Planning your essay
How to plan your Essay effectively


"When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing."
-- Enrique Jardiel Poncela

You've gone from an idea, to research, to a pile of random notes, to categorized notes. You're now ready to start planning how the essay will fit together.

Formal essays differ from informal essays in several ways, most of which will be covered in the section on writing. During the planning stage, you need to know whether or not the essay is going to be a formal one. If the teacher or professor didn't specify, they probably want it to be formal. An informal essay is one that doesn't necessarily rely on structure to make its point, such as an essay explaining how you personally feel on a given subject, or what you did last summer. Formal essays must have an underlying structure that makes sense so the reader doesn't have to wonder where you're going with your points.

For most of these instructions and tips, we'll assume you're working on a formal essay.

Start by putting the subgroups that you pulled out of your focus into a logical order. Consider the reader's point of view: they may not have read all the sources you have on your topic, and might need definitions first. If you're discussing a person's life and contributions as in our example, it's probably more logical to describe the person and their life before bringing in the bits about their contributions. If your subject is a historical overview of anything, it usually makes sense to move chronologically.

If you'll eventually be typing the entire essay on a computer, now would be a good time to move from written notes to computer documents. Here is how I would begin planning our example essay with the subgroups:

  • Widget watching information
    • definition of widget and widget watching
    • brief mention of widget watching during Smith's lifetime
  • Joe Smith's personal life
    • childhood
    • schooling
    • things that lead Smith to widget watching
    • adult life
    • death
  • Joe Smith's contributions to widget watching
    • the New York group
    • the widgetiscope
    • Smith's publications on widget watching
    • other contributions he made
Next, plan in the introduction and conclusion, and make sure each fits with the outline so far. In our example, I would include the widget watching information in an introductory paragraph, so I'll absorb that into the introduction in the outline:

  • Introduction
    • Widget watching information
      • definition of widget and widget watching
      • brief mention of widget watching during Smith's lifetime
  • Joe Smith's personal life
    • childhood
    • schooling
    • things that lead Smith to widget watching
    • adult life
    • death
  • Joe Smith's contributions to widget watching
    • the New York group
    • the widgetiscope
    • Smith's publications on widget watching
    • other contributions he made
  • Conclusion
    • summary of why Smith was important to widget watching
Now it's time to add in the notes. Go through your notes and type in (or cut and paste, if they're already on the computer) the highlighted bits. Don't worry about their order yet, just make sure you get everything into the outline for now. Of course, I'm just making up the following for an example, and the outline could be much longer for a real topic.

  • Introduction
    • Widget Watching information
      • definition of widget and widget watching
        • widget watching is.... page 27 Diddledum
        • dictionary definition of widget, page 408 Oxford
      • brief mention of widget watching during Smith's lifetime
        • widget watching reached its scientific height in the 1880s, page 203-204 Diddledum
        • widget watching is alive and well today (not attributed, common fact)
  • Joe Smith's personal life
    • childhood
      • born 1856 in Scotland, page 4 Superwriter
      • orphaned in 1858 because of a plague, page 5 Superwriter
      • adopted by an American couple in 1859, page 7 Superwriter
      • moved to the US in 1860, page 7 Superwriter
    • schooling
      • went to the best schools money could buy, page 15 Superwriter
      • was top of his class, page 15 Superwriter
    • things that lead Smith to widget watching
      • "It was Smith's teacher Brian Googlebrains that first introduced Smith to the field of widgetry." page 93 Bogus
      • widgetry gave Smith an escape from bullies that picked on him for being socially awkward, page 37 Doorknocker
      • so he took widgetry at the University of Randomstate, page 18 Superwriter
    • adult life
      • never married, Superwriter and Doorknocker
      • buried himself in widgetry, Superwriter and Doorknocker
      • "His complete absorption into his studies resulted in him being a sad, bitter old man in his later years." page 39 Doorknocker
    • death
      • died 1902 (not attributed, common knowledge)
      • death was probably due to heart attack, page 86 Superwriter
      • new information shows he committed suicide by swallowing widgets, page 39 Doorknocker
  • Joe Smith's contributions to widget watching
    • the New York group
      • the New York group gave Smith funding, page 27 Bogus
      • "Smith's comrades in New York were closer to him than anyone else, including family." page 54 Superwriter
      • New York group was going to kick him out after his drunken display at the Christmas party, according to recently discovered letters, which is probably why he committed suicide, page 39 Doorknocker
    • the widgetiscope
      • the widgetiscope was invented in 1891 in New York, page 16 Bogus
      • "By far, Joe Smith's most important contribution to the field of widget watching was the widgetiscope." page 93 Bogus
      • the widgetiscope works by placing the widget on the slide, adjusting the focus, and then monitoring the behaviour of the widget, page 138 Bogus
      • his inspiration for the widgetiscope came in a dream, page 48 Superwriter
      • the dream may actually have been a drunken stupor during which he passed out in his lab, page 38 Doorknocker
      • the widgetiscope revolutionized widget watching by.... various citations and analysis
    • Smith's publications on widget watching
      • Publication 1 and its relevance
      • Publication 2 and its relevance
      • Publication 3 and its relevance
      • Publication 4 and its relevance
    • other contributions he made
      • contributed to Publication X by fellow NY group member Zwinkle, which had such-and-such effect
      • spoke at liberty to the mainstream press, thus bringing widget watching into the public sphere, page 102 Superwriter
  • Conclusion
    • summary of why Smith was important to widget watching
      • invented the all-important widgetiscope
      • brought widget watching to public
      • contributed to colleagues' work
Now go back through that list and cut-and-paste the elements within each subgroup into an appropriate order. When you've finished, read over the entire outline from start to finish. Does it make sense? Is there a reasonable flow? If there are gaps, you may need to go back to your notes or do more research to fill them. If you're having trouble deciding on an order in a subgroup, make it work as best as you can, and it may straighten itself out logically next in the writing phase. If something really doesn't fit, perhaps you should consider removing it from the essay, because perhaps it's unimportant and would just jar the reader.