3 Strategies for Tackling a Lengthy Writing Assignment

Starting a lengthy writing assignment can feel like standing at the base of a mountain—before you take the first step, you’re gazing at what seems like an impossible task. Similar to a difficult hike, long-form writing can be rewarding. When approaching a lengthy writing assignment, it’s important to take it one step at a time—thoroughly review your gathered research, create an outline, and set project goals.

Step #1: Conduct Thorough Research

In order to successfully complete a lengthy writing assignment, it’s important to have a deep understanding of your topic. The more you know about your chosen topic, the easier it will be to write about it. Targeted research involves a great deal of reading, so depending on when your deadline is, you may spend several days or weeks on the research phase.

Take good notes while you read your source material, and make copies of library sources to reference later. Look at the reference lists of any scholarly work you’re using as background to see if there are other sources that may be useful to you. The further you can go during this phase, the more information you’ll have to draw from when needing to support the points in your essay.

Step #2: Create an Outline

Outlines are a great tool for writing any kind of essay and keeping yourself on topic and organized. They’re especially important for longer writing assignments, though, because you’ll have a plethora of information to include.

Outlining will help you to be more purposeful in deciding what information to include and how to order it. You may want to try outlining in stages, starting with a bare-bones version as you continue your research to figure out where you need more information. After this, you can fill in more details as you learn more about your topic and formulate your important points. Plan to include these main sections as a starting point:

• An introduction, including a thesis statement that tells the reader what your argument is. You can always change this later to make it wider or narrower in scope, but it’s good to at least have an idea of the direction for your paper.
• A list of the main points to include in your essay. These will be the backbone of the essay’s body and should each tie back to the thesis statement, providing evidence for your main objective.
• A conclusion that reiterates your main points without simply restating them. Try to show how your ideas fit...

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