Let’s face it, we’ve all been there before. Some of you probably just recently experienced similar frustration as the person above. Some of you might have already finished your first essay of the semester, some of you may just be starting. Whether you’re struggling to get that first paragraph down or wishing that you could’ve done more to make your essay better, I have some special advice for you today. I’m going to share with you all some expert tips on planning and writing your essay and how to create the best writing you’ve ever done. If you’d like to become a stronger writer and turn your next essay from a C paper into an A paper, read on!
The following tips are based on observations I’ve made as a tutor here at SDA plus a little extra advice from my own experiences as a writer. These are all the things that I wish I had known and practiced as a student, so I hope that by sharing these things with you, you will practice them and benefit from them. Are you ready?
1. In order to become a strong writer, you must become a strong reader.
In his how-to book On Writing, author Stephen King asserts that those who read well often write better as well: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” While King applies this idea mainly to fiction writing, the same can be said about academic writing—If you don’t put the time into reading and understanding a book, you aren’t going to be able to write about it.One of the biggest pitfalls I see in student writing, especially when analyzing a book, is that people miss out on getting a deeper understanding of what they’re reading. People think that they can get away with skimming through Catcher in the Rye or Lord of the Flies and expect to write a well-formed essay. It doesn’t work this way. There are no shortcuts when it comes to reading and writing.
Your audience can always tell how well you understand the book based on how you write about it, and there’s a reason that your teachers spend time talking about the book in class with you: it helps strengthen that deeper understanding of the themes, ideas, and symbols within the novels, all of which make for excellent writing topics. So rather than skimming and saving all the hard work for “later”, make an effort now to read actively. Take notes on each chapter of the novel you read and mark important passages or quotes that you find with sticky notes for later reference; this will make it easier to find them later on when quoting in your essay.
When you practice these strategies, you’ll find that your understanding of the text will improve and, as a result, you will feel more confident heading into your essay, because you will have already formed some ideas on what to write about. Now take those ideas into step number two…
2. Don’t underestimate the power of your outline.
Do you outline? If you answered NO, you’ll want to pay extra close attention to this next tip:Even if it seems like a waste of time, outlining is one of the most important stages in writing. When you plan your essay, organize your words, and outline your main argument, you will find that it will be not only easier when it comes time to write your actual essay, but your argument will also carry through your essay. According to an article from the Harvard University Writing Center, “A good outline will also save you time in the revision process, reducing the possibility that your ideas will need to be rearranged once you’ve written them.” We’ll cover revision more in step four, but the main idea is that your essay will be more clearly organized if you outline first, which will save you revision time.
It can be difficult when starting the outline. There are so many possible ways to organize your thoughts that you might be tempted to skip it altogether. The easiest place to start is coming up with your argument, or thesis. What point are you trying to make about the book or its character(s)? Once you’ve answered this question, you will want to “rearrange your ideas, notes, and quotes—the raw material of your essay—into an order that best supports your argument.” You want to determine the natural flow that your essay could take.
For example, if I’m writing an essay on Catcher in the Rye and I say that Holden Caulfield, despite his outward appearance, is the perfect representation of both the innocence and angst of youth, this has become my argument. From there I can organize my content chronologically, focusing on different scenes and examples from the novel where Holden demonstrates his innocence/angst. Put some of the ideas and material you have into generalized categories, which can serve as particular topics and paragraphs later as you order your outline. No matter what, you always want to take the time in each paragraph to connect the examples back to that argument through your analysis.
For more reading on creating a strong outline, you can consult the Harvard article I referenced above HERE.
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) also has a short section on outlining with some example templates for you to use in your own outlining. Check that out HERE.
3. Start with the hardest part of your writing first, save easy stuff for last.
This will depend on your own strengths and weaknesses in your writing, so the more you are aware of those, the more helpful this next tip will be.Now that you’ve hopefully completed an outline, you’re ready to write the real thing. Now, we have a new question: where do I start? Well, if you recall in your outline, you began with writing out your argument/thesis. This would be a perfect place to start in your essay as well. From there, you can build your essay around the thesis as you did with your outline, but make sure before you do anything else that you state your thesis clearly and concisely (thorough but brief).
As you build your essay, focus first on the areas where you usually have the hardest time articulating your thoughts. If you tend to have difficulty introducing and incorporating quotes into your paragraph, then start there. If you struggle with analysis or ending your paragraphs, start there. If you devote the time to the hard stuff first, you can get it out of the way and if you get it down earlier, you’ll be able to start revising those parts earlier as well.
This means that you might go a bit out-of-order when writing, but remember that your outline will help you stay organized, so even if you write out-of-order, you can use it to help keep up organization in your essay. It will help you fill in the blanks.
4. As you revise, turn incomplete thoughts into strong arguments.
Sometimes, even with a well-written outline as our guide, our thoughts can end up being a little funky. When we’re in the process of writing the essay, the words tend to flow as we think of them and therefore, our essay is sometimes made up of incomplete sentences and even incomplete arguments.When you’ve finished the essay and are revising, it is important to zero in on those places that seem incomplete and fill them out so that they strongly support your thesis. When filling in your analysis like this, you want to ask yourself in certain places, “What other questions come up here? Will answering them strengthen my argument?”
As we fill in these gaps, not only are we covering all of our bases when it comes to filling holes in our argument, but we are making our overall argument stronger as well, which will strengthen the impact of your essay overall. This is when your teachers will often tell you to “dig deep” when it comes to analysis, meaning that you must ask, “What is the deeper meaning behind this example that I can address to strengthen my thesis?”
To get more of an idea of the difference between ‘thoughts’ and ‘arguments/sentences’, I wrote an article way back in October discussing the revision process more in-depth . Read more about it HERE.
5. ALWAYS proofread for errors at least TWO TIMES.
I cannot stress the importance of good proofreading enough. Some people don’t take it that seriously, and those are the people who get marked down for spelling and grammatical errors in their essays. But you’re not that kind of person. You take your time to read and re-read your essay for those types of small errors. However small they are, they can still have a big impact on your grade at the end of the day, so it is important to catch them and fix them when you see them.Personally, I like to read out loud to myself when proofreading my writing. I find that I’m more likely to catch a mistake if I say it out loud than if I’m just skimming my writing silently. In addition, reading out loud guarantees that all of my sentences flow well, because if a sentence makes sense when I read it out loud, it will make sense on paper.
Do yourself a favor and allow yourself time to read and re-read your work like this. Read once, and then a bit later, read it again with a pair of fresh eyes. If you’re still not sure after the first two times if your essay is top-notch, you can always ask someone else to proofread, be it another teacher, parent, friend, or perhaps your writing lab tutor…cough…cough…
As your writing lab tutor, I should have shared these tips with you a long time ago when I started, but the truth is I had to learn this stuff for myself, and I had to see the things that students were doing in class with their essays to figure out where people had trouble before I could tell you all the secrets to strong essay writing. I like to call them “secrets,” but really, they are essential skills that once you learn about here, you will have to put into practice if you want to see success.
In many cases, following these tips can mean the difference in a whole letter grade on your next essay, but you have to work to make that a reality. If you’re the kind of students who’d like to boost your letter grade, now is the time to buckle down, take these tips I’ve shared with you, and practice them with your next essay. Good luck and if you need any help along the way, I’m here to support you! With these skills in mind and a bit of hard work, you’ll feel more like this after finishing your next essay:
Read. Write. Grow.