Essay Writing

So, you’ve been assigned to write an essay, but you’re afraid that you won’t know how to begin or what information you’re going to include. This is a typical problem with students in their first year of college. The instructor gives an assignment to write a four-page argument paper on a topic you choose, and this makes you nervous because you don’t know what you want to write about. This is where your interests come into play. You want to think about something you’re interested in, or you’re not going to have any fun writing the paper. Not only are you stuck for a topic, but you also don’t think you’re going to be able to write four pages about anything. Well, here are some tips for you. Once you have settled on a topic, it is time to begin writing. But that cursor on your screen is blinking at you, mocking you. Where to start?

Freewrite

This is one of my favorite ways to generate ideas. The trick is that you need to use pen and paper. Don’t worry about starting in Word or Google Docs or some other word processing program. The goal here is to get as many ideas down as you can quickly. All you need to do is to start writing and don’t stop for 10-15 minutes. Write anything that comes to mind, and if you aren’t sure what to write, write “I’m not sure what to write.” Something will come. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation; just write. Get those ideas down on paper.

Focus Your Freewrite

Once you have done some freewriting, it’s time to read back through what you’ve written. The purpose here is to highlight one or two really good ideas. You will take those ideas and focus your next 10-minute freewrite on them. This will help you to narrow down the topic you want to discuss.

Draft Your Essay

When you begin drafting your essay, you want to write quickly and try to get a few pages done. Do NOT start with the introduction. The reason for this is that you’re more likely to get stuck with how you’re going to begin your essay. I don’t know of any writing rule that states you have to start with the introduction before you write anything else. I always say to start with body paragraphs. You already have some ideas for what you want to say, so write those. You can think about your introduction later, once you have a good idea of where the essay is going and what you want to say.

Read Your Draft

You now have a draft done, and you’re feeling good. Now, read through your draft, making note of any ideas that don’t fit the overall point you’re trying to make. That is, ask yourself if what you’ve written supports your thesis. If it doesn’t, you either need to change what you’ve written or adjust your thesis statement.

Revise

After you have read through your draft and made notes, you can start the revision process. Remember, revision is more than just putting a comma here or a semicolon there. You need to make sure that what you’ve written establishes your meaning and the message you’re sending to your readers. This may mean moving some paragraphs or sentences around.

Proofread and Edit

This is the final step, and it’s important. Too often there are mistakes made that could have been corrected before handing in the final version. Take your time and go through your paper sentence by sentence and correct any errors you find. You may even read your paper from the last sentence to the first sentence to find those errors. Keep in mind that our brains will automatically correct most errors if we read from beginning to end. Throw your brain off and read from the end to the beginning.

That’s it! You’re finished. Doesn’t it feel good? Much of this is advice that I give to my own students when they are having trouble getting started with their essays. The important part of writing an essay is that you get those ideas down on paper, and the sooner you begin, the better. Leave yourself enough time to draft, revise, and proofread. This will help you in the long run. Don’t wait until the last minute, or you may not be happy with the results.