Planning and organizing An essay Presented by the academic success center

Putting together an essay can be intimidating, but planning ahead and remaining organized can help to keep you on track. Following these steps will help you with long essays, short essays, and even essay questions on tests.

Schedule Time to Work This is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of planning and organization Set time aside for each step, including leaving enough time to meet with a tutor and complete revisions

Review Your Assignment Once your project is assigned, make sure that you carefully review the instructions and the rubric. Now is the time to ask for clarification of anything that you find confusing or unclear. Remember, your teacher is there to help you and make sure you understand your assignment—ask questions!!

Choose Your Topic Sometimes you will have the option to choose whatever you want to write about, sometimes you’ll have to choose from a specific list, and sometimes you will have only one option regarding what to write. Each of these comes with its own challenges, so planning is important to ensure that you make the best choice.

Choose Your Topic Having the freedom to write about whatever you want can be overwhelming. Making a list of potential topics and adding major details to each one can help you figure which topics would give you the most scope for your paper. Choosing from a specific list or having to write on an assigned topic can be especially difficult if there are no options that spark your interest. Doing a brief Google search to determine which topics have the most research available is often the best way to choose if you have no obvious preference.

Develop your research question If you need to do research, now is the time to develop your research question (the question you’ll use in your searches on sites like Google Scholar and Ebscohost)

Begin your research and start a reference document Once you’ve decided on a research question, you can begin looking for sources that provide answers. The library hosts research workshops to help you get the most from your search. Creating a reference document right away will help to keep you organized and prevent wasted time. This document should include a correctly formatted citation, a link to the document, and either a short sentence describing the article or a copied and pasted abstract. You can save time creating citations using formatting engines like BibMe, EasyBib, or RefWorks, but always make sure to double check their work! Like any computer program, it can only think with the information it allows you to provide, and as a result the formatting isn’t always correct. Consulting resources like the Purdue OWL and formatting handbooks will ensure that your citations are formatted correctly.

There are so many options—Find the one that works best for you! Create an outline There are so many options—Find the one that works best for you!

Develop Your Thesis Statement If this is a research project, you’ll want to turn your research question into a thesis. You’ll do this by answering your research question. For example, if my research question was, “Are apples the best fruit?” My thesis statement might be, “There are many reasons that apples are the best fruit, including the fact that they have a very long growing season, can be grown in many climates, and can be used for both dinner and dessert.” If this is an opinion piece or a piece of writing that doesn’t require research, you’ll want to narrow down your topic into a couple of main points, and include those points in your thesis in one of two ways. You can either state them explicitly: Middle Earth is superior to “RandLand" because Tolkien created multiple believable races of creatures, detailed languages, and entire histories for his world and its people, while Jordan simply renamed and described already existing human cultures. Or you imply them with enough information that your main points make sense: Middle Earth is superior to “RandLand” for many reasons, all of which relate to Tolkien’s skill at world building.

Develop your body paragraphs Using your outline, begin creating your body paragraphs. If your thesis explicitly states your main points, your body paragraphs should be written in the same order in which they appear in your thesis. If not, they should be written in chronological order or order of importance. Each paragraph must include: a topic sentence in which the main point relates back to your thesis detail sentences which offer major and minor details that help to illustrate the main point of your topic sentence and a concluding sentence which either wraps up your paragraph or serves as a transition to your next topic sentence

Develop Your Introduction Crafting your introduction after you’ve completed your body paragraphs will ensure that you are including only points that you actually made in your body paragraphs—this is important because your argument may change as your write your paper If you do need to write a tentative introduction to get the writing process started (I am one of those people!), make sure that you take the time to go back and make sure it still works after you complete your body paragraphs

Develop your conclusion Your introduction and conclusion will resemble each other more than they will your body paragraphs, so writing them one after the other is a great way to ensure that they echo each other

Schedule an Appointment With a Tutor You have many resources basically at your fingertips here at Alvernia. The A.S.C. offers tutoring services in person and online, so we can accommodate pretty much any schedule Tutors can help you master skills that will lead to better time management, increased understanding, and better grades Tutors can meet with you at any point in the writing process, but it’s best to leave enough time to make thoughtful revisions to your work rather than coming for help two hours before your essay is due