Essay writing can be a funny, funny thing. To some people, it seems like a lot of really, really hard work that they can’t be bothered to do. But, when essays are broken down, they really are quite easy to complete, all it takes is a little patience and diligence to see you through to the end. It’s extremely easy to see them as an impossible task, but as soon as you throw that thinking out of the window, you realize how easy they really are. Speaking from a teacher’s perspective, there is nothing more annoying than having a student who just refuses to give it any time at all, in favor of moaning and groaning, here is an example.

So do my essay for me the request came from near the back of the classroom. It was at the end of the day, so I could partly forgive the fact that the person who had uttered the command was sitting with his head in his hands. School is a tough task and only gets tougher throughout the day. I asked who it was that spoke and the boy raised his hand, though he kept his head firmly planted on the desk. I enquired as to what he meant, and he said ‘Can you just write it for me please?’ he said in a very exasperated way. By this time most other people in the class had stopped their work and were watching the exchange me and the student were having.

‘What have we done so far?’ I asked him. ‘Well, we’ve only planned it and I can’t be bothered to do the rest!’, some of his fellow students laughed and so did I, to be honest. But calmly I said, ‘so you’ve planned it?

‘Yes…’ he said.

‘You understand the text?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ He said.

‘You have points that answer the question?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I do.’ He said.

‘And you have quotes to back all these points up?’ I asked.

‘Uh-huh.’ He replied.

‘And finally, you know a bit about the context? When the text was written and how that makes it different from a text written now?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I think so.’ He replied.

‘Well then, aren’t you pretty much finished now anyway?’

Everyone in the class looked confused.

‘Once you have planned out the essay, you have all the ingredients you need, now all you need to do is join those ingredients up, which is writing the simple words in between. So basically, you’ve done all the hard work already, in your plan!’

The student fell silent.

‘Oh yeah… I guess I have done most of it then’.

He picked his head up off the desk, got to work and was done within the next 20 minutes. All he needed to realize was that if you plan correctly, most of the work gets done before you even start! So always stay level-headed and actually work out how much work you need to do because if you plan right, it will never be that much!