This is the final post relating to Essay Writing. For more in depth help on writing successful essays, enrol in our essay writing classes in our holiday programs.
Tip # 5 – Plan your response
Students are often tempted to launch straight into a response to get as much information on the page as possible in an exam, or to complete assignments as soon as possible. However, taking a few minutes to think about your thesis statement and plan your essay will help you produce a better answer.
This can be simply by stating the thesis, then having a dot point for each paragraph that identifies what evidence will be used to support/prove the thesis. You may want to scribble down a couple of key ideas, particularly if the evidence is complex or has multiple aspects.
Remember the question we have been answering in these tips:
Discuss how text 1 [Jasper Jones] positions readers to respond to ideas.
Each paragraph could be described in the plan as simply as the following (you would just write the bolded content, the content in brackets is to explain where these ideas have come from):
“Cricket training scene [talking about an incident in the novel Jasper Jones] provides evidence of positioning of outrage such as [to show reader is being positioned to be outraged at mid 1900s racism in WA]: violent treatment of Jeffrey including being sworn at; pushed like a pinball etc”.
Taking a couple of minutes to plan your response will allow you to:
- Prioritise your evidence;
- move more quickly and make-up the time used in planning, as you know where you are heading in your response;
- result in a more coherent essay;
- check that your body paragraphs relate to and support your thesis.
A bit of time invested in planning can produce substantial benefits that improve the quality of the essay.