Have you worked on lots of essays already? Have you tried to estimate how much it takes to compose a final paper? How long can it be: an hour, several hours, a day, or a week? This question: “How long does it take to write an essay?” is a common one for the students who do not have sufficient experience. We have decided to gain an insight into the time management issue from writers working with students who order essays. This information is professional advice on how to plan the pre-writing, writing, and post-writing stages.
You already know that essay writing is a multi-level process. It covers the stage of preparation, conducting research, composing drafts, and content improvement and polishing. To score an excellent grade, you have to take proper care of all these stages. All of them are time-consuming and you should not be in a hurry if you need an excellent result.
How can you estimate the required time?
Does the estimated time for composing a proper essay cover only the stage of writing? Not really! It covers composing a good text, doing research, and all preliminary and post-writing activities. The following factors make a difference when it goes about time management of essay writing:
Are you well aware of the topic you need to cover?
What do you know about your professor? Is he or she strict?
Is an outline required?
Do the requirements include adding a title page?
Do you need a bibliography?
Is in-depth research a must before writing?
Are you fond of academic writing?
Would it be difficult to get the sources for writing?
Are in-text citations required?
Can you just share your thoughts without referring to the sources?
Writing is no exception
Students usually complain that writing scares them so much that even brainstorming is a terrifying process for them. Some of them have enough enthusiasm to write down a few sentences and then they have no inspiration at all. A terrible feeling of dissatisfaction and disappointment makes writing an unpleasant process that discourages and produces a sense of insecurity. Instead of productive work, you get involved in a continuous waste of time.
Estimate the length of every essay section
Academic essays tend to have a typical structure with the main body being the longest part. Here the writer presents the arguments and accompanies them with evidence to make the ideas clearer and more impressive.
If you are aware of the overall length of the essay, you can estimate the approximate length of the introductory part. It is enough to get a paragraph for an essay that does not exceed 3,000 words. If the topic of the essay is complicated and the paper is lengthy, it is reasonable to make the introduction longer. Two or even three paragraphs are suitable for papers of 3,000 words or more.
Works of any length typically have a one-paragraph conclusion. The summary you give should not cover all the steps. Instead, it is enough to build connections between the key points in a convincing manner without making work too lengthy.
How Can You Increase Your Writing Speed Considerably
1. Plan beforehand
If you fail to plan your essay, you may fail the entire paper. Planning your serious work makes sense as it brings proper organization into the whole process. You can arrange the ideas better and know how to do everything quickly and effectively. Having clear ideas about what you are going to do, you may finalize every stage much faster. Then, you may get some time for a quick review of the completed project and it can be impressively successful.
2. Choose the topic you are familiar with if possible
If your professor has not provided a list of topics for you to choose from, you may get the one you like. If you are excited about the topic, you can get on the needed track much easier.
3. Divide the text into sections
As to writing, it is smart to take a few little steps rather than a huge one that may confuse your readers. If they read a huge paragraph with multiple ideas, they will not understand the flow of your thoughts. What is a good solution for you? It is the proper division into logical sections!
4. Improve your typing speed
Modern life is impossible without basic computer skills and fast typing. Try playing typing games to make the speed and accuracy of your typing more advanced. Also, you will not have time to lose your ideas halfway. Capturing the thoughts is valuable as you will not get confused in the process.
5. Get great examples
You may see how much easier it is to cope with your work if you have a number of samples. Search for examples and study them to see which approaches are effective.
N.B. Use the examples for inspiration only! Plagiarizing is a crime that you should avoid!
6. Make sure there are no or few distractions around
Even the brightest students sometimes procrastinate. Your smartphone is your enemy when you are working on your writing projects. A silent mode with no notifications is the best option for you. Your desire to check on social media and instant messengers is what distracts you most and eats up your time.
If your desire is not strong enough, try to survive for a day or so without access to the Internet on your mobile devices. If you cannot trust yourself at all, you can ask your reliable friends to change your Facebook and Twitter passwords. This trick can help! Try it out.
7. Get down to revising and editing only after your writing is done
You have written the introduction to your essay and you have started checking it for mistakes and possible inconsistencies. Stop! It is a real waste of time! You may do it, but it is not the proper time for such an action now! Finalize writing and only after you have completed the whole paper, ensure that all the paragraphs are free of errors. Even under the conditions of terrible time pressure, you have to spare an hour to get a complete review of the full scope of your writing. Even if you have some mistakes, you should correct them at the stage of polishing. So, it does not make sense to waste your time and get distracted from actual writing. You may do the cleaning up at the final stage and ensure the round-up. Major revisions are possible if you have a few days before the submission. If your schedule is tight, get rid of the major mistakes in structure, grammar, and spelling. Help your readers follow your thoughts easily.
Request for assistance if you feel that is important for you
If you write extremely slowly, you can fail because you will not meet the deadline. You need to progress and move forward, and you are going around in a circle. Professional guidance and advice can be your solution.
Get assistance from friends. Join academic study groups. Hire professional academic writers who know the answers to the questions, “How long does it take to write an essay?” “How can I make my essay brilliant” and others. Get advice from the school teachers or instructors of the student resource labs. The most important thing is not to wait until the last minute.
Conclusion
Take into account a number of factors when you try to figure out how long you will have to work on your paper. You need some time for your research, reflection, writing, and other activities. Will five hours be enough for you to write a 1,500-word essay? It is up to you to decide. We wish you enjoy your writing!
