Taking time to consider the different elements of your essay and how best to present them is an important stage in the essay writing process. This is just as valuable for a short essay of only 500 words, as it is for a much longer piece of work. When answering your question, you will need to bring together lots of ideas and information that relate to your topic. You should also show the complexity of the subject matter. The purpose of an essay plan is to organise your ideas in the most logical way to answer the question and justify the conclusion you will reach. This is best done once your research is complete, and you have collected together your notes.
Our making your notes count tutorial will guide you through the stages from notetaking and organising your literature to planning. You should then consider what type of essay plan would be most appropriate for your question.
| Type of essay | Possible structure |
|---|---|
| An essay that develops an argument or position on a topic | Here you should consider which is your strongest or weakest evidence and use that to structure your argument. By identifying the strength of the evidence from your literature, you will address different ideas and viewpoints. Here you have two options: 1. Present the strongest evidence first and work towards the weaker ideas. This will give a confident start to your work. 2. Start with the weakest evidence and build to the stronger evidence. This will allow you to build your argument. |
| An essay that shows a procedure or development of something | This kind of essay often follows a linear progression. Be careful to avoid descriptive writing that 'tells the story' and offer critical analysis. 1. Outline each element of a procedure or process and the evidence to justify that workflow, you should also introduce alternatives and pros or cons to the different topics. 2. Chronologically discuss a topic. Outline the different evidence from the literature for each stage. This may be useful to demonstrate cause and effect. |
| Compare and contrast essays | These essays need to show different groups of ideas and use literature to examine the similarities and differences. 1. Identify the different topics and discuss the alternative positions. 2. Examine the similarities and group that information. Then consider the differences. |
| Essays that show a balanced discussion showing different perspectives | Useful for essays with the instruction word discuss, this type of essay shows your depth of research and knowledge of the different literature and ideas relating to your topic. 1. Introduce each topic and give both argument and counterarguments. 2. Present all supporting literature for a topic and then follow with alternative viewpoints. |
Use our template to consider which topics should be addressed in your answer. Everything in the plan should link to your question. At this stage it is useful to allocate your word count across the different paragraphs and some to your introduction (5%) and conclusion (15%). Each topic should form a single paragraph.
Essay plan template (Word)
Essay plan template (PDF)
Reverse outline
If you find it difficult to plan your essay in advance and want to start by writing your words directly onto your page, you can apply a reverse outline. That just means reviewing your work once you have finished and considering if you are presenting your information in the best way for your reader. It is a good editing strategy for everyone before submitting.
