Writing Services: Planning Papers

There are many benefits to planning your papers before you begin. Explore some of the common ones below.

• Reduces stress: this is a big one. Planning your papers gives you a sense of your tasks, allows you to break things down and complete steps little by little. This goes a long way to helping reduce overwhelm.
• Helps you stay on track with deadlines: it's important to submit papers and assignments on time. Having a plan allows you to meet deadlines without submitting your work late (and losing marks). 
• Increases organization, productivity, and efficiency: having a plan with timelines helps you focus on your tasks rather than procrastinate. 
• Improves the quality of your writing: another big benefit that's often overlooked! When you have a plan, you are more likely to give yourself the time needed to reflect, research, and write effectively. You are also more likely to edit your work before submitting it - an important step for improving your writing. 

In preparation for assignments and papers, it's important to know your instructions inside and out, and follow them closely. We recommend that you practice:

1. Reading instructions EARLY (the same day you receive them) for every assignment/paper you receive. Set aside 10-15 minutes to review instructions.
2. Practice scheduling this task into you phone, planner or agenda.

This prevents last minute reading, misunderstanding instructions, adding wrong information to papers, or forgetting information, which leads to lower grades. 

Active Reading Strategies for Instructions & Tracking Progress

We recommend that you practice paying close attention to your instructions by doing the following:

• Read instructions section by section
• Underline or highlight key information (ex: deadline, %'s)
• Rewrite or make additional notes in the margins
• Ask your instructor questions ASAP if you don't understand something.
• Checkmark or cross off information you have added to your assignment as you work through it.

Example: Actively reading instructions

Example: Tracking progress

Planning papers, assignments, or any large task includes:

1. Breaking down papers into smaller, manageable steps.
2. Assigning mini-deadline dates to each step. 

Each of these steps is important to managing overwhelm and staying on track to completing a large (or small) paper. See below for an example.

Example plan for a small paper (no research)

Like what you see but want more guidance? Try the online planning calculators below

Planning calculators do a chunk of the work for you. Click on one of the assignment calculator links below, then fill out the information required (assignment start and end dates, and select the type of assignment). The calculator will then provide you with a general guideline of steps and suggested deadline dates. IMPORTANT: remember to use these calculators as a starting point. Your assignment is unique, so you may need to adjust the steps to fit your assignment/paper as needed.

Icon by juicy_fish from Freepik

Check out and download the Group Work Checklist (PDF) below. It provides a great guide to planning and organizing your group papers, presentations, or projects. 

Try the Written Kitten website. It tracks how many words you've written and provides a pop-up of a cute animal picture every time you hit your goal. 

Icon by Candy Design - from Freepik

Did you know that the Pomodoro timer is great for writing?

It encourages short work sessions (25 minutes), making it a great tool to help you get started on your writing...and avoid procrastination.