Essay writing assignments are an inevitable part of every learning process, but this doesn’t make the situation easier. For many students essay writing is a hard, challenging, and painful process, as it includes a lot of research, analysis, writing, and formulating their thoughts on paper.
However, the whole essay writing process can become much easier if you know exactly what you have to do. That’s why today I want to give you 10 amazing tips that could help you organize your writing process better and make the most out of it.
1. Start early.
If you don’t know how much time exactly it will take you to finish your essay, start as early as possible. And even if you do know, still start a day or two earlier. Not only it will allow you to write at a more comfortable pace, but it also will give you the opportunity to review and rewrite your essay later, making it even better.
Moreover, it’s better to come up with a schedule in order to have everything written on time. Sure, some students tend to put away writing until the last moment, but an essay written overnight cannot be compared with the one slowly written over a week.
2. Make sure that you understand the topic.
Not all essay topics and prompts are as straightforward as students might think: some are given to understand more about your personality than about your ability to analyze, while some require your opinion more than research. Try to read between the lines to ensure that you definitely get the topic right.
3. Do your research.
The research is usually an important part of the whole essay writing process. You are able to save some time as well as make an essay look better simply by organizing the research right. To do so, try to come up with the list of the sources you need. Maybe you’ll have to visit a library to read them and maybe a simple online search will be enough. Moreover, such list is basically your bibliography – all you have to do is to edit it a bit and add it to your essay later.
4. Make a list of things that have to be mentioned.
It’s good to take some kind of notes during your research, pointing out the things that you definitely have to mention in your essay. This way you’ll make sure that you won’t miss anything important. Moreover, this could even help you structure your paper better.
5. Write a plan.
Writing an essay that doesn’t have a clear structure is a challenging task. Sure, you could edit it later, structuring everything, but you’ll most likely waste too much time and effort while doing so. That’s why it is better to write a plan before you actually start writing: it will make the whole process much easier and quicker, also ensuring that you won’t forget anything.
6. Create an outline or a draft.
If you have enough time, never skip this part of the process. An outline or a rough draft can help you to structure your thoughts a bit as well as get a clearer vision of what your essay has to look like. Moreover, this is much easier than writing a final draft and then finding that you actually have to rewrite it from scratch.
7. Improve it.
The best essays aren’t written quickly. Usually, students have to write a couple of drafts, review them, and choose the best one or combine parts of these drafts to create the final version. Experiment: cut some things out, expand some, try to come up with more arguments, etc.
8. Don’t forget about quotations.
A good essay always has to include some quotations, which also have to be formatted properly. Some students write down quotation they want to include in an essay during the research process, but that’s not a good thing to do as you can easily forget who it belongs to (as well as forget about the book, which was your source for it).
Therefore, if you plan to use quotations, try to organize them as well. Making a separate list of quotations and their sources will ease the writing process a lot for you.
9. Show your essay to others.
Once your essay is written, edited, and polished, you can (and should) show it to other people and ask their opinion. You might think that your essay is good enough as it is, but there is still a big chance that another person will notice that something is flawed. It is definitely not the most pleasant thing to hear, but it will allow you to make your essay much better.
10. Put it aside for a while.
If you are doing it right and doing it early, you probably can afford to put your essay aside for a while after it’s finished. Return to it after a few days pass and re-read it, paying close attention to everything, starting from grammar and ending with the main idea.
When we do so, we are able to look at our essays more objectively. It is one of the best and easiest ways to make your writing even better, especially when you don’t have someone else to proofread it.
Yes, essay writing process can be tricky. You have to pay attention to so many things and not all of them are about writing. Moreover, usually it is more about the preparation than about the writing itself.
However, you can make the whole process a lot easier simply by scheduling your writing and following some tips on organization. If you do so, eventually you will be able to write stunning essays as long as you are ready to work hard.
I hope that these tips will be useful for you. If you have more tips on essay writing that you would like to share with us, you can always do so in the comment section below.