University of Newcastle

How to plan an essay: Essay Planning

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How to plan an essay

Essay planning is an important step in academic essay writing.

Proper planning helps you write your essay faster, and focus more on the exact question.  As you draft and write your essay, record any changes on the plan as well as in the essay itself, so they develop side by side.

One way to start planning an essay is with a ‘box plan’.

First, decide how many stages you want in your argument – how many important points do you want to make? Then, divide a box into an introduction + one paragraph for each stage + a conclusion.

Next, figure out how many words per paragraph you'll need.

Usually, the introduction and conclusion are each about 10% of the word count. This leaves about 80% of the word count for the body - for your real argument. Find how many words that is, and divide it by the number of body paragraphs you want. That tells you about how many words each paragraph can have.

Remember, each body paragraph discusses one main point, so make sure each paragraph's long enough to discuss the point properly (flexible, but usually at least 150 words).

For example, say the assignment is

Fill in the table as follows:

Next, record each paragraph's main argument, as either a heading or  topic sentence (a sentence to start that paragraph, to immediately make its point clear).

Finally, use dot points to list useful information or ideas from your research notes for each paragraph. Remember to include references so you can connect each point to your reading.

The other useful document for essay planning is the marking rubric .

This indicates what the lecturer is looking for, and helps you make sure all the necessary elements are there.

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  • Last Updated: Feb 15, 2024 1:23 PM
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7 Steps for Writing an Essay Plan

Have you ever started writing an essay then realized you have run out of ideas to talk about?

This can make you feel deflated and you start to hate your essay!

How to write an Essay Plan

The best way to avoid this mid-essay disaster is to plan ahead: you need to write an Essay Plan!

Essay planning is one of the most important skills I teach my students. When I have one-to-one tutorials with my students, I always send them off with an essay plan and clear goals about what to write.

Essay Planning isn’t as dull as you think. In fact, it really does only take a short amount of time and can make you feel oh so relieved that you know what you’re doing!

Here’s my 7-Step method that I encourage you to use for your next essay:

The 7-Step Guide on How to write an Essay Plan

  • Figure out your Essay Topic (5 minutes)
  • Gather your Sources and take Quick Notes (20 minutes)
  • Brainstorm using a Mind-Map (10 minutes)
  • Arrange your Topics (2 minutes)
  • Write your topic Sentences (5 minutes)
  • Write a No-Pressure Draft in 3 Hours (3 hours)
  • Edit your Draft Once every Few Days until Submission (30 minutes)

I’ve been using this 7-Step essay planning strategy since I was in my undergraduate degree. Now, I’ve completed a PhD and written over 20 academic journal articles and dozens of blog posts using this method – and it still works!

Let’s go through my 7 steps for how to write an essay plan.

Prefer to Watch than Read? Here’s our video on writing an Essay Plan.

how to write an essay plan

1. figure out your essay topic. here’s how..

Where did your teacher provide you with your assessment details?

Find it. This is where you begin.

Now, far, far, far too many students end up writing essays that aren’t relevant to the essay question given to you by your teacher. So print out your essay question and any other advice or guidelines provided by your teacher.

Here’s some things that your assessment details page might include:

  • The essay question;
  • The marking criteria;
  • Suggested sources to read;
  • Some background information on the topic

The essay question is really important. Once you’ve printed it I want you to do one thing:

Highlight the key phrases in the essay question.

Here’s some essay questions and the key phrases you’d want to highlight:

This strategy helps you to hone in on exactly what you want to talk about. These are the key phrases you’re going to use frequently in your writing and use when you look for sources to cite in your essay!

The other top thing to look at is the marking criteria. Some teachers don’t provide this, but if they do then make sure you pay attention to the marking criteria !

Here’s an example of a marking criteria sheet:

Sample Essay Topic: Is Climate Change the Greatest Moral Challenge of our Generation?

Now, if you have a marking criteria you really need to pay attention to this. You have to make sure you’ve ticked off all the key criteria that you will be marked on. For the example above, your essay is going to have to make sure it:

  • Takes a position about whether climate change is a serious challenge for human kind;
  • Discusses multiple different people’s views on the topic;
  • Explores examples and case studies (‘practical situations’);
  • Uses referencing to back up your points.

The reason you need to be really careful to pay attention to this marking criteria is because it is your cheat sheet: it tells you what to talk about!

Step 1 only takes you five minutes and helps you to clearly clarify what you’re going to be talking about! Now your mind is tuned in and you can start doing some preliminary research.

2. Gather your Sources and take Quick Notes. Here’s how.

Now that you know what your focus is, you can start finding some information to discuss. You don’t want to just write things from the top of your head. If you want top marks, you want some deep, detailed and specific pieces of information.

