Alright collegiettes, finals weeks is literally right around the corner and if you’re anything like me, most of your finals consist of writing an essay. If your professors were kind, they already gave you that prompt. But if they’re secretly Satan, you are sitting here in an attempt to keep yourself from having a meltdown. I understand your pain and so, here are a few ways to mentally prepare yourself to conquer these final essays.
One of the main issues with the writing process is procrastination, AKA the mindset of “Due tomorrow? Do tomorrow.” A way to conquer your issues with procrastination is to set yourself daily goals and reward yourself when those goals are met. If your procrastination is happening because of feeling overwhelmed by how many finals you have, you need to focus on which final is due before the other one. Prioritize your finals and once you complete the one, reward yourself and move on to the next final. I know it’s a lot of work but it will be worth it in the end. I know C’s get degrees but don’t you just love that feeling you get when you see an A or a B on your Degree Audit Report? I know I do!
Once you get past your problem of procastinating the next big issue is actually starting the essay.
Have you ever heard of prewriting strategies? These strategies help you get all of your ideas down and out of your head. When I write an essay I find myself having too many ideas and they definitely don’t all fit together perfectly. Or the complete opposite happens to me, I go to write the essay and my brain literally blanks out. When this happens, I don’t even know where to start or even what I do/don’t know. Writing an essay is extremely frustrating and tiring sowhen these issues happen to you, it just makes the process even worse. A way to make this better is by using prewriting strategies. Some of these include free writing, mapping, and outlining.
Free Writing
This strategy is my favorite. I love this one so much because you grab a piece of paper and write absolutely everything that comes ot your mind down (even if it doesn’t relate directly to your essay). This strategy is good for when you have too many ideas or can’t concentrate.
Mapping
This strategy helps you figure out where you want to go and how to get there.
Outlining
Yeah, I know. Many of you hate outlining but this strategy is pretty helpful once you figure it out. Like mapping, outlining can help you figure out where you want to go and how you want to get there. It also helps you figure out where you need more information or if you need to reorganize your paragraphs. If you still hate outlining you could try reverse outlining. Reverse outlining is exactly what it sounds like: write your essay first and then outline the paper to see if you need to move paragraphs around or if you need more information in a particular area. Once you get past the hard part of starting, take all of these ideas and create your first draft. For me, it’s best to write your first rough draft in one sitting just so you can get all of your thoughts down. It’s okay that by doing so you’ll probably look at it in the end and think it’s garbage.
Revise
Once your first draft is completed, try printing it out and with a highlighter and pen, read over your essay bit-by-bit. When you come across wording that feels awkward to you, highlight it. When you come across a grammatical error or spelling error, correct it with your pen. Do this until you read over your whole essay. Then grab an extra piece of paper and try to rewrite all the sentences that are highlighted. Choose the sentence that sounds the best (and has the most words if you have a wordcount). Once you fixed all of your highlighted sentences, go back on your computer and put in all the edits in your document.
Re-read your essay again just to make sure it sounds good. (You could even go to Google Translate to copy and paste sentences into it so you can hear someone reading your essay.)
Are you satisfied with your edits? If so, here are a couple websites that will help you figure out citations. For MLA citations use Easybib. For APA citations use Chegg’s Cite this for Me. Have any questions about how to cite properly or use in-text citations? Check out OWL Purdue. Don’t forget to double check your citations if you use a generator, mistakes are possible.
Good luck with your finals, collegiettes! You got this!
*All images courtesy of Pinterest