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12 Steps from Panic to the Perfect Essay
Relax. Don’t panic. Take some deep breaths. No matter how difficult or daunting it looks right now, you’re going to get through this. If you’ve been set a tough question/title/topic or one you don’t understand, don’t worry. Although you might not ‘get it’ now, you will do very soon, so there’s absolutely no need to get stressed. Before you do anything else, get yourself in as positive frame of mind. Whatever course of study you are on will have had entry requirements you wouldn’t have gotten onto the course if you weren’t capable of doing the work. Essay writing is a learned skill, just like any other.
You need to know some tips about research essay outline and calmly and methodically work your way through the following steps and I promise you’ll write a great essay:
- Find out how much you already know.
Sit down for 10 minutes and just think about the question and subject in general. Chances are you’ll remember a little bit about it. If you have any notes from a class/lecture you could scan those and see if any knowledge comes back to you. There’s still no need to panic if you can’t remember much the next couple of steps will sort that out. - Read some very general stuff.
At this stage we want to find very general background information around the topic. Go to Wikipedia (don’t tell your tutor I said that), do Google searches for general terms, read textbooks that don’t go in to much detail (these are often referred to as survey books). Don’t worry if you are studying at degree level and are reading materials meant for college students the point is just to get an overview. What were the key dates? Who were the key figures? etc. Later, when you come to write the essay, this grounding will pay huge dividends. You’ll be able to refer some of these things in passing, making contrasts and comparisons to your specific subject. You’ll come across as generally well-informed and knowledgeable, which makes your own opinions a lot more credible.
- Remember the point of essay writing.
Writing down everything you know on a given subject isn’t writing an essay. The word essay means try, test or attempt. Your essay is going to get hold of some ideas and test them; against each other, against reason, against objective evidence, against your own ideas. It will look for strengths and weaknesses in ideas, compare and contrast them, take them apart and see what they are made of, where they came from and if they are strong enough to survive this intense scrutiny. Ultimately, your essay is going to make a case for which ideas you believe to be the correct ones. You will demonstrate this by taking the reader on a journey through the evidence and the arguments. In this sense, your essay is almost like a courtroom for ideas. Primary and secondary sources are the evidence and the witnesses you are the judge and jury. If you keep this ‘testing ideas’ perspective in mind while researching and writing your essay you will be taking a very sophisticated approach and I guarantee that you are already miles ahead of 95% of other students submitting essays on your topic. - Start reading some more specific material.
Your course leader should have given you a reading list of books and maybe even journals. Start dipping into them and focusing on your specific topic. The important thing to discover at this stage is who the key scholars are in this subject and what their positions (ideas) are. Almost invariably, the essay question you have been set will refer to a long-standing or current debate amongst scholars. So keep a special eye out for strong arguments (ideas) on your topic especially those that contradict arguments (ideas) by other writers. Start making some notes just jot down everything that you think might be useful. Check out the references/bibliographies in your books and journals, which will lead you to even more sources. - Go and have a chat with your tutor.
This is optional but I strongly recommend it. If you aren’t 100% sure what the question means, or what debate it is referring to, your tutor will let you know. Ask them if you are looking at the right sources. Let them know what you think about the subject so far and ask more questions. Most tutors will be delighted that you care enough to be so interested and that you respect them enough to seek out their guidance. They are also likely, if you listen carefully, to reveal which ideas they think are the correct ones on this topic. I am not saying you should automatically agree with them but if your tutor has a ‘pet theory’ you should take care when writing your essay to least disagree with it respectfully (and with a very strong counter-argument). Remember, this tutor will more than likely be marking your essay, so it will not do you any harm at all if they recall you asking for their advice especially if you have implemented it. - Get your all of your sources together and take comprehensive notes.