Fortunately, your teacher has probably made this easy for you.

The top source for finding information will be the resources your teacher provided. These resources were hand picked by your teacher because they believed these were the best sources available our there on the topic. Here are the most common resources teachers provide:

  • Lecture Slides;
  • Assigned Readings.

The lecture slides are one of the best resources for you to access. Lecture slides are usually provided online for you. Download them, save them on your computer, and dig them up when it’s time to write the essay plan.

Find the lecture slides most relevant to your topic. To take the example of our climate change essay, maybe climate change is only discussed in three of the weeks in your course. Those are the three weeks’ lecture slides you want to hone-in on.

Flick through those lecture slides and take quick notes on a piece of paper – what are the most important topics and statistics that are relevant to your essay question?

Now, move on to the assigned readings . Your teacher will have selected some readings for you to do for homework through the semester. They may be eBooks, Textbooks or Journal Articles.

These assigned readings were assigned for a reason: because they have very important information to read ! Scan through them and see if there’s any more points you can add to your list of statistics and key ideas to discuss.

Next, try to find a few more sources using Google Scholar. This is a great resource for finding more academic articles that you can read to find even more details and ideas to add to your essay.

Here’s my notes that I researched for the essay question “Is Climate Change the Greatest Moral Challenge of our Generation?” As you can see, it doesn’t have to be beautiful #Studygram notes! It’s just rough notes to get all the important information down:

sample of rough notes scrawled on paper

Once you’ve read the assigned lecture slides and readings, you should have a good preliminary list of ideas, topics, statistics and even quotes that you can use in step 3.

3. Brainstorm using a Mind-Map. Here’s how.

Do your initial notes look a little disorganized?

That’s okay. The point of Step 2 was to gather information. Now it’s time to start sorting these ideas in your mind.

The best way to organize thoughts is to create a Mind-Map. Here’s how Mind-Maps often look:

sample blank mind-map

For your essay plan Mind-Map, write the essay question in the middle of the page and draw a circle around it.

mind-map with essay question written in center

Then, select the biggest and most important key ideas that you think are worth discussing in the essay. To decide on these, you might want to look back at the notes you took in Step 2.

Each key idea will take up around about 200 – 350 words (1 to 2 sentences).

Here’s a rough guide for how many key ideas you’ll want depending on your essay length:

  • 1000-word essay: 3 to 4 key ideas
  • 1500-word essay: 5 to 7 key ideas
  • 2000-word essay: 6 to 8 key ideas
  • 3000-word essay: 9 to 12 key ideas

Once you’ve selected your key ideas you can list them in a circle around the essay question, just like this:

mind map with essay question and key ideas filled-in

Last, we need to add detail and depth to each key idea. So, draw more lines out from each key ideas and list:

  • Two sources that you will cite for each key idea;
  • A statistic or example that you will provide for each key idea;
  • Any additional interesting facts for each key idea

Here’s how it might look once you’re done:

completed mind-map

4. Arrange your Topics. Here’s how.

You’re well and truly on your way to getting your essay down on paper now.

There’s one last thing to do before you start getting words down on the manuscript that you will submit. You need to arrange your topics to decide which to write first, second, third, fourth, and last!

Here are some things to keep in mind:

  • Start and end with your strongest points;
  • Ensure the points logically flow.

To ensure your points logically flow, think about how you’re going to transition from one idea to the next . Does one key point need to be made first so that the other ones make sense?

Do two key points seem to fit next to one another? If so, make sure you list them side-by-side.

Have a play around with the order you want to discuss the ideas until you’re comfortable. Then, list them in order. Here’s my order for my Climate Change essay:

Each of these key ideas is going to turn into a paragraph or two (probably two) in the essay.

5. Write your topic Sentences in just 5 minutes. Here’s how.

All good essays have clear paragraphs that start with a topic sentence . To turn these brainstormed key points into an essay, you need to get that list you wrote in Step 5 and turn each point into a topic sentence for a paragraph.

It’s important that the first sentence of each paragraph clearly states the paragraph’s topic. Your marker is going to want to know exactly what your paragraph is about immediately. You don’t want your marker to wait until the 3 rd , 4 th or 5 th line of a paragraph before they figure out what you’re talking about in the paragraph.

So, you need to state what your key idea is in the first sentence of the paragraph.

Let’s have a go at turning each of our key ideas into a topic sentence:

6. Write a No-Pressure Essay Draft in just 3 Hours. Here’s how.

Okay, now the rubber hits the road. Let’s get writing!

When you write your first draft, don’t put pressure on yourself. Remind yourself that this is the first of several attempts at creating a great essay, so it doesn’t need to be perfect right away. The important thing is that you get words down on paper.

