Planning And Writing An Essay

Writing a good essay is an acquired skill. To plan, research, structure and then formulate an essay is something that takes both technique and practice - and as such it is a skill that can be taught. The requirement to construct a balanced, literate, and often lengthy answer to a question is something that can often put students off the humanities and arts subjects. Sometimes, the reason is simply the student has a greater proficiency or interest in the science and mathematics based subjects, but occasionally it is simply down to being intimidated by the amount of writing that is necessitated. However - essay writing needn't be intimidating or difficult.

There is a relatively simple set of acts that can break the construction of an essay down into a manageable process - and, when this process has been mastered, it can be used or adapted for any extended piece of critical writing, from GCSE English all the way to a PhD.

First step - the initial planning of your essay. You will usually be presented with a question and a required word length. In an exam you will often be given the number of points available for each question - and this will indicate the expected length. The first step in the process that I always use is the spider diagram or mind-map. I write a key word in the question in the middle of a sheet of blank paper and brainstorm related words or themes or ideas that come to me. This is usually done in parallel with research - you will know a certain amount about the subject already and the essay will be designed to test your knowledge - but the mind-map will expose gaps that will require further exploration. These orbiting ideas on the paper will be connected to the central word or theme by arrows. Gradually they will also interlink with each other. The more this happens, the tighter and more structured will be the resulting essay. Once you have identified a number of key 'angles' that will give a balanced and multi-faceted answer to the question, you can then move on to the next stage.

Second step - the structuring of your essay. The required length or number of points available will indicate how many of your mind-mapped themes you will use in your essay. Every extended piece of writing will need in introduction and conclusion. So - let's say your essay needs to be 3000 words. A well-proportioned and balanced 3000 word essay will have around 500 words of an introduction and 500 words of a conclusion. This is a good start to the planning process - though it can always flex and adapt to requirements during the writing stage. This leaves 2000 words to form the meat of the essay. Let's now pick an example question and play with it: 'Shakespeare's Macbeth was a victim, discuss'. These questions are usually intended to be both provocative and to allow the student to present two or more sides of an idea. In this case, the 2000 words would probably by evenly divided by the two implied sides to the question: Macbeth as victim and Macbeth as premeditated villain. It's a good idea to break each side of the argument down further into paragraphs - with each paragraph presenting a single idea - usually these emerge organically from the mind-map. In the context of our hypothetical question each paragraph would probably reference a moment from the play that supports one or the other side of the argument. Once you have planned the essay down to the individual paragraphs the task of writing becomes simple - you are now effectively working in 100 or 200 word 'chunks'. Structuring your proposed essay on paper has an additional benefit in an exam, particularly if you run out of time. In this unfortunate situation, the structure can often act as evidence of the thought processes behind the answer.

Third step - supporting your arguments. The arguments in an essay, particularly if it's for A-Level and Degree level courses, need to be supported. There are two ways of doing this: either by extracting quotes from the text that reflect what you have claimed, or by referencing or quoting from reputable analytical sources such as academic studies of the text or of the critical themes you are ascribing to the text. In history essays this is more complex as you are also managing primary and secondary historical source material. As with all the steps in the process of writing an essay, the identification of supporting material is something you need to do in conjunction with planning the essay. This is a juggling act - as the supporting material serves to both corroborate your existing ideas, but also to inspire and form your ideas. The sources can therefore be both the structural material that holds the essay together and the engine that drives arguments along. The higher up the academic ladder you get, the more important these sources become.

Final step - writing the essay. When all of the above steps are in place all that is left is to fill in the gaps with words! Hopefully, with the structure and place and the research notes to hand - and with a few choice quotes prepared - it should be fairly straightforward to write the essay. At this stage, it is important to follow the plan, but also to treat it as fluid. In the process of writing, it is inevitable that more angles will reveal themselves and particular ideas will become prominent. This means that frequently, the conclusion becomes clear only during the writing process. This will also be the point where the introduction is composed - remember that the basic structure of any critical piece of work is that the introduction tells the reader what is about to be argued - then the argument takes place - and the conclusion explains what has been argued. With this in mind, it is usually a good, albeit anti-intuitive, technique to write the introduction last.

The process of planning, structuring and writing an essay may seem to be an intimidating one - particularly when you are just starting. However, by breaking down the process into a series of manageable acts it is possible so approach essay writing, rather than as an arduous and painful necessity, but as a good way of expressing interesting and provocative ideas.