How to Write Better Essays

re-reading a difficult passage. Therefore you need a note-taking

strategy that is fast and flexible.

But perhaps its most notable advantage over the traditional methods

of note-taking lies in tackling the more creative tasks, like interpreting

questions and planning essays. Not only does it allow you to keep up

with the ideas as they come at you rapidly from all angles without any

apparent predictability, but it also enables you to work on several lines

of discussion simultaneously. Then, once the pattern is completed,

all the ideas are readily available and all you need to do is to make a

decision as to the final order in which to develop the arguments.

In one study, undergraduates at Oxford University, who began to use

these techniques, were able to complete their essays in a third of the

time they usually took, while at the same time receiving higher marks.

Brainstorming and flexibility

This appeal for greater flexibility to get the most out of our abilities

applies just as much to brainstorming as it does to the note-taking

strategy we use to catch our ideas. Of all the things we need to do to

produce an essay that will earn the highest marks, this is probably the

one we are most likely to dispense with as we rush forward, impatient

to get on with our reading.

But ideas come from many different sources, and they only come to

the mind that is prepared to receive them. Almost everyone has had

the experience of looking up an unfamiliar word in a dictionary, and

then, in the days and weeks that follow, seeing and hearing the word

everywhere – on advertising hoardings, in newspapers and magazines,

on the radio and television, even from friends. But this is not because

it is simply being used more frequently by people, it’s just that we’ve

prepared our minds to notice it.

The same applies to ideas: once we have prepared our minds we

begin to pick up, from a range of different sources, ideas and evidence

that we can then use in our writing. This explains why it’s so import-

ant to carry a notebook with you, so you can record the ideas

whenever they come, from whatever source, rather than allow them to

disappear into the ether.

In this context it’s worth re-emphasising that ideas are organic: they

grow and develop through time. If at an early stage you have allowed

these ideas to come tumbling out onto the page, the subconscious will

go away to riffle through your data banks for more ideas and evidence,

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