Essay Writing Guide Part 4-9

PART FOUR: THE OUTLINE At this point you have prepared a list of topics, and a reading list. Now it’s time to choose a topic. ENTER TOPIC HERE 1. Here’s another rule. When you write your first draft, it should be longer than the final version. This is so that you have some extra writing to throw away. You want to have something to throw away after the first draft so that you only have to keep what is good. It is NOT faster to try to write exactly as many words as you need when you first sit down to write. Trying to do so merely makes you too aware of what you are writing. This concern will slow you down. Aim at producing a first draft that is 25% longer than the final draft is supposed to be. If your final work is to be 1000 words, then write that (or four pages) below. The word document will automatically add 25% to the length you specify. Now specify the length of your essay. WORDS: PAGES: ADD 25% TO THE ABOVE LENGTHS Now you have to write an outline. This is the most difficult part of writing an essay, and it’s not optional. The outline of an essay is like the skeleton of a body. It provides its fundamental form and structure. Furthermore, the outline is basically the argument (with the sentences themselves and the words serving that argument). A thousand-word essay requires a ten-sentence outline. However, the fundamental outline of an essay should not get much longer than fifteen sentences, even if the essay is several thousand words or more in length. This is because it is difficult to keep an argument of more than that length in mind at one time so that you can assess the quality of its structure. So, write a ten to fifteen sentence outline of your essay, and if it is longer than a thousand words, then make sub-outlines for each primary outline sentence. Here is an example of a good simple outline:        Topic: Who was Abraham Lincoln? Why is Abraham Lincoln worthy of remembrance? What were the crucial events of his childhood? Of his adolescence? Of his young adulthood? How did he enter politics? What were his major challenges?      What were the primary political and economic issues of his time? Who were his enemies? How did he deal with them? What were his major accomplishments? How did he die? Here is an example of a good longer outline (for a three thousand word essay):            Topic: What is capitalism? How has capitalism been defined? o Author 1 o Author 2 o Author 3 Where and when did capitalism develop? o Country 1 o Country 2 How did capitalism develop in the first 50 years after its origin? o How did capitalism develop in the second 50 years after its origin? o (Repeat as necessary) Historical precursors? o (choose as many centuries as necessary) Advantages of capitalism? o Wealth generation o Technological advancement o Personal freedom Disadvantages of capitalism? o Unequal distribution o Pollution and other externalized costs Alternatives to capitalism? o Fascism o Communism Consequences of these alternatives? Potential future developments? Conclusion Beware of the tendency to write trite, repetitive and clichéd introductions and conclusions. It is often useful to write a stock intro (what is the purpose of this essay? How is it going to proceed?) and a stock conclusion (How did this essay proceed? What was its purpose?) but they should usually then be thrown away. Write your outline here. Try for one outline heading per 100 words of essay length. You can add subdivisions, as in the example regarding capitalism, above. Write outline here: 1. Outline sentence 1: 2. Outline sentence 2: 3. Outline sentence 3: 4. Outline sentence 4: 5. Outline sentence 5: 6. Outline sentence 6: 7. Outline sentence 7: 8. Outline sentence 8: 9. Outline sentence 9: 10. Outline sentence 10 (repeat if necessary): PART FIVE: PARAGRAPHS So, now you have your outline. Copy it here: OUTLINE COPIED HERE Now, write ten to fifteen sentences per outline heading to complete your paragraph. You may find it helpful to add additional subdivisions to your outline, and to work back and forth between the outline and the sentences, editing both. Use your notes, as well. Use single spacing at this point, so that you can see more writing on the paper at once. You will format your essay properly later. Don’t worry too much about how well you are writing at this point. It is also best at this point not to worry too much about the niceties of sentence structure and grammar. That is all best left for the second major step, which is editing. You should think of the essay writing process as twofold. The first major step is the first draft, which can be relatively quick and dirty. For the first draft you can use your notes, extensively, and rough out the essay. If you get stuck writing anywhere, just move to the next outline sentence. You can always go back. The second major step is editing. Production (the first major step) and editing (the second) are different functions, and should be treated that way. This is because each interferes with the other. The purpose of production is to produce. The function of editing is to reduce and arrange. If you try to do both at the same time then the editing stymies the production. It’s not faster to combine them, nor is it better, and it is bound to be frustrating. Here is an example of writing associated with an outline question: (note: places where references are necessary are indicate as (REFERENCE, 19XX). How to format these references will be discussed later. Outline sentence: How has capitalism been defined? Something as complex as