Students hate writing essays for a myriad of reasons. One reason could be that students perceive writing papers as a lengthy and monotonous task. Difficulty in coming up with ideas, structuring thoughts and expressing them clearly are only some of the challenges that students may face.
Researching for the essay, particularly when you’re unfamiliar with the topic or the research methods, can be a bit overwhelming. The fear of failure and anxiety can also make essay writing even more challenging. Furthermore, students who lack grammar skills and have difficulty with punctuation and spelling may find it especially frustrating.
Another reason why students hate writing papers could be that they are not interested in the topic of the essay, making it difficult for them to write anything about the given subject matter.
Additionally, formatting and citation guidelines may be confusing for some students and they may find it hard to meet the requirements. Other than that, the editing and revising process of written material is usually dull and monotonous.
If you hate writing essays and you struggle to find the motivation to get on with them, you aren’t alone. A lot of students are in this boat, and end up running out of time on essays because they simply despise doing them. For this reason, some students even buy essays online to keep up with the competition and avoid failing a class.
Fortunately, there are some things that can be done without having to pay someone to write your paper, which will make writing essays seem easier.
Now That I Understand the Reasons Why Students Hate Writing Papers, Are There Any Tips to Overcome Writer’s Block?
To make writing essays a more straightforward process, you should try things like creating a plan, working in small sections, and getting together with other students. You might find that talking aloud to yourself (or others) or recording yourself discussing some ideas helps. Make sure you leave yourself plenty of time, and put aside distractions.
In this article, we’ll cover the top methods for how to write essays more easily and effectively. This will make the writing process significantly more enjoyable for you, and will generally give you a much better written piece, improving your marks and giving you more satisfaction.
What Are The Top Tricks To Make Writing Essays Easier?
Even though writing essays presents many challenges, there are quite a few things you can do to make writing essays easier. Different techniques will work well for different people, so you shouldn’t just try one or two and give up.
Have a good go at each one before deciding whether it is effective for you or not. If you find strategies that don’t help, drop them and try something different.
Some of the best options include:
- Create a plan
- Work in small chunks
- Talk to other students
- Argue aloud with yourself
- Record your ideas
- Leave extra time
- Avoid distractions
- Avoid procrastinating
- Use rewards
- Don’t aim for immediate perfection
- Take the time to revise
- Use a pen and paper
You may also find other strategies that work well for you, but those are the top options you might want to look at – so let’s explore them in more detail below!
1. Create A Plan
Before you start writing, simply create a plan. Planning is often the hardest part of writing an essay, but doing this will put you well on the way to success. You should work on a plan before you do anything else, because this will create a sense of structure that will make you feel more like you are in control of your work. You’ll have an end in sight, even if it’s just notes on paper.
Creating a plan makes writing the essay so much easier, because you’ll know what materials and sources you need to gather before you can start, and you’ll know where your argument is going.
If you’re somebody who finds it really hard to get started, it might help to view creating the plan as a mini-assignment. Take it as a separate piece from the main essay, and dedicate a whole evening to doing it. This will make it easier to create the plan, because it will seem less daunting.
2. Work In Small Chunks
Following on from the idea of viewing your plan as a separate piece, try breaking your essay up into pieces too. Create artificial deadlines and agree with yourself that you will write 500 words per night, or even less if necessary.
You will have to be diligent about time management if you take this approach, but it can make it so much easier to start a big essay if you have broken it into pieces.
If you are going to use this strategy, make sure you also have a clear plan for your essay, or you might find that your work ends up disjointed. However, with the correct approach, breaking an essay up is often one of the most effective ways to make it a pleasanter task.
Imagine if your teacher only set essays of 500 words. You’d probably find them a significantly less daunting task – so make your essays 500 words mini-assignments and you will likely find that they are far easier to get through.
3. Talk To Other Students
This strategy needs to be used with care so you don’t end up getting distracted and talking about other things, but it’s worth looking at if you know other students who will help you stay on task. Getting together in a small study group can create a focused environment and give you other people to bounce ideas off.
You do need to choose your companions with care and be diligent about staying on task, but don’t be afraid to join up with others when you’re working on essays, especially in the early stages. You can talk about your ideas, debate with the others, and draw out thoughts that will help with your essay. Remember to take notes so you don’t forget things!
4. Argue Aloud With Yourself
If you aren’t able to meet up with others or you’re worried about getting distracted, you might want to try talking aloud to yourself instead. Think about your arguments and any counters that other people might bring to them, and make notes as you go. Sometimes, talking aloud can help you to solidify ideas and make the academic writing less grueling.
Not everybody finds this strategy effective, but some people find that speaking is more fluid and it’s the writing part that is hard. Presenting your arguments verbally can make it easier to put them on paper afterward.
5. Record Your Ideas
For verbal learners, this is also a helpful tactic; talk about your ideas aloud and record yourself. You can then play this recording back and try to pick holes in your argument, or look for structural issues. This sort of approach is great for those who struggle to write coherently.
