Daunted by Essay-Writing? Stress Less With These Formatting Tips
By Brien Friedman, Academic Coach
If there’s one thing thousands of high school seniors penning college admissions essays every year can tell you—besides that senioritis is real and impending—it’s that essay writing isn’t always a picnic on a rainbow, to say the least. The less writing-inclined among us might very well state their struggles a bit more harshly than that! However, essays needn’t ever be the pulling teeth of academic exercises. The following tips are distilled from my nine years as an essay tutor and solutions to the most common issues I’ve remedied in that time:
1) Themes (They’re Not Just for English Class)
This is often a good place to start. You may have a story, vivid image, or quote in your head that you wish to discuss, but it’s worth considering what the overarching idea that ties it all together could be. A good question I often ask is: What are you really trying to say? It isn’t simply that you remember making perogies with your grandmother growing up; it’s that the nostalgic comfort of that has some bearing on your present character that you wish to highlight. Writing is about recognizing what larger forces are at play as much as how we express them via specific details.
2) The Forest vs The Trees
Tip #1 being said, it’s now time to argue against myself (aren’t writers just the best?). Yes, you do need a theme, but it needs to be sufficiently focused. A common pitfall many writers fall victim to is trying to make their essay the be-all and end-all in terms of abstract thoughts, which more often than not results in them not saying much of anything at all due to the vague nature of generalities. The best essays tend to take one idea and laser in on it.
3) Have a Plan
This is one of the absolute best ways to face down the daunting specter of the Empty White Page. Write out your thesis, main points, and details or supporting ideas that really speak to you on a separate page. Make notes especially on the parts of the essay that excite you (okay, maybe not much about essays excite you, but there are more interesting parts than others, surely!). Be open to the idea that the plan will change as you get into the actual writing, but 99.9% of the time your essay will end up better because you have some sort of guideline.
4) When in Doubt, Talk It Out
Surprisingly often, when students say, “I don’t really know what I’m trying to say here,” what they really mean is that they don’t know how to write what they’re trying to say, but the idea is in fact there. Since we tend to spend far more of our lives talking than writing, it’s frequently super helpful to talk out your ideas to a friend or tutor or even record yourself talking and then take notes on the playback. There’s a reason you picked the idea that you did, and it’s likely that a great deal of the idea is already there even when you feel stuck.
5) Edit, Don’t Forget It
Some people can hold their main idea in their head while also obsessing over every little bit of grammar and tone shift as they write, but making that a goal is a bit of a fool’s errand. It’s almost always better to have your idea written first, regardless of quality, so that later you can go back and fine-tune, change, drastically alter, etc. Professional writers love to throw around the phrase, “Writing is rewriting,” which may be a bit extreme at times, but it does highlight the fact that editing, often to a high degree, is integral to essays. Read it, reread it, make changes, cut stuff, elaborate in places, get feedback from people you trust, and be very, very open to changing things. Adaptability is key here.
So there you have it: a handful of tips that should hopefully help spur some new ideas and make this whole bunches-of-letters-on-a-page thing a little more manageable. It’s true that there is no magical formula to writing perfectly since a lot of it depends on the person and his or her topic of choice. However, there are definitely ways to make it easier and to approach it with a positive and productive mindset!
Brien Friedman
Academic Coach
About The Author
Hailing from a family of teachers, Brien grew up around all things pedagogical. He got his start in tutoring helping his friends in college edit their essays; after graduating, he found the athletes he worked with as a running coach also needed help at times with their writing and SAT prep and readily filled that role in between track practices.
Since then, his tutoring has evolved, and he’s helped kids of all ages gain confidence and skill in reading and writing.
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