December might be my favourite month of the year. Festive cheer is everywhere, winter break is nearing and there are countless reasons for celebration.

For students, however, the turn of the month also marks something much less jolly: Essay season. Truthfully, spending my days glued to my laptop is seriously killing my Christmas spirit.

If you feel the same, take these essay writing tips as my gift to you. As a fourth-year humanities student, I’ve written countless essays and picked up a lot of wisdom along the way. From the resources you should be utilising to the writing processes you should be following, here’s everything you need to know to make deadline season a little bit merrier.

Decode first, write later

We’re starting with the obvious: make sure you have understood, not just read, the essay instructions before you get started on your assignment.

Deadline season means your to-do list is probably endless, meaning the temptation to frantically jump from one task to the next is completely understandable. Misunderstanding a word or misreading the wordcount or deadline date, however, will set you back a lot more than taking five minutes to re-read the instructions would. A bit more time checking saves hours correcting mistakes!

Take this from me, who didn’t bother to double check the meaning of a word in my essay question recently, and only realised after writing the plan that I had completely misunderstood what it was asking. Don’t make my mistake!

Make use of the University’s resources

Luckily for us, UoM has a vast bank of online resources covering all aspects of the essay writing process. It’s worth just browsing the University website to make the most of what’s on offer, but I’ve selected a few that may be useful below:

As you may have heard over the ALGC speakers, UoM library is currently offering a series of face-to-face workshops as part of its My Learning Essentials Program. Topics covered include critical reading, essay structure and referencing, with the full program available here (Workshops (MLE) (The University of Manchester Library))

The University Centre of Academic English has a whole series of activities created to support you in developing your writing skills, covering themes such as summarising, paragraph structure and even writing dissertations. Check it out here (Academic Writing – University Centre for Academic English – The University of Manchester).

The University has also created an internationally recognised Academic Phrasebook that is designed to be a “general resource for academic writing.” This is great if you struggle with academic wording and would benefit from some prompts to structure your ideas. There is a free, 54 page sample document available here, (Academic-Phrasebank-Sample-PDF-2018.pdf (phrasebankresearch.net)), or a more extensive version available to purchase for £5. I can’t vouch for whether it’s a worthy investment myself, but I’ve seen a few TikToks made by other students recommending the guide.

Planning is key

We’ve been hearing this since school for a reason: A plan is essential to writing a good essay. This forms the building blocks of your ideas, makes the whole process more efficient and ensures you are answering the question effectively.

I would recommend starting by writing a thesis statement, which is a few sentences long and answers the question in brief, clear terms by outlining your argument. This forms the central thread of the rest of your essay.

I then divide my plan into points, summing up each point of my argument with a few, concise sentences. I also include any relevant examples or evidence, theories or quotes from scholars that I want to include in that paragraph. You could structure this in a table or mind map, if your mind works a little more visually.

I tend not to plan my conclusion, because I have my thesis statement to fall back on, but also because my ideas might shift slightly as I write the essay.

If possible, getting some formative feedback on your essay plan well ahead of the essay deadline is crucial. Your lecturer may have offered the opportunity to submit a formative plan to them, which you should try to treat as if it were mandatory. If not, use their office hour to get some verbal feedback. This is a great way to reassure yourself that you’re on the right track ahead of writing, or raises any potential issues with your plan that you can then address before you start.

Reference as you go along.

We’ve all been there- frantically writing the footnotes and bibliography in the hours before an essay deadline, adding some creative license to the page numbers and adding any remotely relevant source you can find to bulk out the bibliography.

However, this can seriously harm your grade and put you at risk of plagiarism. Instead, ensure that you complete your referencing as you go along to ensure it is accurate and prevent the last-minute panic. This means noting down the sources for any quotes or ideas in your plan, and keeping a folder or list of all the texts you use throughout the whole process.

If you’re struggling with how to reference, don’t panic as there are plenty of resources available to you. Start by reading your department referencing guide, which you should be able to find on Blackboard or by asking your tutor, this will explain which referencing style you need to use. Online websites such as Neil’s Toolbox and JSTOR offer help with citations, and the university library also runs drop-in referencing support sessions.

Plan ahead

All these tips will become impossible if you don’t give yourself enough time to write the essay. I can’t tell you how much time you need to allocate, because every subject, person and essay is different, but this is something you will learn the more you write. 

I recommend putting all your deadlines into a calendar at the start of the semester and working backwards from there. For instance, allocate the three days before the deadline for editing work, the week before that for writing it and the week before that for planning. This does take some trial and error, so be generous with your timeline to allow for unexpected obstacles and changing personal circumstances.

I know how hard it is in the thick of deadline season, but you will produce your best work when you are calm, prepared and not in a rush. Be kind to yourself and try to be strict with your organization to make it easier in the longer term.