Have you been assigned a paper and have no idea where to start? Have a first draft, but it seems too messy to hand in? Want to have a process in place for handling essay assignments in the future?

Where to start with your assignment

In general, your essay is a piece of writing that explains your opinion about a question that matters to you and others too. Sometimes teachers themselves have trouble creating good questions for essays, and sometimes students run into trouble understanding what the instructor is really trying to get them to think about.

Once you really understand and care about the question, you can start to search for an answer based squarely on the reading material.

Only when you have an answer about which you feel strongly is it time to start planning your essay. Here are the five parts you need to think through fully and craft to put your essay together:

1. Make the reader care about the question. Spend at least one paragraph explaining why the question itself matters.

2. In a single paragraph (and it can be short) answer the question. This can even be the end of your first paragraph if the essay assignment is just two to three pages.

3. Spend up to several paragraphs presenting the answers others gave to the question and what the problems are with those answers. You will need to cite sources. Get quick citation-style tips.

4. Spend several paragraphs explaining why your answer to the question is right. List concrete pieces of evidence.

5. Recap your argument, and remind the reader why your answer is important.

Now all that is left to do is add a bibliography and review the essay to catch any errors, before handing it in.