Planning Your Essay

Planning takes about five minutes. In that time, you need to accomplish three things. It may sound like a lot, but don t panic With practice, you ll be able to complete this task easily and on time. Begin with an initial interpretation of the prompt (putting it in your own words), and choosing of a point of view or side to argue. Once you ve made a choice, stick to it. There s no time to scrap your plans and start again. Here s an example  

Better a lie that soothes than a truth that hurts. 

Assignment Consider the two contrasting statements above. Choose the quotation that most closely reflects your viewpoint. Write an essay explaining your choice. To support your view, use an example or examples from history, politics, science and technology, literature, the arts, current events, or your own personal experience and observation. 

Telling the truth can sometimes be painful, not so much for the teller, but for the listener. 

This student has taken a side by choosing the Czechoslovakian proverb, paraphrased the quote, and begun to think her idea through ( truth can be more painful for listener than teller ). 

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Spend the first j of your time planning your essay. 

Gather a couple of sample prompts online or from other books about your exam (see the Additional Resources section for a list of books and online resources). Set the timer for five minutes and practice writing thesis statements and outlines. The more you practice, the easier it will be to plan your essay on exam day. 

If you have carefully thought about and answered the questions provided to you in the Choosing the Claim and Deciding Your Position sections, you are really ready to get down to business. Planning your essay should be a snap now. You probably already know the following basic formula for a good essay ... 

When you are planning your essay, don t forget the outline, and be sure to include the following pieces ... 

Plan your essay s strategy through visual writing then, please play your plan. Now that you ve familiarized yourself with the rubric for organization, you are ready to continue. 

When attempting to answer questions that require long answers, remember what they told you in other subjects. Plan your essay answers to contain ... 

How can you improve your essay-writing skills, not only to get better grades, but also to score higher on tests and boost your chance for admission to the college you d like to attend This book offers a step-by-step plan that can be completed in just a few weeks. 

When you begin your essay with planning, you will have guidance and direction through the writing process, especially if you are in a timed situation. Planning lets you see how your many developing ideas fit within a framework, and clearly maps out any type of essay you are required to write. 

In an essay or similar exam, work for partial credit plan your answers. 

Start thinking about your responses. You might jot down your ideas about each question or sketch a quick outline on scratch paper. Plan your answers wisely because you will probably have little or even no time to revise your essays. Make sure you address each part of each question. 

W hen you are finished, compare your essays to the scoring guide on pages 55-56 and the following sample top-score essays. The results of this pretest should help you plan your study time effectively and determine the areas in which you need the most careful review and practice. Now, you can get started ... 

Because you have a limited amount of time to complete each task, it is important to plan your time carefully. Be sure to leave enough time to plan, write, and revise your essay. For the 45-minute Issue task, you will need to parcel your time carefully to include these steps ... 

The Issue task directions tell you to present your perspective on the issue below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views. The purpose of this task, then, is to see how well you can create and support a compelling argument on a given topic. So, first you need to choose between the two topics. The more quickly you can choose which claim to address, the more time you will have to focus on planning, writing, and revising your essay. 

Even if you are not planning to write your essay in a traditional five-paragraph format, it is best to create your outline according to the basic structure of a traditional essay ... 

Use this book in stages as you study. There are four types of questions, including the essay. Plan on essay study and practice to take at least twice as long as one of the multiple-choice-question sections. Schedule the four stages into the time you have remaining, planning to complete study one week before your test date. 

Assignment What do you think is more important to success—talent or drive Plan your response and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experiences, or observations. 

Remember an essay is not a detective story, so don t keep your readers in suspense until the last minute. Until you feel comfortable with more sophisticated patterns of organization, plan to put your clearly worded thesis statement near the beginning of your essay. 

If you currently have a working thesis statement you have written in response to an assignment in your composition class, try sketching out an outline or a plan for the major ideas you wish to include. After you write a draft, underline the topic sentences in your body paragraphs. Do your topic sentences directly support your thesis If you find that they do not clearly support your thesis, you must decide if you need to revise your draft s organization or whether you have, in fact, discovered a new, and possibly better, subject to write about. If the latter is true, you ll need to redraft your essay so that your readers will not be confused by a paper that announces one subject but discusses another. (See Chapter 5 for more information on revising your drafts.)... 

Once you have a general notion of where your essay is going, plan to spend some more time thinking about ways to make each of your points clear, logical, and persuasive to your particular audience. (If you wish to see how one student actually developed an essay based on the preceding outline, turn to the sample student paper on pages 305-308.)... 

Some students prefer to make their notes on index cards rather than on notebook paper because a stack of cards may be added to, subtracted from, or shuffled around more easily when it s time to plan the essay. (Hint 1 If you have used bibliography cards, take your notes on cards of different sizes or colors to avoid any confusion write on only one side of each card so that all your information will be in sight when you draft your essay.)... 

After deciding on your thesis, jot down on scratch paper a brief plan or outline that sketches out the main points that will appear in the body of your essay. You might scribble a few key words to remind yourself of the supporting evidence or important details you will use. Don t get too bogged down in detailed outlining—just use enough words to help you stay on track. 

Practice planning an in-class essay by selecting one of the quotations on pages 44-45 in Chapter 2 as a brief prompt for a personal opinion essay developed by any method(s) you find appropriate. Allow yourself only ten minutes to write a working thesis and a sketch outline for your essay. Would you then be ready to turn your plan into a clearly organized and well-developed in-class essay Continue to practice responding to the prompts in Chapter 2 until you gain confidence in your ability to think, plan, and write under time pressure. 

Once you have a working thesis in mind, plan the rest of your essay. For example, if you disagree with the article, you might want to note two or three reasons you reject the author s opinion these reasons may become the basis for your own body paragraphs. Important Be sure you have evidence of your own to support your positions. Responding with personal examples is perhaps the most common kind of support for essays written in class, but if you know facts, statistics, testimony, or other information that would support your position, you may certainly include them. 

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