A Practical Guide to Productive Essay Writing

Do you ever feel like you are in an essay rut? For many students, the boring grind of cranking out essays can become an unwelcome burden. After all, essays become uncomfortably routine when we are stuck writing the same thing over and over again. The average student can expect to produce dozens of essays over the course of each semester, and that quickly adds up to almost daily work writing papers. With so many papers to write, it becomes imperative that students have strategies to make the writing process quicker and write more productively in order to focus on other things they need to do, such as studying, working, extracurricular activities, and more.

If only being productive in an essay was as easy as the actor Gary Oldman suggested when he said, “A lazy man works twice as hard. My mother told that to me, and now I say it to my kids. If you’re writing an essay, keep it in the lines and in the margins so you don’t have to do it over.” Sadly, there is more to a great essay than just formatting, so let’s take a look at some of the ways you can write more productively.

Read the Question and the Rubric Before You Begin

It might seem like an obvious step, but you should begin the writing process by thoroughly reading the essay assignment and any rubric that is associated with it. The essay question sets the parameters for your paper, and it’s important to be sure that you fully understand what is required in the essay and what is expected. When you read the question, ask yourself if the assignment is clear or if there is any aspect where you need clarification and assistance.

Make sure you can articulate each of the requirements, since a single missed requirement can cost you points. Be sure that your topic will be appropriate for the assignment. Similarly, you can and should read the rubric associated with the assignment if one is provided because it will give you a map to exactly how the instructor will grade your paper. By reviewing each of the elements of the rubric, you can be sure that your paper fully addresses each of the critical elements of the rubric so you don’t accidentally lose points by leaving out something essential.

Consider Help from Essay Writing Services

If you aren’t sure how to approach your essay, feel free to ask for assistance from smart and pro writers at an essay writing service online. Expert academic writers from SmartWritingService, for example, can produce top quality college papers fast, and these papers can serve as a good model for your own work. Each essay will show you the right way to approach your topic and give you insight into an expert’s strategy for researching and structuring your paper.

Do Your Research Before You Write

Your writing process will become more productive and more effective if you do your research before you start writing. Develop research questions and then use your school’s library to help research high-quality academic sources to support your topic. Using scholarly, peer-reviewed sources is one of the best ways to improve the quality of your paper and develop strong evidence to support your ideas.

As you gather your research sources, extract relevant quotations and pieces of information and then organize them in roughly the order you plan to use them in your paper. For each, write out your citation and reference list entry before you start writing your paper. That way, you will have all of the information you need and not need to stop during the writing process, saving you time and making your writing more efficient. 

Create an Outline Before You Write Your Paper

It may seem like it’s taking time away from writing, but when you spend time on outlining you are actually saving yourself time later on. Writing an outline can help you to work out the organization and structure of your essay and create a path for you to follow as you write. When you outline your essay, you will be able to discover ahead of time whether your intended structure will support your thesis statement, and you will be able to avoid the costly deviations and unproductive tangents that can necessitate a time-consuming rewrite. It’s generally a good idea to outline not just the topic sentences for each paragraph but also the evidence and examples you will use to support each paragraph. Even a basic outline can be helpful, but the longer and more developed your outline is, the more beneficial it will be during the writing process. 

Leave Time for Editing, Revising, and Proofreading

After you have written the paper, you should leave time to edit, revise, and proofread what you’ve written. For many students, this seems like a luxury since they are typically writing right up to the deadline. But it shouldn’t be. No paper is at its best after just the first draft. It’s a good idea to set aside a planned period of time to review the paper and make changes and improvements. It is generally a good idea to review your paper twice. The first time, you should read it through for clarity and flow, ensuring that every part makes sense and that it is organized logically. The second time, you should read it through for mechanical proofreading errors.

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