely and take notes;
• Develop a thesis statement and make an outline of arguments;
• Write a draft integrating the evidence that you gathered during your research. Format all citations and references according to the citation style specified by your instructor;
• Review and revise your draft to improve the content and the logic. Edit and proofread your essay for grammatical errors and common punctuation and spelling mistakes.

How to Choose a Winning Topic for Family and Consumer Science Essay Writing

If you were given a topic for your family and consumer science essay, you need to analyze your assignment question to get a good idea of what you are being asked to do. First, you should pay attention to the instructional words to understand what approach you must take such as explain, assess, evaluate, discuss, analyze, compare, contrast, examine, comment on etc. For example, if you were asked to discuss homeschooling, you have to investigate this phenomenon, look at all the evidence you can find, and provide reasons for and against it.

When you understand what you are actually asked to do, your next step is to identify the broad topic to understand the context of your discussion and to determine specific aspects of the topic that you were assigned to write about. It will help you stay focused while doing the research.

If you have to choose a topic on your own, the best approach is to select a topic that you are interested in and that is familiar to you. If the topic is too broad, you need to narrow it down that that you could be able to cover it in your essay, presenting a coherent argument. For example, if you would like to write an essay about medical nutrition therapy, you should narrow this topic which is extremely general and explain how nutrition therapy can help in treating specific diseases, for example, cancer or diabetes.

Have no idea which topic to choose? Have a look at this short list of interesting family and consumer science essay topics. We have made it for you to help you get started:

• Analyze Factors that Contribute to Food Sustainability;
• Discuss Advantages of Sustainable Fashion;
• What Are the Strategies to Achieve a Healthy Balance of Work and Family?
• Discuss Ways To Live More Sustainably;
• Why Is it Important to Promote Breastfeeding?
• What Is the Impact of Adopting Mobile Finance?
• Social Security and Aging Population;
• How to Promote Technology Use among Older Adults;
• Discuss the Pros and Cons of Homeschooling;
• Explain the Importance of Making Safe Food Choices;
• What Is the Role of Macronutrients in Human Nutrition?
• Presentation Techniques for Interior Design;
• Protection of Consumer Rights;
• Medical Nutrition Therapy for Neurologic Disorders;
• What Strategies Are Used for Resolving Consumer Conflicts?

Research Your Essay Topic

The next step is to find relevant primary and secondary sources on the subject of your family and consumer science essay, read them closely, and make meaningful notes of the most interesting ideas that you can summarize, paraphrase or cite in your writing project. You have to find appropriate academic books and journal articles. It’s useful to make a mind map or a spider diagram, noting down some initial ideas and thoughts to stay focused while doing research. It will serve you as an outline plan with relevant key points and background points that will guide your research.

Use skimming and scanning techniques to identify material in your sources relevant to the key points that you have determined. You should read critically scholarly texts on your subject and add your own thoughts to your notes. You should note down only relevant and important information that you will need for building your argument. If you plan to use some sentences or phrases as citations in your essay, note them down in quotation marks. Don’t forget to write down all the details of every source you are reading (title, author, page number etc.). You will need this information when creating a references page.

Make an Outline

Planning your family and consumer science essay is an important step in the essay writing process that why we recommend you to create an outline before you start writing. There are several different types of outlines and the most common ones are a decimal outline which uses only numbers and an alphanumeric outline that uses Roman and Arabic numerals and capitalized and lowercase letters.

A good outline will help you to:

• organize and develop your argument;
• stick to the major points that you are willing to make;
• have a good idea of how your argument should start and end;
• make your essay well-structured, clear, and coherent.

Every outline always begins with a strong thesis statement that presents the central idea of your academic essay. An effective thesis statement typically has 2 parts. It tells what exactly you are going to argue and outlines how you are going to support your argument. Your thesis should be definable, arguable, clear, and specific as possible.

Then you should brainstorm the ideas that you plan to include in your essay. You need to make a list of ideas and organize them into related groups. Make sure you group your ideas logically and put them in an order that makes sense. Organize ideas into groups to form categories and subcategories.

Before you start writing, it’s important to identify your main ideas because your essay shouldn’t be a set of quotes and facts or a summary of other people’s ideas. You have to apply your critical thinking skills to analyze what you are reading on your topic and synthesize the information to develop your own opinions, ideas, and arguments. Making an outline can help you in doing that.

Write a Draft

When writing a draft, you can start with the main body if you have a mental block with your introductory paragraph. You can begin with any topic idea that you feel comfortable with. You should write freely and never worry about grammar or style at this stage of the writing process. If you worry too much about editing and refining your essay at this stage, you will work slowly and restrict your thinking. You can perfect your writing later. Actually, you’ll need to revise your paragraphs several times making improvements in the content and in the logic before you can be satisfied with your final draft so you should let your ideas flow. Here are some tips on how to write different sections of an essay.

Introduction

In your introduction, you need to tell your readers what they should expect from your writing project. You should keep your introduction brief, focusing on the relevant information that will help you answer the set question. An introduction is typically not long – it should make up 5-10% of the whole academic essay. Your word count will determine how many details you need to include in your introductory paragraph.

You should start your introduction with an attention grabber – a relevant quote from an expert, interesting statistics, a shocking fact etc. You have to provide your readers with some background information about the topic so you should start with a broader subject and then introduce a specific topic to your audience. An important part of your introduction is the thesis statement that you are going to argue in your essay. Besides, you can also briefly outline the key points that you are going to discuss in your family and consumer science essay.

Body Paragraphs

When writing body paragraphs, you need to group together sentences that focus on the same idea so the main points are easy to understand. Typically, the body of your family and consumer science essay should include several supporting arguments that back up your main idea (thesis statement). You have to introduce these arguments in separate paragraphs.

The main idea of each paragraph has to be outlined in the first topical sentence. You also need to provide evidence to support each claim. The evidence may include:

• research from your readings;
• statistics;
• arguments;
• quotations;
• facts;
• data.

You should also include a reference and tell your readers how this evidence can support your points. The concluding sentence should link each paragraph to the main argument of your essay. You should use transition words and phrases like therefore, at the same time, in addition to, because, accordingly, on the whole etc. to help your readers navigate your essay. Make sure that you use transitions sparingly and only when it is actually necessary.

Conclusion

A conclusion is your last chance to persuade your audience that your point of view is right. It should convey the sense of completeness and closure but at the same time it should look to the future and be thought-provoking. Don’t write a simple summary but synthesize your ideas and don’t include any new material or evidence. In this part of your essay, you need to move from the specific to the general to set the discussion into a larger context.

Revise, Edit, and Proofread Your Draft

It’s very unlikely that the first draft of your family and consumer science essay will be perfect. That’s why you should leave enough time to revise, edit, and proofread your own work.

First, you have to reread your draft from start to finish and check the structure and the content. You should look at your work as a whole to have a clear picture and understand where you need to make improvements and changes. You may rethink your thesis and restructure your argument, delete irrelevancies or redundancies, and add some new material. You should ensure that the structure of your essay is logical and helps your readers follow your argument.

Then you should check the style and the presentation. While proofreading your family and consumer science essay, you should check accuracy, referencing, and language. You’d better check different aspect in separate sessions. You’re advised to use online dictionaries, thesaurus, and grammar guides to check spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Make sure that all references and citations follow a specific citation style (MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard etc.).