Education logo

How to Plan the Perfect Essay

Quarantine Edition

By Abby AllenPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
Like

For many of us, essay writing has always been an arduous, lengthy and painful process; they take up multiple days, weeks and even months and often leave us relieved yet confused as to how we managed to get to the finish line.

Here are 10 helpful stages in the planning process that will leave you itching to get writing!

1. Forward Planning Timetable: now I know this one won’t reach everyone but it is actually a really important part of the long term planning process. It may be 2 months, 2 weeks or 2 days before your essay is due, but it is key to plan out how much time you have to realistically and physically write the body of work. This could take the form of a excel spreadsheet, reminders in a calendar or even a handwritten table using every highlighter under the sun. Do what works for you to keep yourself on track!

2. Choose a question: Depending on your subject, you may have one or multiple choices for an essay question. For those who have options, pick a question that will involve a theme or text that you will enjoy interrogating- you’re going to be spending a chunk of time on this so you may as well make it interesting!

For example, as an English Literature student, I don’t necessarily pick the books I most enjoy- instead, I go for the ones that will be the most interesting to argue with and pick apart.

*Disclaimer* It’s okay to pick the question and take a break. The process of thinking throughout is KEY. You might find yourself thinking about a certain aspect of the question in downtime, even when you haven’t scheduled in time to work; this may either be through something you see or read, or even just triggered by an everyday activity.

3. Define key terms: Once you have picked your question, define any key terms or difficult ideas that will need to be at the forefront of your writing. Whether this is physical or electronically, look through the question and highlight the key aspects of what it’s asking you.

4. Note key texts: Once you have done so, it’s always useful to add the names and dates of the texts you are using at the top of the page so as not to forget throughout. This also serves to remind you of the possible different social, political, cultural, and economic contexts of the primary source material.

5. Set up the Skeleton: After you have highlighted the key aspects of what the question is looking for, bullet point any short answers or set of ideas that spring to mind. This will set you up for the skeleton of the essay. When you’re stuck, it’s always good to come back here and find certain aspects of the question to fuel your research of the source material.

6. Gather material: Go back through all and any notes/lectures/books for possible key quotes, ideas and theories. Even if you think your notes may not be of the most use, give them a skim read to see if anything new is triggered in the context of your chosen question.

Throughout this process, don't forget to make a note of page numbers for any collected quotes- this will help you out A LOT in the referencing process.

Another great tip is that if your material starts piling up, create separate documents or pages for things like: key texts, fleshing out a line of formal argument, writing the real draft, secondary criticism, and any leftovers that don’t make it into the final cut of the first draft but may be useful later.

7. Do the maths: Now that you have a large portion of the main material, work out how many paragraphs you want to write and what their subheadings may be. This decision is completely subjective and dependent on how you’ve planned to structure your essay so far. For example, an essay of 2000 words could be split up into 6 or 8 paragraphs (including introduction and conclusion), depending on whether you write paragraphs that average at 250 words or 340 words.

8. Secondary Sources: Being well on your way in the planning process by now, the next step (if necessary) is secondary reading. Essential for undergraduate students, this research is key for shaping arguments, combating key ideas and introducing scholarly theories that haven’t been considered before. (Again, don’t forget to make notes of page numbers, references and links when collecting this research!)

9. Colour code: By now you probably have a lot of source material that you will use when it comes to actually writing. A really useful way to organise the sheer volume of words is to colour code each type of text. For example: blue for quotes, red for secondary sources, and black for your unique ideas or formal argument.

10. Last but not least: don’t worry if you have too much material- it’s always better to have too much than too little! Once you have completed all the necessary tasks listed above, the actual writing process will hopefully be less daunting and maybe even just a case of assembling the formalities of the body of an essay.

Happy planning!

how to
Like

About the Creator

Abby Allen

21//Student//https://oohmercedestumblr.wordpress.com/

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.