How to write an essay
Seriously? Do you really want to know that? Or do you really mean How to make writing an essay EASY? Or make it happen by MAGIC? Cos I’m not your Fairy God Mother.
If you found this blog post by googling How to write an essay, I feel ya. It’s a scary thing.
But I got you, boo.
There’s no one way to write an essay
Anyone who says there is, is lying or selling something.
Major factors:
What your tutor/professor/lecturer/teacher wants
What your tutor/professor/lecturer/teacher wants
So if you don’t know that, this is gonna be a bit of an exercise in faith. Ultimately, the person marking your essay has their own expectations. You need to find out what those are.
If this thing is due tomorrow, make sure you’ve read all the resources that have been provided to you, on paper, online, by email, whatever. If there is ANYWHERE your marker might have made their expectations of you clear, you need to find it, NOW.
If you’ve got time, ask your class mates or the tutor themselves.
Good essays take time, work, and planning
If your essay is due tomorrow, you’re in the shit (are you wearing your brown pants?).
I’ll give you the best advice I can but you gotta know, it’s gonna take some time.
Here’s what you need to do:
Must-Do #1 – Break it down
You need to break down the essay or assignment question.
WHAT ARE THEY ACTUALLY ASKING YOU TO DO?
Use a highlighter. Read it out loud. Draw a diagram. Talk it through with someone.
Make sure you know:
How long does it need to be?
What’s the general topic?
What’s the bottom line – at the highest level, what are they asking you to do? Summarise? Paint a picture? Argue? Critique? Reflect?
What boxes are they specifically asking you to tick? (Like, provide 3 case studies. Or use evidence to support your argument. Or compare 2 models.)
Must-Do #2 – Create a plan (or an outline)
From that exercise, you now need to make a plan.
A plan is just a list of chunks of your essay, in order, with a word count attached. To make the elephant edible.
An essay is like an elephant because it seems huge if you look at it all at once. But if you slice it up into bite-sized chunks, before you know it, you’re burping and patting your stomach and apologising to an elephant’s mummy.
Ultimately, you need an intro, body, and conclusion.
Intro – here’s what I’m going to tell you
Body – make chunks here from your exercise of breaking down the assignment question
Conclusion – here’s what I’ve told you – see how clear it is now?
Your plan might look something like this:
Intro to the theory of unicorn training (500 words)
Chunk A – Theorist A – Longbottom (800 words)
Chunk B – Theorist B – Potter (800 words)
Chunk C – Comparing and contrasting the theories of Longbottom and Potter (1000 words)
Conclusion – Longbottom’s theory is most appropriate for contemporary times (300 words)
Within each of those sections you can now bullet some details, and assign word counts to those, too, if you like.
It is that simple.
It’s a plan.
And now you can write the bits you feel most confident in first. You don’t have to write an essay in order.
Must-Do #3 – Formulas help
We’ve already looked at the formula for a basic essay:
Intro – here’s what I’m going to tell you
Body – here’s me telling you
Conclusion – here’s what I’ve told you
It’s a super-simple way to start planning an essay.
If you plan in enough detail, you can plan on writing about 100 words for each paragraph, and follow the formula for an academic paragraph.
That means if you have to write 1000 words, you should plan 10 paragraphs.
IT’S SO MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE THAN SITTING DOWN TO WRITE 1000 WORDS!
Here’s your formula for an academic paragraph:
SEX (Statement, Example, eXplanation)
Statement – Tell me what you’re thinking about
Example – Show me your evidence
eXplanation – Explain to me why that’s valid with your examples.
Here’s a resource.
And here’s an example.
And here’s a resource with an example.
(You’re welcome.)
And that, my friends, is the best advice I can give you.
If your essay is due in 5 hours, you better freaking move!
