In this post we shall continue with our discussion of structuring essays. Here we would primarily focus on organising and drafting our ideas.
Organising Ideas
• We need to organise the enormous data we collected in previous step. This not only reduces the redundancy of data, but also it helps in setting the flow of essay.
Start with the central idea of your essay. Write down the main idea at the centre of the page. Now surround this with the immediate ideas which would help you reach at the main idea. If the tone of your essay is persuasive, you should come up with convincing data. If you are explaining a process, you can list out all the steps that need to be followed. Be careful to categorise your essay into beginning, middle and end.Work outwards till you exhaust all your collected information. The connections between the various ideas should link up and result in the main idea. The resultant picture is called a mind-map. Now, you should be able to recount all the data you want to be present in your essay only by reading the mind-map. If you are missing something, then probably you need to re-draw the mind-map.
Drafting
Now we are ready to write. We will divide our essay in three basic parts-introduction, body and conclusion. They are not just the tags associated to an essay. They form the basic conceptual framework of the essay. The introduction more or less reflects your understanding of the problem, which is critical from exams perspective.
Introduction
An introduction is the beginning of the journey. It is almost like brief overview of what is going to come in the essay. An introduction hence is almost synonymous to the questions what/why/how. Introduction is the place, where you are actually judged for your understanding of the problem statement. Try asking the questions what/why/how. This shall tell you what to include in the introduction. Make sure you let the reader know how you are going to take up the problem in subsequent paragraphs.
Main Body
In the main body of the essay you would be concentrating on the centre of the mind-map you have already developed. You look to build what you suggested in the introduction. Make sure you don’t skip ideas. The ideas should link up smoothly leading to your main idea. Refer to the mind-map you have already created. The mind-map should help you to start and move towards your goal.
Conclusion
The conclusion should typically remind the reader of all the important points of the essay. You should summarise the main points of the argument. It is always advisable to remind the reader of the methods you employed to reach to the main idea. Do not introduce new ideas in the conclusion paragraph. This paragraph is meant to end the argument so do not start with new questions.
In the next part we would look to compact our essay.

March 11th, 2010
shylock 
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