The first step in essay writing any kind of essay is to organize your thoughts and ideas. It’s kind of like baking a cake. Without a recipe to tell you what ingredients to use and the order in which to use those ingredients, you may end up with something that resembles a cake, but it probably won’t taste very good. The same thing is true of essay writing. Unless you know what the parts of your essay are going to be and in what order you’re going to write those parts, you will probably end up with a very disjointed, unclear piece of writing.
Often, the most difficult part of writing is getting started. Sitting and staring at a blank piece of paper or a blank word-processing document can be a lot of pressure. To relieve some of that pressure, try jotting down anything related to your topic that comes to mind. Don’t worry about how you phrase it or if it’s really what you want to say. All of that will come together later. For now, just write anything. You’ll find that, as you write, new ideas and thoughts will come to you. Write those down, too. This is often called a freewrite, because it involves writing completely free of any expectations.
So now you have a bunch of jumbled ideas that somehow relate to your intended topic. Now what? You need to organize all of those great ideas into an order that will form the basis for your eventual essay. You need to sort out your main ideas from your supporting ideas. Maybe you’ve thought of some examples or anecdotes that you want to include. You need to take all of these components and organize them from a jumble into a chart. A chart is just one way to organize visually all the components of your essay so that you can start to get a better sense of which thoughts are main ideas and which thoughts are going to play supporting roles.
Are you wondering why you should take the time to make a chart? Well, here’s why it’s helpful. Charts serve as visual representations of how your ideas relate to one another. Ideas are pretty intangible things. You can’t see them or touch them, which makes it difficult to get them organized. Imagine trying to organize your sock drawer without being able to see your socks. Organizing is much easier when you can see everything laid out in front of you. That’s what charts do. They allow you to see your ideas and to see how they will support one another in your essay.
Okay, so now you’ve brainstormed ideas and organized all the jumbled mess that came out of your brain into some sort of flow chart. Here is where the editing comes in. While there’s no doubt you’ve come up with some fabulous ideas for your essay, you’ve probably also thought of some clunkers. We need to weed out the clunkers. The easiest way to do this is to go back over your flow chart with a highlighter and highlight all the best ideas, best support, and best examples. Don’t have a highlighter? Just circle them. Now you may be asking, “How do I know which ideas are fabulous and which are clunkers?” Here are some questions to ask yourself when you’re doing your weeding, to help you separate the two.
o Does the idea have enough examples to fill at least a paragraph of writing?
o Does the idea truly support the essay’s central idea?
o Will I get off track when I start writing about this idea?
o Are my supporting ideas different enough from one another, while still all supporting my thesis?
o Do I have enough to say about this idea?
Sometimes it may seem like a hassle to have to do all this work before you even start writing your custom essays. Just remember that this preparation will make the essay easier for you to write, and you’ll end up with a clearer, more organized final product. It may even save you time in the long run. Starting can be the hardest part, so just dive right in by doing some free-writing, without stopping to edit yourself. Then, once the juices are flowing, begin organizing your thoughts into a chart.
Writing can definitely be overwhelming sometimes, but by breaking it down into smaller pieces, it’s easier to tackle the task. So just think of these little tasks as building blocks. Complete one at a time, and before you know it, you’ll have a clear, strong, well-written, interesting essay. Just remember the basic rule of organizing your thoughts, which is to start generally and get more specific.
