Writing Essays and Assignments

Why plan?

Remember when you used to get some pretty good grades for essays at school? Yet somehow, when you started at college, your feedback started including such unexpected comments as:

"You're not structuring right!"

"It doesn't make any sense!"

"You're waffling/not answering the question properly."

"Your points are all over the place!"

"You need to back up your points with more evidence."

"You're not including enough evaluation." Etc.

How did you go from being good at something to feeling rubbish about it in a matter of months?

Simple. GCSE essays were a lot easier, shorter, and didn't required much, if any, planning - A level essays do.

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Planning is generally avoided by students because:

• "it takes too long!" (No, it doesn't.)
• "I can do it just as easily in my head." (No, you can't.)
• "I prefer to just start writing and let it flow/see what happens..." (Not a great idea anymore...)
• "I don't usually use the plan." (Well, you probably should!)
• "It doesn't help." (Then you're doing it wrong.)

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Planning should be done because:

• it helps you to structure your argument.
• it helps you to correctly answer the question.
• it helps you to meet word limits.
• it helps to focus your points.
• it reminds you of exactly what you need to do to get the top grades.

How? Keep reading...