Planning your Essay Structure
Monday, November 30th, 2009A document or an essay needs a good structure so that the ideas get communicated effectively. A schematic arrangement of views makes a piece of writing organized and clear, leaving a desirable impact on the reader. To be able to use your research effectively, you must first prepare an essay outline.When writing large assignments like dissertations or coursework, having an outline is a necessity. The more randomly your thoughts are scattered in the essay, the more confusing and dull you essay will be. You must know how to plan an essay structure effectively to begin with the task of essay writing.
An essay outline may take several drafts to evolve into a final essay outline, which goes on to guide you through essay writing.
1. The first step is to have all your thoughts into writing. The burden of having to retain a plethora of ideas can take away a lot of time and energy. It is thus essential to first have all of them in writing, to begin with. If your points are too lengthy, write only the keywords.
2. Organize the randomly written ideas and points into a systematic whole. A person can write a number of essays from the available collection of ideas written randomly. You must organize the points in accordance to your title, categorizing the ideas into categories and sub categories.
3. You may refer books while preferring an outline. Discussion, re-reading and brainstorming can help you generate further ideas. Make sure you refer your research notes and personal observations while preparing an essay outline.
4. Now it is time to edit your first essay outline draft. Read the outline and mark the points in accordance to their importance and relevance to your essay topic and thesis statement. Underline the important ones, put a question mark against the incomplete and doubtful ones, and cross out the ones that are trivial or impertinent.
5. If you think you need more information on a particular idea, or that you must read more about another aspect of a similar topic, give another round of reading and research. This process may make your essay or dissertation writing a lengthier and cumbersome process, but will sure help you produce an A level coursework.
6. Once you have all the required material at hand, give it a uniform structure. You may opt for a tree diagram or a flow chart, where all the important and relevant points are connected in an organized whole. This step will reveal the final structure of your essay where you can see the relation each view point shares with another.
7. Finally, test the structure for clarity, integration and coherence. Find out if your essay structure corresponds to your essay type and helps you bring important points into greater relevance.
If you have a proper essay structure to begin with, your writing process becomes much more easy. The way you structure your essay also helps you make your essay unique and creative. The skill of wriitng a good essay lies not in providing new information to the reader but to present a given information in a fresh and unique perspective.
