Essay Planning

How to plan an essay.

You need some kind of a plan, especially if you are an inexperienced writer or if you are writing anything longer than a few hundred words. The type of plan you write will depend on the type of text you are going to write and its length. So a plan could be anything from a few ideas in your head for a brief note to a detailed written outline for a long essay or report. If you are writing anything longer than two thousand words, it would be difficult to write a well organised coherent text without a detailed plan or . Essay planning saves time. By having a good, logical plan you'll be able to complete your task much faster.
The animation below shows what a basic plan should contain and how it can help you to organise your writing.

This is the main part of the essay and needs to be well organised into paragraphs, each of which has a topic sentence and supporting sentences. The paragraphs should follow the outline in your introduction and should be logically connected to give a sense of flow and direction.

A title should normally be short, closely related to the topic of your essay, and should attract the interest of the reader.

The conclusion should be short and should very briefly summarise the main points in the body. The conclusion should mirror the outline or thesis statement in your introduction. You may close with a brief comment, suggestion, opinion, or piece of advice.

An introduction needs to capture the interest of the reader, give a little background information about the topic, and provide a brief outline of what will be discussed in the essay (usually in the form of a thesis statement).

ThesisA thesis statement needs to provide the reader with two pieces of information: the topic of your report (if you have not already clearly stated this in the introduction) and your stance. Stance means your opinion, your approach, your position on the topic. This is especially important if you are writing any type of persuasive (argumentative) essay. The thesis statement should contain the main points of your argument.The thesis statement is the most important sentence in your essay. Everything you write in the rest of your essay derives from the thesis statement, so it pays to spend some time thinking about this carefully. For more information about how a good thesis statement can help you plan your essay, see the How a Thesis Statement can Help you Plan your Essay page.

Topic The topic is the subject; what you are writing about. You may have chosen this yourself or you may have been given this as an assignment or in an examination.If you have chosen it yourself, make sure that you are vey clear in your mind exactly what your topic is, what aspects of the topic you are going to address and what your position (opinion, stance) is. You need to be able to state these in your thesis statement so that the reader knows what to expect. If you have been given the topic as an assignment or in an examination make sure that you understand what the topic is and what the task requirements are. For more on understanding task instructions see the task analysis page.

A Simple Essay Plan

Introduction

Body

Conclusion

Title

Start

Background Background information provides the reader with some context for your topic and your main argument. It helps the reader focus in on the the particular aspects of the topic you want to address. It can also provide some points of interest to encourage the reader to continue reading.Background information may also state:why the topic is important;what other writers have said about the topic;what this essay or report covers which other writers or researchers have not covered;why there is disagreement about the issue you will discuss;scope: what you will cover and what you will not cover.

Planning your Essay/Report Good planning will make your writing task much easier. So take some time to do this rather than starting to write without any clear ideas about the structure of your essay or report. Even if you are writing under exam conditions and time is limited a few minutes planning is time well spent. The suggestions made here apply to most types of academic writing. However, if you are writing a specialist report, dissertation, or journal article, you should abide by the conventions required for these formats and any requirements stipulated by content teachers. Mouse over and click on each heading for more information about each component.

Generating Interest If you want people to read your essay you need to generate some interest right from the start. There are two places you can do this: with an eye catching title, and with an interesting opening sentence.A good opening sentence which catches the reader’s attention is called a hook.There are a number of ways you can write a good hook.You could:pose an interesting question;start with a short quotation;state a shocking or surprising fact or statistic;write a general statement which leads into your thesis statement.You need to get the tone right. A serious paper requires a serious hook, so a general statement or a comment about a statistic is more appropriate. A general essay containing your opinions about a particular issue might use a question or a quotation. When writing your hook think about your audience (those who you hope will read your work) and make sure that your hook is appropriate for these types of readers.

