Writing essays is an essential part of education on every level and one that’s always challenging even to the most organized of students. Writing the essay itself isn’t always the most difficult part of the process. It’s the time management that most students are struggling with.
There are ways to deal with this problem by being strict with yourself and the obligations you’ve taken on. Doing so will also make the writing process easier and the end product better both in terms of grading and the writing itself.
Start Right Away
If you’ve given a certain amount of time to finish an essay, you should use the whole time that you have available. It’s perfectly natural to try to put off the task as much as you can and start when it’s necessary to do so while working at a quick pace. It’s, however, a mistake to do so.
The best way to go is to divide the tasks based on the full amount of time you have and to fill out the whole time with work. This means you’ll work less and at a slower pace, which is better in the long run.
Do the Research First
Writing isn’t where the bulk of your time should be spent. In fact, at least 70 percent of your time needs to be spent on doing research and preparing your references. If you’ve done the research, the writing itself will be much easier and wouldn’t take as long.
The best way to go is to separate the work into themes rather than to count the pages and the words you need to write. Research, writing, and proofreading, should be the main themes that you need to focus on.
Create a Structure
After the research is complete, you should create a structure that your essay will be based on. Sometimes this is determined by the form that’s perspired by the academic institution itself. Within that, you still have a chance to structure the essay as you please, and to organize the writing based on the thesis you’re trying to prove.
The structure will also help you write because it will give you a bunch of small tasks that you can focus on and write one at a time. By being able to complete small tasks one at a time, you can stay motivated to keep writing.
Plan for Revisions
Chances are that you wouldn’t be able to write the essay as it is and to submit it or publish it right away. The essay will have to go through reviews before it reaches the form it needs to have in order to be publishable. This is something to plan for.
You’ll need to leave time in your schedule for review as well as places in the structure of the essay that will allow you to replace the parts of the essay that need to be improved on.
Proofreading and Style
An essay needs to be edited and you’ll need to make a change in terms of style once the first draft is completed. That way the style can be uniform since it probably won’t be if you’re writing the essay piece by piece based on your structure. This is an important step to undertake because an essay isn’t only about substance but about style as well.
Having a personal style to maintain throughout the essay may be more difficult than you might think because it takes effort and practice. Those who are new to writing essays may take a while until they get there.
Buddy System
It’s often useful to have a buddy system put in place. That means that someone should read what you’ve written before you’re ready to publish it. If the essays are written for a school project, you can set up a system with a group of friends where everyone reads each other’s works and provides feedback.
This will help you spot the mistakes and stylistic errors that you otherwise couldn’t since the person writing the essay spends too much time with it to notice them. Such a support group also presents a way to keep everyone accountable and stick to a schedule.
Have a Cut-off Point
An essay needs to have a cut-off point after which it will be good enough to be submitted even though it’s not perfect. Once the essay reaches that point in terms of quality, you don’t need to stop working on it – it’s still possible to make it better.
However, that’s the version you can fall back on if you don’t have enough time to finish the essay as you would have wanted to. This plan B version can save you a lot of trouble if you have too many deadlines to worry about at the same time.
Recognize That You’re Struggling
There are no rules as to how long it takes or how difficult it is to write a student paper. Sometimes you may end up doing everything right and still missing deadlines or struggling with the process. It’s important to recognize this when it starts to happen.
This will allow you to reach out for help to your classmates or the university institutions themselves. It can result in you getting more time or in someone helping you restructure the project and change it so that it’s more manageable. There’s no shame in recognizing you’re in over your head. In the end, you’ll probably learn from the experience.