To write the draft, have a go at adding to each of your topic sentences to turn them into full paragraphs. Follow the information you wrote down in your notes and Mind-Map to get some great details down on paper.

Forget about the introduction and conclusion for now. You can write them last.

Let’s have a go at one together. I’m going to choose the paragraph on my key idea “Is climate change caused by humans?”

I’ve already got my first sentence and my brainstormed ideas. Let’s build on them to write a draft paragraph:

screenshot of a section of a mind map displaying key ideas for the essay

  • “Most scientists believe climate change is caused by humans. In fact, according to the IPCC, over 98% of climate change scientists accept the scientific data that climate change is caused by humans (IPCC, 2018). This figure is very high, signalling overwhelming expert consensus. This consensus holds that the emission of carbon from burning of fossil fuels in the 20 th Century is trapping heat into the atmosphere. However, a minority of dissenting scientists continue to claim that this carbon build-up is mostly the fault of natural forces such as volcanoes which emit enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere (Bier, 2013).”

Your turn – have a go at your own draft paragraphs based on your Mind-Map for your essay topic! If you hit a rut or have some trouble, don’t forget to check out our article on how to write perfect paragraphs .

Once you’ve written all your paragraphs, make sure you write an introduction and conclusion .

Gone over the word count? Check out our article on how to reduce your word count.

7. Edit your Draft Once every Few Days until Submission. Check out this simple approach:

Okay, hopefully after your three hour essay drafting session you’ve got all your words down on paper. Congratulations!

However, we’re not done yet.

The best students finish their drafts early on so they have a good three or four weeks to come back and re-read their draft and edit it every few days.

When coming back to edit your draft , here’s a few things to look out for:

  • Make sure all the paragraph and sentence structure makes sense. Feel free to change words around until things sound right. You might find that the first time you edit something it sounds great, but next time you realize it’s not as good as you thought. That’s why we do multiple rounds of edits over the course of a few weeks;
  • Check for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors;
  • Print out your draft and read it on paper. You notice more mistakes when you read a printed-out version;
  • Work on adding any more details and academic sources from online sources like Google Scholar to increase your chance of getting a top grade. Here’s our ultimate guide on finding scholarly sources online – it might be helpful for this step!

Before you go – Here’s the Actionable Essay Plan Tips Summed up for you

Phew! That essay was tough. But with this essay plan, you can get through any essay and do a stellar job! Essay planning is a great way to ensure your essays make sense, have a clear and compelling argument, and don’t go off-topic.

I never write an essay without one.

To sum up, here are the 7 steps to essay planning one more time:

The 7-Step Guide for How to Write an Essay Plan

Chris

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
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How to Write an Essay Plan

Essay planning might seem like a waste of time, but it’s not! In fact, planning your essays will save you time and energy in the long-run.

This is because it’s much easier to write an essay that’s already been planned. You won’t need to worry about which point should come next or whether your argument is strong enough. Instead, you can focus purely on writing the essay.

So, if you want to ease the stress of essay writing and improve your grades, make essay planning a priority!

How will planning improve my grades?

Essays plans can:

  • Help you create a clear structure
  • Help you distribute the word count evenly
  • Prevent you from missing material out
  • Help you build a strong argument
  • Allow you to get feedback (many tutors will look at essay plans)
  • Alleviate writer’s block (when it comes to writing the essay)

Once you’ve written a few essay plans, you’ll appreciate just how much value they can add to your essays.

What does an essay plan look like?

An essay plan is a skeleton outline of your essay. It summarises what will be included in each paragraph and how the paragraphs will link together. It also states how many words will be used in each section, and the key references that’ll be used. Check out the essay plan template below for more details.

Essay plan template

Essay title: [….], introduction – […] words.

  • Engage with the essay question: [….]
  • State your position or argument: [….]
  • State any theories or frameworks that will inform the essay (if applicable): […]
  • Outline the structure of the essay: [….]

Paragraph 1 – […] words

  • Outline your first key point: [….]
  • Provide evidence (empirical research, theories, examples etc): [….]
  • Consider any criticisms of the above, then rebut: […]
  • Restate the main point and its relevance to the overall argument, link to next paragraph: […]

Paragraph 2 – […] words

  • Outline your second key point: [….]
  • Consider any criticisms of the above, then rebut […]

Paragraph 3 – […] words

  • Outline third key point: [….]
  • Restate the main point and its relevance to the overall argument: […]

Conclusion – […] words

  • Revisit the essay question and re-state your position/argument: [….]
  • Summarise the points from each paragraph: [….]
  • Offer a slightly new perspective and leave a lasting impression: [….]
  • List the key references to be used: [….]

