Essay writing

A lot of students make the mistake of jumping straight in to the essay writing process. Woahhh there! You're a little too enthusastic. What are you going to write about?

Planning and making sure you have loads of great ideas is crucial to a decent essay. It might sound boring but by spending a bit of time at the outset, you stand a much better chance of getting a good grade.

So how do you find all those ideas? Brainstorming is a really good technique to use.

Brainstorming is based on two main principles:

Deferred judgement: Creative thinking and judgmental thinking are both important, but must be kept separate. All judgement must be postponed. In other words, when you're generaing ideas, don't critisise them - critisising is a different process that comes later.

Quantity breeds quality: It's important to get a flow of ideas going, which stimulates more ideas. Don't stop the flow! Second, an idea must be communicated so that you and others can identify the good points about it and maybe change it, adapt it or discard it. The best ideas will be rare so you need to give loads to have any chance of finding those good ones.

These two principles led to four practical rules for a brainstorming session:

No criticism: Super, duper important. However silly the ideas are, just keep 'em coming. Be very aware of spoken or unspoken gestures or actions that suggest negativity or critisism towards an idea, either from yourself or your group if you're in one. Now's not the time, love.

Freewheel: This is an extension of the above but it's important to keep the flow going and, well, take it all over the place without inhibition. Allow and promote free associations, random thoughts, images that are funny, taboo, way-out, interesting, boring, apparently relevant, apparently irrelevant, etc., etc. Don't be judgemental, even if you're really against what's being said. You'll have time to look at the downside to your ideas later.

Go for quantity: As noted above, the more ideas recorded, the more chances there are of success. Amongst a hundred contributions there may be just one or two little gems so help the statistics by contributing a lot.

Hitch-hike: As well as contributing your own ideas, it is important to build on others ideas. This is really a lot easier than generating fresh ones! It also encourages idea improvement and elaboration and enhances group interaction. Don't forget to contribute positively - don't knock the weak points in the ideas you're building on.

Plan out what you are going to write before you start. Unless instructed otherwise, you'll normally be expected to produce an introduction (10% or less of the word count), main body (most of your word count) and conclusion (15% of your word count). If you're not sure whether this is an appropriate structure, ask your tutor/lecturer for guidance.

Read your essay question carefully and make sure you know exactly what you're being asked to do. Here's a useful guide: interpreting the essay question.

Start to make headings and subheadings (you don't have to keep these) - with points you want to include. Arrange them in an order that makes sense as you glance over the notes (like telling a story).

If you take a bit of time at this stage, you'll find writing your essay is a bit like filling in the gaps - it almost writes itself.