PRO Elit English | Plan Your Writing in 3 Easy Steps

Do you plan before you write your essays? If your answer is yes, then good for you! Unfortunately, many students skip doing this and dive straight into writing their essays. This often results in essays that are poorly organised, and worse, they don't accurately address the topic at hand. Having ideas strewn all over the paper like the aftermath of a category 5 hurricane is no way to present an essay.

Just like any reader, examiners do enjoy an engaging content but only when it is proficiently executed. This can only be done when your writing demonstrates coherence and cohesion.

Coherence basically refers to the connection of ideas at the idea level, where ideas flow logically from one to the next and is sufficiently supported by relevant arguments. Cohesion on the other hand, means the connection of ideas at the sentence level where the grammatical aspects of writing come into play.

Planning your writing helps you organise and see your ideas rolled out before it is being presented. It gives you a preview of your piece and this is really important as it enables you to assess your work before you dedicate a bigger chunk of your time - which is detrimental during exams - to writing it. In addition, contrary to what most students think, planning your writing does NOT take up more time if it is done correctly.

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PLAN BEFORE YOU WRITE IN 3 EASY STEPS!

Step 1: Preview

One of the first things effective writers do is to consider the PURPOSE, AUDIENCE and FORMAT (PAF) of the written document. This can be done by previewing the question or the writing task that has been given.

Purpose - What are you trying to achieve with your piece of writing? Are you trying to persuade your audience to do something? Are you trying to advise them on how to behave in a situation? It might be that you are just trying to entertain them.

Audience - Whom are you aiming your writing towards? You should change your style of writing to suit your audience. For example, if you are writing to the head teacher, you should write formally; if you're writing to your friends, you writing would be chatty and it might use some humour.

Format - This means what kind of style is your writing? For example, is it a letter, leaflet, speech, story or magazine article? You must make sure you think about the features of these formats before you start writing.

Step 2: Pre-Write

The pre-writing stage is where ideas are being generated and refined. There are many strategies that can be used for idea generation but these three are particularly useful.

i. Brainstorming - A process of generating a lot of information within a short time by building on the association of previous terms mentioned.

ii. Clustering - Clustering is also called mind mapping or idea mapping. It is a strategy that allows you to explore the relationships between ideas. You will be able to distinguish how the ideas fit together better understand the possible directions your paper may take.

iii. Journalist Questions - Journalists traditionally ask six questions when they are writing assignments, 5 W's and 1H: Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why? and How?. You can use these questions to explore the topic you are writing about.

Step 3: Outline

Outlining means bringing structure to your ideas - in other words, organising your ideas. Here, you decide which ideas you will include, and which you will leave out. This is also the time you define a logical flow of an introduction, main body and conclusion.

A well-developed outline will show:

• the thesis statement of the writing

• what the main idea of each body paragraph is (topic sentence)

• the evidence/support that will be offered in each paragraph to substantiate the main points

• conclusion

Once you have your outline, you may then start to write. Use your established outline as a guide to complete your writing. When you are done, always remember to check your writing to for possible spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors. Good luck!

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