Tips for writing a timed essay
(or taking an essay examination)

1. Come prepared.

• Know what question (or type of question) you plan to respond to before you arrive (if you’re given options in advance)
• Have a "plan of action" in mind for how you want to respond
• Reread any notes you've taken and readings you'll want to refer to, either related to a question you know or thinking through likely subject matter that will be covered 

Don't wait until you come to class to think about what you want to write.

2. Evaluate the question.

• Read the question all the way through and make sure you understand what it requires of you.
• Underline or circle key words and directions and consider what the words mean.  Students often run into trouble by interpreting everything as a vague “say something about”
• Verbs give clues for organizing response
• Describe usually requires specific detail
• Analyze suggests taking something apart to see what it is made of
• Compare and contrast calls for showing similarities and differences
• List – Name one by one, explaining or commenting when appropriate
• Enumerate – List in a meaningful sequence
• Outline – Give an overall plan for proceeding in some kind of order
• Design – Present a more elaborate overall plan than an outline, using descriptions, sketches, drawings, or the like
• Summarize – State the main points in as concise a way as possible, without commentary
• Review – Give a quick survey of several positions, using summaries with commentary
• Interpret – Explain in detail what something means to you and how you came to that understanding
• Define – Present in detail the essential traits or characteristics of something and how it differs from similar things
• Prove – Provide evidence to establish that something is true
• Demonstrate – Add to your proof examples of applications of what you have shown to be true
• Nouns help determine what you will write about
• reason, cause, causes
• Adjectives
• main, principal, contributing, relevant, succinct
• Circle different parts of the question
• A common cause of low grades on essays is simply failing to answer all parts of the question.  It is easy to get caught up in responding to the first directive and to forget everything else.
• Be aware of the mode of discourse that the question requires
• Exposition (writing that explains)
• Argument
• Personal experience
• Some questions intentionally mix modes:  “Analyze the quotation and then illustrate it by some personal experience.”
• What should be most important in a response to this question?
• Analysis of quotation should be most important; personal experience should be clearly connected but subordinate
• When a question is not clear, it becomes the student’s responsibility to construct a clear question and then answer it

§ DON’T “file dump” everything you know and hope you get lucky

§ DO come up with a plan.  Excellent students may not know more about the subject, but they have a plan

o What if you’re given a quotation and the only instruction is “Discuss”?

§ Pause to construct a question before responding so the essay can follow some kind of organization

· What is the quotation saying?

· How does it respond to material in the course?

§ Mark up the quotation

• Sketch out meanings and connections as you decide on the central idea of your response

If you're unsure about the question, ask!

3. Time yourself.

• Allow time to generate and organize ideas.
• Allow time to revise and edit.
• Example: 50 minutes. 10-analyze the question and outline a response, 35-draft, 5-edit and proofread
• Use all the time allowed for organizing, writing, and editing 
• Don’t waste time recopying your draft.

4. Planning and Prewriting.

• Make notations or draw up a scratch outline
• What is my thesis?
• What will my main points be?
• How will I organize them?
• What type of supporting examples or information will I use?
• How will I begin?
• Which patterns of paragraph development will best suit the response I have planned? (description, narration, example, definition, compare and contrast, etc.)
• How will I conclude the essay?

5. As you write:

• Show logical relationships
• State thesis at the outset and support it
• Don't just summarize your ideas, analyze
• Incorporate appropriate objective data: dates, excerpts of other writings, etc.
• Demonstrate your knowledge of a topic
• Not a hodgepodge of facts (“file dump”)--blend analysis and fact
• Check your logic
• Avoid digressions
• Evaluate your response as you are writing it

6. As you revise:

• Is essay clear and concise?
• Is essay grammatically and mechanically correct?
• Have you responded to the question?

If allowed, consider:

· Skipping lines so you will have room to revise

· Writing on only one side of the paper so you can make important additions on the back if needed

· Using pencil for ease in making corrections