capitalism cannot be easily defined. Different authors have each offered their opinion. Liberal or conservative thinkers stress the importance of private property and the ownership rights that accompany such property as key to capitalism (REFERENCE, 19XX). Such private property (including valuable goods and the means by which they are produced) can be traded, freely, with other property owners, in a market where the price is set by public demand, rather than by any central agency. Liberal and conservative thinkers stress efficiency of production, as well as quality, and consider profit the motive for efficiency. They believe that lower cost is a desirable feature of production, and that fair competition helps ensure desirably lower prices. The World Socialist Movement (REFERENCE, 19XX), an international consortium of far left political parties, defines capitalism, by contrast, as ownership of the means of production by a small minority of people, the capitalist class, who profitably exploit the working class, the genuine producers, who must sell their ability to work for a salary or wage. Such socialists believe that it is profit that solely motivates capitalism, and that the profit motive is essentially corrupt. Modern environmentalists tend to add the natural world itself to the list of capitalist targets of exploitation (REFERENCE, 19XX). Thinkers on the right tend to regard problems emerging from the capitalist system as real, but trivial in comparison to those produced by other economic and political systems, real and hypothetical. Thinkers on the far left regard capitalism as the central cause of problems as serious as poverty, inequality and environmental degradation, and believe that there are other political and economic systems whose implementation would constitute an improvement. It took two paragraphs to begin to address the first outline sentence. Notice that the essay begins without referring to itself. It is better to tell the reader what the essay will be about and how the topic will be addressed than to meander around stupidly at the beginning of an essay, but it is still better to grab the reader’s attention immediately without beating around the bush. Once you have completed ten to fifteen sentences for each outline heading, you have finished your first draft. Now it is time to move to editing. PART SIX: EDITING AND ARRANGING OF SENTENCES WITHIN PARAGRAPHS Copy the first paragraph of your first draft here: Paragraph 1: Now, place each sentence on its own line, so it looks like this (this example is taken from the first paragraph on capitalism, above): Something as complex as capitalism cannot be easily defined. Different authors have each offered their opinion. Liberal or conservative thinkers stress the importance of private property and the ownership rights that accompany such property as key to capitalism (REFERENCE, 19XX). Such private property (including valuable goods and the means by which they are produced) can be traded, freely, with other property owners, in a market where the price is set by public demand, rather than by any central agency. Liberal and conservative thinkers stress efficiency of production, as well as quality, and consider profit the motive for efficiency. They believe that lower cost is a desirable feature of production, and that fair competition helps ensure desirably lower prices. Now, write another version of each sentence, under each sentence, like this: Liberal and conservative thinkers stress efficiency of production, as well as quality, and consider profit the motive for efficiency. Liberal and conservative thinkers alike stress the importance of quality and efficiency, and see them as properly rewarded by profit. In this example, the meaning of the sentence has been changed slightly, during the rewrite. It may be that the second sentence flows better than the first, and is also more precise and meaningful. See if you can make each sentence you have written better, in a similar manner:   Better would mean shorter and simpler (as all unnecessary words should be eliminated). There is almost nothing a novice writer can do that will improve his or her writing more rapidly than writing very short sentences. See if you can cut the length of each sentence by 15-25%. Remember, earlier, you tried to make your essay longer than necessary. Here you can start cleaning it up. Better would mean that each word is precisely and exactly the right word. Don’t be tempted to use any word that you would be uncomfortable to use in spoken conversation. Often, new writers try to impress their readers with their vocabulary. This often backfires when words are used that are technically correct but whose connotation is not, or that are unsuitable within the context of the sentence, paragraph or full essay. An expert writer will spot such flaws immediately, and see them for what they are: forms of camouflage and deception. Write clearly at a vocabulary level you have mastered (with maybe a bit of stretching, to produce improvement). Read each sentence aloud, and listen to how it sounds. If it’s awkward, see if you can say it a different, better way. Listen to what you said, and then write it down. Rewrite each sentence. Once you have done this with all the sentences, read the old versions and the new versions, and replace the old with the new if the new is better. Then copy the new paragraph here: New paragraph 1: Repeat for each paragraph: New paragraph 2: New paragraph 3: New paragraph 4: New paragraph 5 (etc.): Now you are going to try to improve each of