TIM APPLEBEES

I’m an English student at the University of Saskatchewan, and I hate writing essays.

The parts of essay-writing I enjoy are the moments when you come up with your thesis, or when you’ve written enough material to solidify the bullshit you just wrote. Yet it feels like essays are all I ever do.

I procrastinate: I have even begun an essay a week after its due date. I do not recommend doing this.

I procrastinate because it’s really hard to get excited about the work. I’m sure most professors feel the same way about marking papers that are poorly written and based on topics they recycle every other year.

March is a hectic time for essay-writing and major projects, so whether you have all the time in the world and plan to finish your schoolwork early or whether you are going to struggle to meet your deadlines, the following advice should help simplify the essay-writing process.

If you choose to write on one of the topics your professor provides, you will have a whole classroom of peers to compete with. Coming up with a new topic will set your essay apart from the others and, hopefully, allow you to work on a topic you find interesting.

I’m sure you’ve been given the same handout many times — either in high school or on your first day of classes each year — outlining the basic structure of an essay. I don’t want to bore you with that again, but for those who have a tendency to lose notes, here’s a refresher:

Your thesis statement is the main argument of your essay. It ties your paper together and should be concise and clearly stated.

Thesis statements are usually found at the end of your introductory paragraph. This opening paragraph should first broadly introduce your topic, then focus on what you plan to argue — your thesis. Narrow down the topic by briefly listing ideas that will back your argument before writing your thesis. These ideas will serve as jumping-off points for the remainder of the essay.

Your next few paragraphs should go through each supporting idea. Start with just one of the points from your introduction when writing your first supporting paragraph and discuss how the idea backs your thesis statement. This should usually take around 250-300 words — roughly — before leading into your next supporting paragraph. Now repeat this process through the body of your essay. By the time you reach your final supporting paragraph, you should have already set up a strong argument for your thesis. However, your final supporting paragraph should be the strongest defence of your thesis.

Your conclusion is the easiest paragraph to write. Sum up the supporting arguments you made and emphasize how they back your thesis.

Pick up a copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White for help with grammar and composition. This book is invaluable for English majors and anyone who wants to write effectively. Plus it’s a great tool in the trenches when you need to double-check anything you’re unsure of while writing.

There are also websites that you can employ to check your writing for obvious mistakes. One example is writersdiet.com. These sites are not perfect. Generally you will paste a section of 500 or so words into a textbox and the program will analyze the text for you.

This is my least favourite part of writing an essay. No matter how I have structured my works cited in the past, I lose marks on it — even if I follow the Rules and Guidelines for Essays handbook to a T.

Discovering “Son of Citation Machine” has made my academic career a lot easier.

Citationmachine.net takes a book’s ISBN — International Standard Book Number — and structures the bibliographical entry for you into MLA, APA, Chicago or Turabian style. The site can also do this for journal articles, websites, podcasts or any other source you’ve used in your essay because, apart from an ISBN submission form, it also allows you to submit other publishing information on the source.

For instance, if you’d like to cite a lecture or talk, it asks you for the speaker’s name, the talk’s title, the event title and sponsor, the talk’s location and the city and date it took place. It even asks for a descriptive label of the presentation; it asks if the talk was an address, a speech or a keynote speech, a lecture or a reading. Once you’ve submitted all the information, the site spits out an appropriate citation.

Just make sure to double check Son of Citation Machine’s final result with the style book your professor recommends.

Some professors want you to have one point and spend the entire essay proving it. Others want to see a discussion that reflects all sides of the argument — including points that might disprove your original thesis, because they are interested in having you think critically on the topic. Having this discussion with your professor is important, so try to do it before the date your assignment is due.

Most importantly, be patient with yourself for the first few paragraphs. Once you’ve started you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished something. This sense of accomplishment will motivate you to continue writing.

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Illustration: Samantha Braun/The Sheaf