How to write an essay without losing your mind

This young woman struggles with how to write an essayWord count: 758 words

Reading time: About 3 minutes

If your son or daughter — or you — needs to learn how to write an essay or a shortish report, here is a column you might want to copy and tape to your fridge….

It’s a red-letter day in my household. Our 18-year-old triplets are all starting post-secondary school.

Claire is heading for General Sciences. Duncan is going to the Faculty of Music. And Alison is studying to become a Social Worker. It’s hard to imagine three more divergent paths but one thing I know for sure: Two-thirds of my kids aren’t going to have to write many essays.

On the other hand, one is going to be buried by a mountain of them.

This column is for students like Alison. The advice will work whether you’re in college, U, or still at your local high school. And it will even help if you’re a professional who has reports or other documents you’ve been hoping will disappear if you ignore them long enough.

I know how to meet deadlines, in part, because I grew up in a family that ran a weekly newspaper. But I certainly don’t recommend the deadline skills I employed as a teenager. Then, I procrastinated, drank way too much coffee, and logged many, many late nights. Don’t do what I did!

Instead, here’s how to write an essay without losing your mind:

1 Start your assignment on the same day you receive it. I know this sounds obsessive-compulsive, but getting started is almost always the hardest part of writing. If you make an ironclad rule that you will always start right away, you’ll save yourself so much misery. And the starting doesn’t have to be hard! Just grab a calendar and attach a deadline to each of the following steps. (This will take all of five minutes. Don’t tell me you don’t have five minutes!)

2 Make a plan for doing your research. An essay is not the same as an encyclopedia. It’s a small slice of something. In planning your research you should strive to limit the amount of work in front of you. Don’t ever vow to read “everything I can find.” Instead, identify a slice and concentrate only on that. Talk to your professor, teacher or boss if you need to but you can probably figure it out yourself. It doesn’t matter if your decision is arbitrary. Life is arbitrary! By sharpening your focus, you will save yourself enormous amounts of time.

3 When your research is complete, get away from your desk, the library and/or your computer. I’m not suggesting you go to the cafeteria or the bar! Instead, do something that leaves your mind free but your arms or legs busy. This could be walking, swimming, driving, cycling, cooking or washing dishes. Think. Mull things over. Figure out how you want to attack the essay. Do this away from your computer.

4 Do a mindmap. I’ve written about mindmaps before so I’ll not harp on them now, except to emphasize that mindmapping is very different from outlining. It will help you figure out the point you want to make. Note: if your essay (or report) has a point, your professor or boss will be insanely happy.

5 Write as fast as you can without stopping to edit. My fatal flaw when I did my degree in political science was that I polished each sentence as if it were a diamond that needed faceting. The trouble was, I always left essays til the night before they were due. As a result, most of my sentences remained dark as coal dust. Hemingway advised: Write drunk. I don’t endorse this literally, of course, but I agree you need to write as if you had no cares in the world. Spelling? Punctuation? Grammar? Marks? What marks? Ignore all that stuff until later.

6 When your first draft is done, put it aside for at least a day. Remember, near the top of this column, when I told you to schedule this step? It’s crucial because it helps you get enough “distance” so that you’re in a better position to self-edit. This is not the same as “goofing off.” It’s the reward you’ve earned by writing the first draft early and quickly.

7 Allow plenty of time for editing/rewriting. The typical layperson thinks that good writing means producing just the right words. It does – but this doesn’t mean they appear as if by magic. Good writing is about effective rewriting. When Hemingway said “write drunk,” he also added: “edit sober.” (Thanks, Robert Hendrickson for that terrific quote.) You should spend twice the time on editing that you did on writing the first draft.

I only wish someone had told me this before I headed off to higher education.

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

Why you should limit your writing time

5 writing secrets revealed by nature

Why you should get out from behind the 8-ball

Posted September 4th, 2012 in Power Writing

  • Wench

    I really love this piece. Editing is one of the things many students (myself occasionally included!) leave out, and it makes a huge difference.

    But I do have one quibble, and that’s with your dismissal of the relevance of this column for science students. As someone with a both a science degree and a social work degree, I can tell you that being able to write a good essay as a scientist is just as important as being able to do it as a social worker.

    One of the reasons is that even science students often have to take core liberal arts courses, with the expected essays. The other is that there is a lot of writing that gets done in science! A lab report is a highly structured essay, and being able to write one coherently and clearly is a skill many science students lack. And if you’re taking two or three lab courses per semester, each with 6-8 lab reports due, each with their own research and experimentation… that’s a lot of essays. Being good at the science will get you a long way in science fields, but being able to write well about it will get you much farther.

    • Daphne Gray-Grant

      You are quite right, Wench (that can’t really be your name, right?) I work with a group of scientists now and they are constantly tearing out their hair over how few of their colleagues can write properly. I also readily agree with your comment: “Being good at the science will get you a long way in science fields, but being able to write well about it will get you much farther.” So true. (And from the reverse perspective I frequently tell journalists with any expertise in math/science that they can go really far.) Essentially, EVERYONE should learn to write an essay! Thanks for making that point.

  • http://twitter.com/cmunzen Cecelia Munzenmaier

    Great advice that could save students many sleepless nights. I’d add one more maxim: learn what Graff and Birkenstein call the “rhetorical moves” of your field. They Say / I Say (2009) introduces several patterns that expert writers use to organize essays, including “they say….I say,” “as a result,” and “skeptics may object.” Knowing these moves gives students more options for organizing and connecting ideas as they draft. This helps them feel more in control of their sources and allows them to begin developing their own academic voice.

    • Daphne Gray-Grant

      Cecelia, this is a fantastic-looking book. Thanks so much for recommending it. I’m going to order it right away. For anyone else who is interested, here is the Amazon link:
      http://www.amazon.com/They-Say-Matter-Academic-Writing/dp/0393924092

      • http://twitter.com/cmunzen Cecelia Munzenmaier

        You’re welcome, Daphne. If you (or your triplets) are looking for a good guide to integrating sources into a paper, Michael Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing has some great examples. It’s a small book, but the section on how to use quotations is worth the $9.95.

        • Daphne Gray-Grant

          Thanks for another practical suggestion, Cecelia! I really appreciate it.

    • http://www.facebook.com/cindy.lake.756 Cindy Lake

      I am currently enrolled in the Print Futures Professional Writing program at Douglas College, and the Second Edition of They Say / I Say is one of the required texts. Though this is quite early on in the course, I am all ready finding it to be one of my most favorite, both for the value of helpful information it provides, as well as the level of enjoyment it gives the reader. Excellent piece of work, and very well written!

      • Daphne Gray-Grant

        I put the book on hold at the library immediately after reading Cecelia’s recommendation. Still hasn’t come in yet — now I’m even MORE eager to read it! Thanks for your endorsement of it, Cindy!