Planning for the Timed Essay
The most important part of writing a timed essay is time management . Study the following three-step strategy to prepare for writing the timed essay required in this course. Students may revise this strategy to accommodate their own writing style.
Step 1. 15 Minutes to Plan
- Choose one of the prompts from the two provided and come up with a working thesis based on the language of the prompt
- Quickly list or map the major points to develop the topic (this is the prewriting step)
- Rearrange these points in a logical order on a simple outline; for example, list them in their order of importance , also known as emphatic order (this is the outlining step)
- Draft a more developed thesis statement that might include an essay map
Step 2. 50 Minutes to Write
- Write the essay using double spaces or, if using notebook paper, write on every other line of the paper to allow room for revision
- Write carefully and legibly
- Use an outline or map as a guide, but add and delete as new ideas and examples emerge
Step 3. 10 Minutes to Revise, Edit, and Proofread
- Read the essay for content, and add or delete material as necessary, making certain that the paper remains legible and reads smoothly overall
- Read for appropriate sentence structure and vocabulary; revise as needed
- Correct grammar and spelling errors (1)
Looking at the First Step in More Detail
First, study the prompts given on the test. Choose the one that immediately strikes you as the more interesting or the one which relates the most to your life; this is your symbiotic technology kicking in and letting you know the right choice. The kind of assignment we are dealing with here is meant to generate a personal experience paper rather than an academic report, so all of the essay’s specific information is going to be based on your life and knowledge, so in this case your familiarity with or interest in the topic is going to make a massive difference.
Choose a topic—and stick to it
An important rule to remember is that once you have selected a topic based on your instincts, don’t return to the other topic . Pretend the only topic is the one you have picked so you don’t end up wasting time by questioning yourself and going back to the planning stage. Once you’ve made your choice, live with it!
Develop a basic thesis statement
Another important thing to remember is to immediately develop a very basic thesis statement based on the language of the prompt you choose; this will give you a starting point for your prewriting and will ensure that you have a main idea for your paper.
For example, imagine you were given the following two prompts:
A sandwich you most regret making
or
A fictional character you would like to be
These topics give you language on which to build your basic thesis. You might say:
“That tuna sandwich I made last Tuesday is one I most regret..”
or
“Harry Potter is the fictional character I would most like to be.”
Now, these thesis statements aren’t great; their language is very basic, and they sound generic. However, they can help you clarify your main idea and develop your examples. Then, after you come up with the specific information you are going to use to support these ideas, you can refine them. We’ll come back to this in a minute.
Prewriting
After you’ve come up with your basic thesis (and this should happen pretty quickly), it’s time to do some prewriting. Make a list of examples you will use in the essay, for example.
Outlining
Once you’ve generated a bunch of ideas to support your thesis (the reasons you are going to provide that will persuade your reader of your point), you should make sure to outline your paper. This is very important. Many students will neglect to outline an in-class essay because they fear running out of time, but not outlining can actually lead to more time-related issues because you are likely to get confused as you draft without having a plan of some sort. Remember, organization is everything when you are writing academic or professional essays, and outlining makes sure you stay organized!
As you begin filling out your outline, a major decision you need to make is in what order to put your general examples to best support your thesis. In some cases, chronological order might work; for example, in the above example about the tuna sandwich, you might have come up with a number of reasons the sandwich was a regrettable choice, and those reasons might have happened one after the other. Maybe the first reason is that the bread you got out of the pantry was old and moldy. Maybe another reason is the nasty condiments you then put on the bread from the fridge, and the final reason is the cheap and sickly tuna itself that you ended up spreading on that bread. In this silly and very basic example, each element of the sandwich was added in sequential order, so you could actually take the reader through the process chronologically, ending with the final sad step when the questionable tuna was added to the concoction.
A likely more effective organizational strategy for an in-class example essay is to use emphatic order. This is when you move from your least important point to your most powerful reason. Sometimes when you are planning an in-class essay, this level of importance can be hard to identify, so ask yourself this question: about which of the main points I am trying to make do I have the most to say? If you look at your prewriting and you have developed a bunch of specific ideas about one of your major examples, it’s a safe bet that the example in question is the one that should go last.
