It’s that time of the semester when dreaded assigned essay deadlines start creeping up on students. For most people, getting started with writing is the hardest part. The tendency for college students (myself included) is to procrastinate and try to cram everything right before the deadline. It’s understandable. Essays can be daunting which makes putting them off and skipping the planning stage very tempting. Throughout my almost two years of writing essays for college, I’ve learned the hard way that the planning stage is crucial to success and have developed a tried-and-true system for planning out my essays. With good planning beforehand, writing your essay can actually be less difficult.
Tackle Your Prompt
It may seem obvious, but the first step is to figure out what exactly you’re being asked to accomplish. Take some time to closely look at your prompt and annotate the most important parts. While you should pay close attention to whatever material has been given to you, the actual task is usually the last sentence.
Try to break down your prompt into manageable components. At the college level, you’ll most likely be expected to answer multiple questions within your essay, so make sure that you don’t miss any parts when writing. If you’re unsure about what your being asked to do, consider rewriting your prompt. Since most prompt will use an imperative sentence, I like to rewrite mine into a question.
For example: If a prompt asks you to “examine the role that gender plays in Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’” I would rewrite it to say: “What role does gender play in Much Ado? How does it contribute to the plot, theme(s) or relationship in that story?”
I’ve almost never seen an essay rubric that didn’t in some way reward points for how well a student follows the prompt, so it’s essential that you pay close attention to your prompt.
Connect the Dots
Once you’ve figured out what is being asked of you, it’s time to start connecting the dots. Look at your source materials and see what you can use. I usually like to brainstorm ideas by handwriting out whatever I’m planning on focusing on (which at this point is usually broad concepts like “loyalty” or “truth”) and connect it to text by literally drawing arrows between concepts or evidence.
Get Specific
Once you’ve got a general idea of where you want your essay to go, narrow down what exactly you want to discuss. This is the stage when you should start to at least draft a thesis statement.
It’s also time to start gathering direct evidence. Sometimes, especially if I’m dealing with a large body of work, I’ll make a separate Word document with quotes that I want to use so that when I’m actually writing, I can just pull directly from that document instead of having to go look for it. Just make sure if you make a pull quote document that you understand the context of the quote, so it’s not misinterpreted.
Outline (Even the Obvious Stuff)
Here’s where you actually start figuring out the meat of your essay. Think of your outline as a roadmap to help you get your destination. No one else will probably ever see it besides you, so customize it as much as you want. You were probably told at some point in your academic career how to outline an essay, but honestly the best outline structure is the one that helps you understand your essay.
Ask yourself: What steps do you need to take in order to achieve your goal? What do you need to tell your audience, so they understand your argument? Walk yourself through what you would need to know to agree with your argument. Whoever reads your paper may have a different opinion than yours, but you should at least understand enough to convince yourself and educate them.
Create a Realistic Schedule
We all work differently, so we shouldn’t expect to work on the same schedule. If you can, break the essay up into manageable chucks. That way, the task won’t seem so dauting. While you should be wary of the amount of time you can give to an essay, focus on setting accomplishment specific goals instead of time-based goals. For example, instead of saying “I’m going to work on my essay for two hours,” say “I’m going to work on my essay until I’ve written 500 words or until I’ve written my first point.”
I will create either a physical schedule or one on Notion. I like the sense of accomplishment that comes with actually getting to check off my writing goal for the day and it holds me accountable for the schedule that I set for myself. That being said, life happens so don’t forget to have some flexibility with yourself.
Get to It!
Honestly, I find the planning stage of the essay writing process more tedious than the actual writing part but, I feel more confident about my essay when I’ve taken the time to plan. Once you’ve done the planning part, all that’s left is to share your ideas with everyone else. Go forward and write knowing that you have a whole arsenal of tools and materials that you can use whenever you want. Putting in the work before you start will pay off in the end.