Help with midterm season & exam essays

College expository writing study skills writing

Need writing help? It’s midterm season, so I am here with tips about writing exam essays. 

The exam essay is a completely different beast than any other essay.  Whereas normally I would instruct students to think creatively about writing – to be free! – for exam essays, I generally advise students to adopt a policy of constraint. 

Here are some tips for writing exam essays for your midterms: 

  1. Come to the essay armed with knowledge and a handful of arguments you can use in the time that you’re writing.  The moment of creativity needs to come while you are studying, not during the exam.

  2. Prepare a time scheme.  If the essay is meant to take 30 minutes, break it up into parts: thesis + outline (5 minutes), introduction (5 minutes), body (10 minutes), conclusion (5 minutes), proofread (5 minutes).

  3. Read the prompt and identify the component parts.  What are you being asked?  Is there a passage?  If so, what are the different parts of the passage that you should be looking at carefully while you read? Underline the prompt; underline the relevant passage.  Jot down some notes.

  4. Look over your underlining and notes.  What are the major patterns in your observations?  Jot down the key ideas that have emerged for you to this point. What are your key points and what evidence can you use to support them?  Consider what it is you want to tell the reader.
  5. Outline the essay.  Make sure you write down what each paragraph will be about (the topic sentence) and what the essay as whole will be about (the thesis statement).  Make a plan for your essay.  You should include an even amount of time per paragraph as well as time at the end for copy editing and proofreading.

  6. Write. Remember that the topic sentence must come first in any paragraph.  The paragraph functions to support the topic sentence with evidence.  The last sentence of the paragraph serves as a mini-conclusion to the point of the paragraph.

  7. Spend a little time on your conclusion, so that it effectively summarizes what you’ve written.  Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself.  In an exam essay, repetition can be very clarifying.

  8. Once you have drafted the essay, go back and refine the introduction/thesis statement as well as each topic sentence.  These are the most important elements of the essay.  Proofread the essay.

The most important aspect of an exam essay is to realize that the real work happens before you actually come into the exam room (see tip #1).  So, even if you are crushed with studying, try to prepare a thesis statement for your exam essay in advance.  This can often be a more efficient use of your time than cramming in hundreds of pages of reading.

Above all, keep a cool head and write what you know.  Don’t grasp at straws; make the most of the knowledge you have, even if it’s slimmer than you hoped when you started the semester.  Writing from your knowledge, however limited, will lend your written voice confidence.

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