those paragraphs. Copy them again here, unchanged (you are doing this so that you can easily compare the improved paragraphs to the originals, so that you can be sure they are truly improved, before you keep them): New paragraph 1 (copy): New paragraph 2 (copy): New paragraph 3 (copy): New paragraph 4 (copy): New paragraph 5 (copy) (etc.): Start with paragraph 1. Break it up into single sentences, as you did before. Now check to see if the sentences are in the best possible order, within each paragraph. Drag and drop them, or cut and paste them, into better order. You can also eliminate sentences that are no longer necessary. When you are satisfied with the first paragraph (which means that the sentences are necessary, short and punchy, and in the correct order) then go ahead to the next paragraph and do the same thing. PART SEVEN: RE-ORDERING THE PARAGRAPHS Now, copy all of the new, improved paragraphs that you have edited here: New improved paragraph 1: New improved paragraph 2: New improved paragraph 3: New improved paragraph 4: New improved paragraph 5 (etc.): Now you are going to try to improve the order of those new, improved paragraphs. Copy them here, again, unchanged. New improved paragraph 1 (copy): New improved paragraph 2 (copy): New improved paragraph 3 (copy): New improved paragraph 4 (copy): New improved paragraph 5 (copy) (etc.): Now look at the order of the paragraphs themselves (as you just did with the sentences within each paragraph). It may well be that by now in the editing process, you will find that the order of the subtopics within your original outline is no longer precisely appropriate, and that some re-ordering of those sub-topics is called for. So, move around the new improved paragraph (copies) above, until they are ordered more appropriately than they were. PART EIGHT: GENERATING A NEW OUTLINE So now you should have produced a pretty decent second draft. You have identified the appropriate sources, written the proper notes, outlined your argument, roughed in a first draft (paragraph by paragraph), rewritten your sentences to make them more elegant, and re-ordered those sentences, as well as the paragraphs themselves. This is much farther than most writers ever get. You may even think you’re finished – but you’re not. The next step will take you from a < B= essay to an < A= essay. It may even help you write something that is better than you have ever produced (better meaning richer in information, precise, coherent, elegant and beautiful). Copy what you have written so far here: FULL RE-ORDERED ESSAY HERE Read it. Then go to the next page. This part of the process will probably strike you as unnecessary, or annoying, or both, but what do you know? This is the step that separates the men from the boys, or the women from the boys, or the men from the girls, or whatever version of this saying is acceptably non-sexist and politically correct. You have just finished reading your essay. Try now to write a new outline of ten to fifteen sentences. Don’t look back at your essay while you are doing this. If you have to, go back and re-read the whole thing, and then return to this page, but don’t look at your essay while you are rewriting the outline. If you force yourself to reconstruct your argument from memory, you will likely improve it. Generally, when you remember something, you simplify it, while retaining most of what is important. Thus, your memory can serve as a filter, removing what is useless and preserving and organizing what is vital. What you are doing now is distilling what you have written to its essence. Write new outline here: 1. New outline sentence 1: 2. New outline sentence 2: 3. New outline sentence 3: 4. New outline sentence 4: 5. New outline sentence 5: 6. New outline sentence 6: 7. New outline sentence 7: 8. New outline sentence 8: 9. New outline sentence 9: 10. New outline sentence 10 (repeat if necessary): Now that you have a new outline, you can cut and paste material from your previous essay. To do this, open up a new Word document beside this one. Then cut and paste the new outline that you have written into the new Word document. Return to the original document, and scroll up to the full, re-ordered essay you copied and pasted into Part Eight, above. Then cut and paste from the re-ordered essay into your new outline. You may find that you don’t need everything you wrote before. Don’t be afraid to throw unnecessary material away. You are trying to get rid of what is substandard, and leave only what is necessary. Once you have finished cutting and pasting your old material into the new outline, then copy the new essay, and paste it into a new word document. That will be your final essay. Don’t forget to put a title page on it. PASTE NEWLY OUTLINED ESSAY HERE: PART NINE: REPEAT Now you have a third draft, and it’s probably pretty good. If you really want to take it to the next level, then you can repeat the process of sentence rewriting and re-ordering, as well as paragraph re-ordering and re-outlining. Often it is a good idea to wait a few days to do this, so that you can look at what you have produced with fresh eyes. Then you will be able to see what you have written, instead of seeing what you think you wrote (which is the case when you try to edit immediately after producing). You are not genuinely finished until you cannot edit so that your essay improves. Generally, you can tell if this has happened when you try to rewrite a sentence (or a paragraph) and you are not sure that the new version is an improvement over the original.