"cover the essentials" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when you want to express that something needs to include all of the necessary details, components, or topics. For example: "This presentation should cover the essentials of the company's mission statement."
-- barely enough to cover the essentials.
Jim will also cover the essentials of marketing and branding, helping you ensure the right people find your products.
Between us, we managed to cover the essentials — food, rent for our tiny East Village studio, and cigarettes (for me).
Haus Biehler (Sonnenbergstrasse 4; 49-8821-73892; haus-biehler.de) is a small B & B, whose charming owner speaks enough English to cover the essentials.
Miley's black Tom Ford gown featured sequined straps that crisscrossed over the bodice to just barely cover the essentials for what the Huffington Post called a "bondage vibe".
Ways to cover the essentials -- and the extras The first thing I suggest is to include monthly deposits to a home-maintenance fund in your budget.
Multi-award-winning journalist Will Storr will cover the essential skills of feature writing – from pitching story ideas to editors to crafting compelling articles for different publications.
"The Imprisoned Guest" by Elisabeth Gitter and "The Education of Laura Bridgman" by Ernest Freeberg cover the essential biographical ground: how Bridgman, born to a poor farm family in New Hampshire in 1830, was "discovered" by Howe, a restless, ambitious and well-connected Bostonian who directed the Perkins Institution for the Blind.
The objective is to cover the essential knowledge about these fields by occupying minimum curriculum space in a five years engineering degree.
Beyond the SWOG course, the Methods in Clinical Cancer Research workshop, put on by the American Society of Clinical Oncology ASCOO) and the American Association for Cancer Research AACRR), is probably the best known short course designed to cover the essential elements of designing a cancer clinical trial.
As a result, we made some modifications that helped us to cover the essential quality factors (Table II).
