Regardless of which strategy you use to plan your essay, it's important that you have one. Stream-of-consciousness writing might work for writing entries in your journal (or as one of your essay-planning exercises), but that practice seldom produces a polished final draft.

Without an organized set of notes from which you can outline the salient points you plan to make, your writing will be a disorganized chore. A contractor doesn't begin building a house before he gets the plans for doing so from the architect. Likewise, you need to be the architect drawing up the plans for your essay before you become the contractor doing the actual writing itself.

Work in the way that's most comfortable for you. Some people like to do their planning on scraps of paper or note cards that can be physically rearranged. Others prefer to do all work directly on the computer, figuring that copying and pasting the points in order is more efficient for their work habits.

How you plan your essay will depend in part on the type you need to write.

If it's for a How I Spent My Summer Vacation — type assignment, your job is easier. You already have your topic. You analyze the question, and determine what will be your central issue and other key points.

If you need to come up with your own idea, you need to determine your subject area and isolate the topic or subtopic about which you want to write. A subject is an overall category; topics and subtopics then fall within each subject. Think of them in the following way:

Subject

Brainstorming Potential Topics

Write down anything that comes to mind, without being judgmental about anything at this point. Don't worry about how much research a topic will require, whether or not you'll need to talk with experts, or even putting your topic ideas into “fancy” phrases. The purpose of this exercise is to see what you can come up with; from there, you can choose the subject about which you'd prefer to write.

The time I broke my leg

The importance of rhyming poetry (and why it doesn't deserve the scorn it gets)

Developing Pro-Con Issues

Should Internet Sales Be Subject to Sales Taxes?

Pro:

Equalize competition between online stores and storefronts.

Con:

Logistics nightmare: Would sales taxes be charged for the location where the sale originates, for the buyer's location, or for where the purchase is to be shipped?

Pro:

Raises money for states.

Con:

Adversely affects an already troubled dot-com economy.

Topic Focus

Choose a keyword for a broad topic that interests you, then brainstorm related terms from which you can choose the focus for your essay.

Topic Keyword:

Herb

Related Topics:

Culinary Herbs

Medicinal Herbs

Herb Gardens

Organically Grown Herbs

Preserving Herbs

Once you've settled on a topic idea, write down any related ideas or observations that come to mind. From this brainstorming will emerge what will become the central issue or theme on which you'll concentrate your essay — or, in other words, your focus. You'll discard some of the things you write down. Keep those that seem like logical extensions of that central theme; arrange them in what now seems like their logical order. (That may change once you get into your research, but this will give you the beginnings on which to base your outline.)

All this work will lead you to the point where you'll have the three main things you need for a well-written essay:

• Your introduction. The essay beginning, in which you essentially give the “mission statement” for your essay, or explain what it will be about.

• Your arguments. This is where you'll transition into the major supporting points directly related to the focus of your essay, usually devoting a paragraph to each.

• Your conclusion. This is just what it sounds like: At this point, you'll be ready to summarize your suppositions and wrap things up, ending your essay.

Set Realistic Expectations

As you choose the topic for your essay, it's important to take into consideration how much time you have to complete the project. Most writing projects can end up taking longer than you expect, so it's better to err on the side of caution when you make your calculations. You'll need to budget your time for the following:

• Initial brainstorming: The process during which you choose your topic, determine the focus of your essay, and write your thesis statement.

• Research: The time you allot for this should include both the amount of time you anticipate it will take you to track down the research (online searches, trips to the library, etc.) and the time you'll need to fully read that research and compile your notes.

• Writing the first draft: As a rule of thumb, figure at least two hours to write each 250-word page. Therefore, if your essay assignment is for ten double-spaced pages, you'll need twenty hours to do the writing.

• Follow-up research: Budget a few hours for additional trips to the library or for other research needs that surface while you write your first draft, such as the need to make another phone call to one of your experts to verify some information.

• Editing and rewriting: Again erring on the side of caution, it's a good idea to allow half the time it took to write your first draft for editing (which includes inserting earlier missing information) and rewriting your essay. In other words, plan on budgeting an hour per page.

Choosing Your Focus

It's in your best interest to establish the focus of your essay as early as possible. This will prevent you from spending unnecessary hours tracking down and reading research that isn't on-topic for what you need to write.

One way to do this is to track down a recent general audience periodical or newspaper article about the topic. From that article, you should be able to ascertain whether or not the topic is one that excites you: After reading the article, do you find you want to know more? The questions you write down (about those things you want to know more about) will help shape the direction of your research.

Keep your focus in mind while you read. Is that focus broad enough to support the entire essay, while being direct enough to fit the size and scope of your assignment or project?

It's okay to remain somewhat flexible at this point. You still have time to adjust the scope of your research once you've honed your focus.