Your earlier reading should have led you to more books and journals. Perhaps your tutor mentioned some others. Now read the relevant sections of all your sources thoroughly and write down every fact, figure, quote etc., that you think you might use in your essay (your reading will have given you a broad idea of where you will be going with the essay and, therefore, what is relevant). Personally, I have separate sheets of paper for each source, with separate lines on the sheet for each snippet of information. I also jot down the page number for each item, so they are easy to find later. - Decide on your argument (thesis).
While reading and note-taking you should have seen the different perspectives, arguments, theories and ideas of the sources’ authors emerging. Now it is time for you to take a position. Don’t be afraid to take a strong or controversial one. Having said this, there is nothing wrong with agreeing with an existing perspective entirely, as long as your essay shows how you came to this conclusion and how and why this perspective is better than others. In fact, during my degree studies, the essay that got me the most marks was one that defended an old theory that had suffered revisions and counter-revisions over decades of scholarship. My essay demonstrated how the original/traditional interpretation was correct and why the revisionists were wrong. Either way, you just mustn’t be afraid to take a strong stance on your topic. A strong stance makes for a better essay. An essay that is wishy-washy and avoids making value judgements between rival ideas is likely to be a very dull and shallow one, which will be reflected in the mark it gets. - Write an essay plan.
Decide what each section of your essay is going to do. Your introduction should give a brief introduction to the topic, a survey of the key scholarship and debates and then state what you are going to do in your essay. Eg, “This essay will consider…It will be demonstrated that…” and so on. You may also mention the scope of your essay what it encompasses and what you will and will not be tackling. Eg, “While understanding X is important to the study of Y, this essay will focus on…Z…It is beyond the scope of this essay to consider W”. In the body of your essay you will tackle the ideas, doing all of the examination of them we mentioned before. You will consider and dismiss alternatives on the way to proving that your thesis is correct. The body should be subdivided into 3-4 other sections which each tackle a distinct idea or approach. Alternatively, for shorter essays, you could have one section against your thesis, another supporting it and a third debating the first two. Your conclusion should summarise what your essay has done, restate your thesis and say how your essay has proven your thesis to be correct. - Organise your notes around your plan.
I colour-code my notes, highlighting each snippet of information according to which section of the essay it is going in. I will probably have several sections for the body of the essay plus the introduction and conclusion, making 5 or 6 sections in total. As mentioned earlier, I will have each snippet (quotes, facts, dates etc.) on a separate line on a sheet of paper for each source. Now I highlight each snippet I am going to use for my introduction yellow, then section 2 in blue, section 3 in orange, etc. Once this is done, it is easy when writing to spread out everything with yellow highlighter on it out in front of me when writing my introduction and likewise for each of the other sections. When writing, I can then concentrate solely on writing without wasting hours searching for bits of information that I have lost. This is how I organise my sources but you should use any system that works for you. - Write the essay.
If you have followed all the steps above you will be knowledgeable about the subject area generally, know your argument and how you are going to make it, and have all your information, references, quotes, facts and figures arranged in an easily accessible way. Allow yourself to accept that this is the first draft and needn’t be 100% perfect. You will be making changes and revisions later. Anyway, if you go over the word count, you could well end up having to lose entire sections. So don’t be too concerned about spelling and grammar at this point you’ll only stifle your creativity and needlessly drag out the process. Your colour-coded notes will make referencing and the creation of your bibliography fairly easy to do. - Proof-read and make changes
Re-read section 3 of this article and your essay plan. Does your essay do what you wanted it to do? Does it do what you said it would do in the introduction? Does it flow well towards your conclusion? Are your paragraphs well structured, each containing a distinct theme/topic? Have you connected sentences and paragraphs well? Is your tone and language suitably academic .Once you have made all necessary alterations, scan through it one more time just for spelling and grammar. - Repeat step 11.
If you haven’t left the writing of your essay to the last minute and can leave a gap of a few days, or at least a few hours between proof-readings, even better. When you read your own work just after you have written it, you are more likely to read what you intended to write, rather than what you actually did write. With a bit of time you will be able to look at your essay more objectively.
Now just hand it in and wait for a great result!