Top tips for students on writing essays faster
These days, students have lots on their shoulders. With tuition rising exponentially year by year, it is no wonder that many learners look for jobs to repay their debts as quickly as possible. Some students land exciting jobs and enjoy the work process. Others aren’t so excited, but they continue to work. Whatever they do, they encounter the same problem – the lack of time.
This often correlates with low academic performance, for students can’t handle everything that comes along their way—specifically, many learners struggle with essay writing.
Completing an essay often takes plenty of time. However, you can’t just skip the assignment, as it plays a significant role in the course’s final grade. Nor can you write an essay unprepared, as it will also do you no good. So is it possible to handle writing assignments faster? The following list of tips answers the question.
Segmenting the task
An essay is a general term for writing assignments. It encompasses various tasks, such as lab reports, case studies, overviews, summaries, and many other pieces that have a unique structure that must be strictly followed. Otherwise, your essay is likely to receive a low grade, regardless of the content.
The structure is usually standard. However, teachers can modify widely agreed rules and set unique requirements, so it is crucial to check the requirements and instructions before writing the piece. Once you know them, you can break down your task into doable modules and work on them one at a time. This way, you will remain focused and manage to complete an essay quicker.
Estimating the time
Setting the time for every chunk has several benefits. First, it lets you know when you will finish your work and can move on to the next task. Estimating the time will also make you more concentrated and well-organized.
Second, it will nudge you to use your intellectual resources to deal with the task faster. Generally, working under pressure isn’t a perfect idea. It makes a person stressed and anxious. However, this isn’t the case if you set the time for your work session. Try to estimate the time based on your capabilities. For instance, if you are positive that you can compose an introduction in an hour, set 60 minutes of the writing session. Systemic practice with the timer will challenge you and let you set shorter writing sessions, dealing with essays much faster.
Accumulating the necessary items in advance
Many students have a wrong approach to essay writing. It isn’t enough to dump content on paper. Apart from that, you have to rely on sources and class notes. Breaking your writing process negatively influences the quality of your essay. It also extends the writing time.
Have everything needed to write an essay in front of you beforehand. This way, you won’t need to distract yourself and look for the notebook.
Unplugging
It doesn’t sound like an insightful trick, but unplugging from the Internet works well. Not only is our attention span short, but it is also easy to ruin. Every time a notification pops up, it entices you to check it up. Needless to say that it affects your focus and makes you less productive. When the turning point occurs–you take a phone and check what it is–your workflow dips. And it takes around fifteen minutes to regain the tempo. Therefore, make sure to pre-download the files you need and put your gadgets on airplane mode.
Doing quick research
A thoughtful approach when doing research doesn’t mean you have to spend hours looking for credible sources. Even though the Internet is infested with dubious and fake information, it is manageable to find authoritative works. Pages like Google Scholar and ResearchGate comprise reliable, scholarly studies and articles. Starting your research by visiting these websites is a great idea.
Some essays, though, require including more specialized sources. So you should narrow down your searches and find more special papers. In this case, it all depends on your major. Suppose you study business. Then your go-to pages are:
- Journal of International Business Studies
- Journal of Management
- Review of Accounting Studies
- Administrative Science Quarterly
- Harvard business review
Building a thesis statement in the first place
Every essay needs to have a clear idea and aim. Without them, the writing loses its value. Creating a thesis statement before delving into writing will point out the main argument you have to develop. Plus, it will help you organize your thoughts and think of other parts.
You don’t have to worry about the accuracy of your first thesis statement. You can modify it at any writing stage.
Creating an outline
Many avoid outlining their work, thinking that it does nothing but waste their time. But only a few realize the benefits of an outline. A layout is a roadmap, showing the writer the correct route. Following it, you don’t only save time writing the entire piece. You also increase your chances of scoring a higher grade, warding off any redundant information.
An outline can be more or less detailed; it can also appear in various forms. You can try building your outline using bullet points and summarizing every paragraph.
Applying tools
Another excellent way to speed up your writing is to use tools. Editing and proofreading applications can help you polish up your piece and spot mistakes you might miss. Besides, they can jazz up your writing, making it exciting and diverse. Of all the existing apps, the following ones are the most efficient:
- Grammarly: An online spell checker that uses AI to track grammar, punctuation, and lexical mistakes. Use it every time you want to write a clean essay.
- Hemingway Editor: The app screens the text and estimates the readability score. It also highlights irrelevant words and provides replacements to improve the work.
- Thesaurus: An omnipresent dictionary of synonyms. It offers dozens of words so that you can avoid any repetition in your essay.
Writing good essays is challenging. Since many learners work and are short on time, they always look for tips to speed up their writing. Provided are several simple and practical recommendations to help you generate content and put it on paper quickly. Remember to drill writing systematically. It is the best way to deal with writing tasks faster.