Whether it be for English, history, or any other course, essay writing is a common academic task. One of the most important parts of the process occurs before the writing even begins—planning. Outlining your arguments beforehand allows you to have stronger writing and stronger arguments within the essay because you will have a clearer understanding of your ideas.
The most important aspect of an essay is the thesis, because the body of the essay must support and build upon this idea. Thus, it is necessary to start by devising your thesis statement and ensuring that you use it as a guide for the rest of your essay. The thesis statement is a single sentence that introduces the point you are trying to prove. It should be as specific as possible to ensure that the essay has a clear focus. When creating a thesis, a common practice is using the “So What?” test. After writing or rewriting a thesis, ask yourself: “So What?” This will help you improve and refine your statement. For example, here is a thesis for a literary essay: blood is a symbol used in Macbeth. So what? Many readers would have noticed this instance of symbolism, so why should they care about your essay? To improve this thesis statement, it must be narrowed down. “Blood is a symbol used in Macbeth to represent the guilt of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.” This is better because it provides a focus for the essay—the reader now knows that you will be discussing the importance of the symbolism as opposed to simply summarizing its usage. The more focused your thesis is, the better your arguments can be.
The next step is to create your supporting arguments. You have a thesis, but how can you prove it? At this stage of planning, you should brainstorm points that you think will support your thesis well. If you find yourself struggling with this, it might be a good indication that you should change or edit your thesis. Pick arguments that strongly relate to your thesis, as all aspects of your essay must tie back to it.
Within each argument, you need to include evidence to support your ideas. Without proper evidence, your essay will not be very strong. In a literary essay, this evidence will be in the form of quotations from the text. Revisit key aspects of the text that can be associated with each argument. Then, record specific quotations you can incorporate and explain or elaborate on within your body paragraphs. For factual essays, facts and research are used. It is important to acquire your information from credible sources lest your arguments will be deemed inadequate upon scrutiny. In both types of essays, citations are crucial because they give credit where it is due. Excluding citations for quotations, facts, or ideas will be considered plagiarism, which is a serious matter. Additionally, citations will make your essay more credible because they will indicate that you are using real evidence to support your claims. Be sure to record the information needed to form proper citations when acquiring pieces of evidence.
For certain courses, you may be expected to write in-class essay tests. In such cases, it is useful to study by memorizing general pieces of information related to the topic of the test, so that you will be prepared with evidence to use in your arguments. When faced with the added pressure of time, spending precious minutes outlining your ideas may seem like a waste. However, organizing your thoughts can be quite beneficial towards your overall writing process, as the last thing you would want is to be halfway through your essay only to realize that you cannot think of a third argument. By planning ahead, you will be able to write with more ease since you will already have your ideas sorted out.
Speaking from experience, planning an essay before writing greatly improves the writing process, as well as the essay itself. Having an outline—even a very simple one—gives you a guide to follow and allows you to focus more on the quality and the flow of your essay. The next time you have to write an essay, try creating a quick outline and see if it benefits you!
Edited by Jamie Zhang
Rida Zainab is a grade 11 student in the IB programme at Milliken Mills High School. Her favourite subject is English, and she likes to spend her free time reading and writing.
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