A student sits down to write an essay and spends forty minutes on the first paragraph. The paragraph is good. The essay is not finished.
This is one of the most common ways that essay time disappears, and it comes from treating writing as a single activity. It is at least two. Getting the ideas onto the page and making the sentences good are different jobs, and doing them at the same time means stopping every few words to improve something that may not survive to the final version.
The separation is simple to apply. Write the whole thing badly first, from start to finish, without going back. Accept clumsy sentences, repeated words and a weak ending. Then stop, read it, and fix. Students who try this report two things: the first pass is uncomfortable, and the total time falls sharply.
The reason the total time falls is arithmetic. Polishing happens once rather than continuously, and the polishing is better targeted because you can now see the whole argument and know which paragraph is carrying it.
There is one more benefit that is harder to describe. A complete bad essay is a far smaller problem than an excellent half essay, because you can see its shape and fix it. An excellent half essay offers nothing to judge, and the forty good minutes bought nothing you can use.
Vocabulary in this text
- spend /ˈspɛnd/ — to use money or time
- minutes /ˈmɪnəts/ — the written record of what a meeting decided
- paragraph /ˈpæɹəɡɹˌæf/ — a group of sentences about one idea
- improve /ˌɪmpɹˈuv/ — to become better
- apply /əˈplaɪ/ — to ask formally for something, or to use something
- whole /ˈhoʊl/ — complete, all of something
- repeat /ɹɪˈpit/ — to do or say something again
- total /ˈtoʊtəl/ — the amount after everything is added
- reason /ɹˈizən/ — why something happens
- target /ˈtɑɹɡət/ — a result you aim for