A small downside to being a student is Essays. I hate them, I hate the, I hate them! It seems to take me twice as long as everyone else to write an essay, I think my brain turns on slow-mo as soon as it hears Essay! After I had completed one essay, I felt a bit better and a little bit more confident about writing them. I am currently, as in right now should be doing not writing a blog post!, on my third essay and getting the hang of things. I though I would create a little list of my essay tips for anyone else in the same situation as me or will soon be!
~ Give your self achievable deadlines, don't start the night before you will never ever be able to produce a good quality essay in that time! I give myself a week or more depending on the amount of research needed and the length of the essay.
~Read and understand the Essay question before you start anything, you don't want to do a whole load of research and reading and find i was all irrelevant.~A good place to sit and write your essay, preferably quiet and with a plenty supply of water/juice and food!
~Write a plan. It helps to break essays, especially long ones, into sizeable chunks.
~Your first draft will not be your final, one of my tutors said redraft 8 times...I think that is excessive but I on average do three drafts before I'm happy with it.
~You must proof read your work for the usual grammar and spelling, or get someone else to read it.
~Plagiarism is a huge thing at university that mean no copy and pasting unless you quote it and reference it and even if you paraphrase you still need to reference.
~Hand it in on time, usually marks are deducted for late essays so make sure its on time, its no good being a brilliant essay and then late; just start earlier!
They are my tips, they may seem sort of obvious but this is how I do my essays and I'm sharing them with you. If you have good tips, please, please share them!! :)
Laura x
