Whether it be an informative, entertaining, or persuasive topic, essays are hard to write. They can be a pain in the butt, and when it is two in the morning the day that the essay is due and you are staring at a blank white word document, stress takes hold. ‘How am I going to get this done?!’ ‘My grade will plummet, and I will never get to college!’ ‘The teacher is going to be so mad! I know, I will just skip today and work on it later!’

Hold on, while it may be too late to get that current essay in on time, there are some strategies to getting an essay in on time and feeling great the second you hit submit, or turn it into the teacher. These strategies will help you and following them, there will be a list of warnings to go along with each one, giving you heads up to not take advantage of these handy tips.

Avoidances

Before I let you in on these secret shortcuts, there need to be some changes. Obviously, you aren’t going to NEVER go on social media again, but Snapchat and Instagram might be something you want to avoid when working on an important assignment.  Also, biting off more than you can chew can be a major blow. While turning in a well thought out assignment is a good thing, trying to type a 5000-word essay with terms you scarcely know the elucidation of(see what I mean?), may not be the best choice and can quickly earn you a low grade that you don’t deserve. Procrastination is the biggest reason that many fail to turn in quality essay or an essay at all. Yes, seeing that blank document can be intimidating, but the following tricks can help you pass the writer’s block and pass the class.

Plan Ahead

Planning ahead is an easier said than done tip, but it is said often for important reasons. Being aware of how much time you have to work on your essay will assure that you at least know a time to work on your document. Maybe you have soccer until 5:30 and dinner until 6:00, but once that is done, you know to get online and work on your essay.

Warnings: Knowing that you have free time is only half of the solution. Make sure that once you have extra time to work on your page that you ACTUALLY work, because that YouTube video can wait, but your grade cannot. Maybe power off on your phone, or rely on a friend or family member to take it away for the time being. You can thank them later.

Make It Fun

Writing an essay that is boring can be the worst and the work you produce will only reflect your feelings toward the prompt. You can solve this problem by making parentheses, and adding some sarcastic notes or maybe you can stretch your brain and instead of typing “the dog likes food,” you type “the majestic dog pounces on the food bowl, its silver shining in the sun outside.”

Warnings: If you are going for the first option and make sarcastic and funny comments, I would recommend deleting them once you are finished, your teacher may not appreciate the sarcasm as much as you do.

Write What Comes To Mind

Let’s say you have a five paragraph essay…and you get writer’s block. How can you get passed this? Write five random sentences that have something to do with your topic, and tweak your statements later. Sometimes just writing some ideas that come to mind can help you get the momentum to start some amazing work. Then you can add some supportive sentences, evidence, and an introduction and conclusion.

Warnings: Make sure that your sentences actually have to do with the topic and not just some random sentence about what you had for dinner. You won’t get anywhere with that, as fun as it would be to write about mac n’ cheese.

Write Your Body First, and Introduction Later

If you know what to write about, but are having trouble with introducing your topic,(hence the name “introduction”) try writing the body paragraph first. You can get your main points across, which may spark a great idea for a lead later, not to mention that the introduction also has your supportive points and if you already have those down, it will be a whole lot easier to type.

Warnings: Honestly I don’t see where you could go wrong with this as long as you remember to write your introduction, and if you forget, well…there isn’t a lot of tips to help you with that problem.

Do Your Research

Especially for an informative essay, I cannot stress how important sources are. Usually doing the research before you start typing up your draft is a good idea, because you never know what recent studies have come up with today, and they could completely contradict your perspective on a topic. You also sound as though you know the topic, I know shocker, you should probably know something in regards to what you are writing about.

Warnings: Try not to get too caught up in knowing things that don’t have significance to your essay. Writing about the scientist’s assistant’s brother may not be the best choice of time management when learning about your topic.

Be organized

Having a plan as to what you are doing, whether it be a formal or informal essay is very important, and writing a rough draft is crucial to know what you are going to write. Burke Allen, my history teacher says when you don’t write a guideline or rough draft, then you start writing like “quicksand”. This is when you write a topic, and then write about that topic, and then so on until you are far away from the big idea, and you get stuck writing about something that doesn’t really matter!

Warnings: Again, I don’t know where you could go wrong with this, except maybe you don’t want to write a rough draft five times and try to make it perfect and miss the point on why you are writing the essay in the first place: to tell a story!

Include Good Transitions

Transitions can ruin your essay if not done the right way, and linking ideas are the backbone to a great document. Including these important pieces makes it fun to read as your ideas flow nicely from point to point; paragraph to paragraph. Keeping this in mind will be a sure way to get a better grade on your essay.

Warnings: Can you go wrong with this? Make sure you prioritize your parts of the essay clearly, and simply flowing ideas will mean nothing if your ideas are not making sense!

Don’t Worry Too much About Word Count

I am the worst at this and caught myself pressing Ctrl+Shift+C way too many times before realizing I have an issue. When you are constantly checking word count, you aren’t focusing on what you are writing, and end up having a really long document with nothing of value. Sure, realizing that you have 1,210 words may seem like an accomplishment, making it your number one goal to reach 3000 isn’t smart unless you are writing about something you are really passionate about!

Warnings: If the assignment has a word count, follow it! I am not trying to start a rebellion against all educators…although that would be really cool.

Hopefully these points will help you write a good essay, while making it fun! If you hate writing essay, I can relate, but when I try to sound really interested it what I am writing about, the essay becomes all the more interesting as a reflection of how I am acting when writing. This will also make you want to write and, ultimately, turn in your infamous essay on time!