6. Leave Extra Time
This is something that many, many students struggle with, but leaving yourself extra time is critical when it comes to writing a good essay. If you start your essay at 3 AM the day it is due, you’re going to have an unpleasant experience and produce shoddy work.
If you start a week in advance, you’ve got time for all sorts of things – including frequent breaks and getting help from other people on your course. You’ve also got some leeway if you get sick one day.
You should always build a couple more days than you expect you need into for your writing assignments. If you plan to write 500 words per day and you’ve got a 2000-word essay to complete, you should start at least 6 days before the due date.
Having this extra time will make the whole writing process less stressful, and improves the experience significantly for most people. If you really hate writing college essays, try this approach – but you have to be disciplined and stick to it for it to work!
7. Avoid Distractions
This is another one that requires discipline, but it’s still worth knowing about. Put aside distractions when you sit down to write, and recognize when good and bad writing times are. Don’t try to work on your essay when your favorite TV show is on or when you’ve got friends coming over in ten minutes.
Instead, create blocks of time where you don’t have any other tempting commitments, and actively put aside other distractions at this point. Turn your phone onto silent, close unnecessary tabs, and give your essay your full focus. This will make the writing process go much faster and will make it feel like less of a chore, because you won’t have to constantly drag your focus back to it.
8. Avoid Procrastination
Procrastination is something a lot of college students are familiar with, but for the reasons mentioned in the last tip, it can make writing essays feel like so much more of a chore. The longer you leave it, the more the essay will build up in your mind, and this can make it unnecessarily daunting.
Instead, make a start on essays almost as soon as they are set if you can. Just having started often makes a big difference to how you feel about the essay, and can make it much easier to get on with it. Even if you only write a few sentences, stop procrastinating and get something down on the paper!
9. Use Rewards
Nobody likes writing essays, but you can make the experience more enjoyable if you link it to rewards. This is a great way of tricking your brain into wanting to do the essay, or at least into finding it more tolerable.
Rewards can be anything, from candy to games. You might allow yourself to “earn” a treat, coffee or a shiny new notebook, or you might give yourself a night off to play games or go out after completing half of the essay.
You’ll soon learn which of these strategies works well for you, but use them to reward yourself for writing the essay, and you’ll find that your brain starts to make positive connections. This can be a great way to tackle the negativity that you may feel toward writing essays.
10. Don’t Aim For Immediate Perfection
One of the major problems that many people run into is that they expect their essays to be perfect from the word “go.” This can result in a lot of frustration as you constantly delete and redo drafts, and never make any noticeable progress in terms of the word count or the argument you’re trying to present.
Instead, take a different approach. Accept that your first draft will not be perfect, and be okay with that. A first draft should be rough – the purpose is just to get the ideas on paper and flesh them out. You can make your essay better later, but if you want it to be perfect in its first iteration, you’re probably setting yourself up to fail.
Expecting immediate perfection puts so much pressure on the writing process that it becomes really unpleasant and much harder to do. Instead, recognize that most ideas don’t come out well the first time, and it’s okay to have an essay that needs work when you’ve finished writing the first draft.
11. Take The Time To Revise
This is very closely linked with the point above, but make sure you do it. Don’t drop your pen (or keyboard) as soon as you hit the word count and then toss the essay aside. You need to revise it. Following through with this process every time you write an essay can reduce the pressure on the writing and make it easier to do it.
If you hate writing college papers, you might dread the thought of revising them, but you shouldn’t. Revisions can often be quick and easy, and they make a significant difference to the quality of your writing.
Again, you can get a friend involved here if you choose to, and it might make this stage more fun. Offer feedback on their essay in exchange, and you’ll both benefit from having a fresh pair of eyes look over your work.
12. Use A Pen And Paper
Those who struggle to get the words down in the first draft often find this technique really helps. Having a bit of scrap paper and a pen or pencil you like to scribble with can make a huge difference in expressing your thoughts.
This might feel like an added step because you’ll have to type the work up later, but it can be freeing to write this way, and it’s much easier to link ideas, draw mind maps, and scribble notes to yourself if you take this approach.
Working on the computer often comes with an added sense of pressure because it feels more formal. Many people find that changing their medium and creating a plan on paper first encourages better and more fluid ideas, and makes the whole thing feel less daunting.
Conclusion: Why do Students Hate Writing Essays?
Believe it or not, some students love writing college essays because it provides an opportunity for them to express their thoughts and ideas. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the majority finds the process of writing quite dull.
There are several reasons why students might want to avoid writing college essays. Here are the most common ones:
- difficulty getting started on a writing assignment
- feeling overwhelmed by the task
- struggling to organize and use proper arguments and ideas in their writing
- having a hard time choosing the right words to express their ideas
- difficulty developing ideas fluently
- having trouble keeping track of their thoughts while writing
- feeling that the writing process is slow and tedious
- being dissatisfied with the final product
- experiencing difficulties with handwriting or spelling due to dysgraphia or dyslexia.
However, there are lots of tricks you can use if you find writing essays hard, and hopefully some of those covered here will help you. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to do the whole thing at once! Chip away at it a little at a time, and you’ll soon have something ready for submission.