The Introduction In general, an introduction should:1. Generate interest in your topic;2. State the topic clearly;3. Give some background information about the topic;4. State precisely what aspects of the topic you will address;5. State your position in regard to the aspects you have mentioned. This does not mean you have to write 5 separate sentences, although you could.The introduction starts with general information (the topic) and moves to more specific information (particular aspects of the topic and your position with regard to these aspects).Different types of essays require different types of introduction: if you are writing a report you will need very specific information in the introduction. You don’t have to write your introduction first. Sometimes it helps to write this later or when you have completed the body. Often, as you write, your ideas become clearer and you may want to change a few or your original ideas. If you do, you may have to rewrite your introduction. However, it helps to have a clear thesis statement before you start writing. Click on each of the 5 requirements above for more information about each.

Back

The Title A title for a simple essay should be short and strictly related to the content of your essay. Don’t write newspaper style titles, which are designed to be eye-catching and may be misleading about the real content or meaning of the article.Take some keywords from your introduction (particularly your thesis statement if you have one) or conclusion.Other types of writing, such as reports and journal articles, have different rules and may require long and explicit titles. You may have no choice about the title if you have been given an assignment or are sitting an examination. In this case you need to read the title and the task assignment very carefully because they give you clear instructions about what you need to write. For more on understanding task instructions see the task analysis page.

Aspects of the Topic A topic may be quite broad or general but you need to be very specific about what aspects of your topic you will address in your essay. Doing this will help you to be very clear in your own mind exactly what you are going to write about. It will help you to organise your paragraphs into a logical order.It will help the reader to understand what to expect. It will help you to be precise about your stance on each aspect of the topic you have chosen.

The conclusion The conclusion should be a reflection of what you wrote in the introduction, especially of any outline or thesis statement. As a reflection it should present information in reverse order. That is, in your introduction you went from the general to the specific: your conclusion should reverse this and go from the specificities of your main points back to the general. It should summarise the main points of your argument contained in the body, though not necessarily any minor ones. It should not include anything new except for any concluding recommendations, advice, suggestions. So, normally, you would not include any quotations or citations in the the conclusion. If your essay is a response to an assignment or an exam question, make sure that you summarise your answer to any specific questions contained in the task assignment.

The Body This is where you develop the argument you outlined in your introduction. It should be divided into paragraphs, each of which has a topic sentence and supporting sentences. Each paragraph should not be too long; four or five sentences is enough, although occasionally you may need more to develop a logical argument. You should follow the same order of the key points in your introduction. If you have a clear thesis statement it should not be difficult to do this. Your arguments should follow a logical pattern. (see the page on essay organisation) such as chronological, compare and contrast, problem solution, and so on. A longer essay will typically have a mixture of these forms. Your writing should have a sense of coherence, carrying the reader along to a logical conclusion. If you are writing a researched essay or report, many of your reporting sentences should support the topic sentence with evidence from your research in the form of quotations or paraphrases, properly cited. If you are writing a simple opinion essay or under exam condition where you do not have access to research materials, your supporting sentences will take the form of logical argument and your own experiences. You should use logical connectors to show the flow of your argument, where necessary. If the flow is obvious you do not need to include a series of these devices in your paragraphs.

The Introduction In general, an introduction should:1. Generate interest in your topic;2. State the topic clearly;3. Give some background information about the topic;4. State precisely what aspects of the topic you will address;5. State your position in regard to the aspects you have mentioned. This does not mean you have to write 5 separate sentences, although you could.The introduction starts with general information (the topic) and moves to more specific information (particular aspects of the topic and your position with regard to these aspects).Different types of essays require different types of introduction: if you are writing a report you will need very specific information in the introduction. You don’t have to write your introduction first. Sometimes it helps to write this later or when you have completed the body. Often, as you write your ideas become clearer and you may want to change a few or your original ideas. If you do, you may have to rewrite your introduction. However, it helps to have a clear thesis statement before you start writing. Click on each of the 5 requirements above for more information about each.

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