Essay secrets from a Cambridge graduate: why planning beats panic

In this article I’ll take you through my top three tips for essay planning as an English graduate from the University of Cambridge. A plan is the key to writing a compelling, sustained and well-argued essay, but too often it’s overlooked.

Before I take you through my three main tips, it’s worth asking the question, why plan an essay at all? It’s something students tend to skip over because A) you’re not explicitly marked on it, and B) faced with a difficult question your impulse might be to just get it over with. Skipping the planning stage might feel like a shortcut, but it often leads to the opposite! Get your thoughts together beforehand, and when you get to the writing stage things will flow much easier. Not only will this improve your essay, but it’ll make the process less laborious, without all the frustrations of having to stop and start to gather your thoughts.

So, the first tip: always start with the question at hand. So let’s say you’re asked:

"At crucial moments, Prospero misuses his power."

How far and in what ways do you agree with this view of The Tempest?

Read the question a few times, then pick out the keywords. It’s easy to look at a question and start making connections in your head whilst losing sight of the task in front of you. Write the keywords out, or highlight them, then you’ll always keep the actual question front of mind.

Tip two: work out the bigger picture before the details

It can be tempting to test your knowledge and start scouring texts for evidence. But no matter how extensive or detailed your analysis is, without a strong core argument it all falls apart. Think of it like this: you can write a perfect summary of what goes on in The Tempest and prove you understand it all perfectly, but if you’re not expressing some kind of new position on the play then your reader might as well put down your essay and just read The Tempest itself! Come up with a core argument first, and then you’ll be able to select the strongest evidence to back it up. 

Tip three: give yourself options

What’s so great about a plan is that you can try different things out and make mistakes – it’s for your eyes only. Let’s say you need three pieces of evidence to back up your main argument – think of more! Working visually can help here: draw out a mind map with as many points in the text that are relevant to your argument as you can think of. Then, look at them, and start crossing out the weakest examples until you have three left. Now you have your three strongest pieces of evidence, and can feel more confident that you won’t run out of things to say about them when it comes to writing.

This last tip works for all aspects of the planning process, not just evidence finding. Think up a few potential core arguments and see which one sticks. Given a choice of essay questions, try a few out to see which one you have the most to talk about. That’s what writing is all about, pulling together a few good ideas out of a lot of not-very-good ones! An essay is proof you can bring your thoughts together, a plan is how you bring your thoughts together.

So how can private tuition help? A one on one discussion with a tutor helps you learn to pick apart your own thought processes, a skill difficult to pick up in a class or large group environment. It’s a lesson for life and not just essay writing, nothing gets done except bit by bit.