Total word count: […]

It’s worth mentioning that essay plans aren’t perfect. They provide an outline of the essay, but some elements will probably change during the write-up process. In many ways, writing an essay plan is like planning a car journey. You’ll have a clear sense of where you’re going, but you might have to take some detours along the way.

A step-by-step guide to filling in the essay plan

If the essay plan template looks daunting then don’t worry, try breaking it down into stages:

1. Interpret and rephrase the essay question

You’ll see that the first stage of the essay plan asks you to ‘engage with the essay question’ .

Often, essays fail because they haven’t answered the question. That said, you should begin by making sure you understand the essay question. To do this, take a copy of the essay title and highlight the most important phrases. Then, slightly rephrase the question, and add it to your essay plan.

As an example,

Engage with the essay question: This essay critically evaluates what the gig economy means for employment relations issues, particularly workers’ rights and work-life balance.

2. State your position or argument

As shown above, the next stage of the essay plan is to state your position or argument. You will need to have done some research/background reading to get a sense of what you want to ‘argue’ in your essay. As an example,

3. Choose your key points

Once you’ve planned your introduction, it’s time to choose the themes that will be covered in your paragraphs. You should only include one key point per paragraph. Example:

Paragraph 1 – 150 words

  • Outline your first key point: Some gig economy workers are labelled as ‘independent contractors’, rather than ‘workers’ (even though they do the duties of ‘workers’). This means that they are not entitled to employment rights such as sick pay and holiday pay. By labelling their staff as ‘independent contractors’, these companies undermine workers’ rights.
  • Provide evidence (empirical research, theories, examples etc): Deliveroo will be used as an example. Employee experiences reported in the press (see Smith, 2018) and journal articles relating to this case will be cited (see Adams, 2019). Also, employment rights legislation will be presented (Gov, 2020).
  • Consider any criticisms of the above, then rebut: Independent workers’ unions have helped some gig-economy workers fight back and achieve ‘worker’ status. This suggests that the gig economy is not inevitably exploitative. However, the unions have not been able to achieve ‘worker’ status for Deliveroo riders, despite fighting hard.
  • Restate the main point and its relevance to the overall argument, link to next paragraph: As such, this substantiates the suggestion that some gig economy companies have undermined centuries of workers’ rights progress. As such, it can be said that some gig economy companies are leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation. Indeed, another exploitative facet of the gig economy is that workers often carry a high ‘burden of responsibility’ but are not comparatively compensated, as is explored in the next paragraph.

If you want to learn more about how to structure your paragraphs, check out our guidance on how to structure an essay .

4. Gather the evidence

When writing your plan, make a note of the key sources you will use in your essay. You’ll notice that under each paragraph, it says to ‘Provide evidence (empirical research, theories, examples etc)’.

It’s advisable to include at least one reference per paragraph. The more references you can gather before you start writing your essay, the better! Also, put the full citation in the ‘Reference list’ section of your essay plan so that you don’t lose it.

5. Offer a slightly new perspective and leave a lasting impression

Good essay conclusions don’t just repeat material that was discussed in the essay. Rather, they offer a slightly advanced perspective on the material that was discussed in the essay. This ‘advanced’ perspective can be quite difficult to plan for as it is often realised as a result of actually writing the essay.

However, this point has still been included in the essay plan template as it acts as a reminder. Want more tips on how to write an essay conclusion? Check out our detailed guidance!

6. Divide up the word count

You will notice that, next to each paragraph on the essay plan, there’s a space to fill in the suggested word count. Dividing up the word count before you start writing will stop you from exceeding the word limit when you write up your essay.

Essays are all different, but, as a general rule, the word count tends to be allocated as follows:

  • Intro – 5-10%
  • Main body (split into paragraphs) – 80-90%
  • Conclusion – 5-10%

To create a sense of balance, try to keep all the paragraphs a similar length.

When done properly, an essay plan can take several hours to write. But, as mentioned, it’ll save you so much time and energy in the long run. Not to mention, it’ll make the writing process a lot less stressful!

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Home — Essay Samples — Business — Planning — Planning – Is the Road to Success

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Planning - is The Road to Success

  • Categories: Planning Strategic Planning Success

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Words: 525 |

Published: Aug 30, 2022

Words: 525 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Works Cited

  • Drucker, P. F. (2008). The Practice of Management. HarperBusiness.
  • Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B., & Lampel, J. (2008). Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through the Wilds of Strategic Management. Free Press.
  • Blank, S. G. (2013). The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company. K&S Ranch.
  • Covey, S. R. (2004). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. Free Press.
  • Gino, F. (2018). Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan. Harvard Business Review Press.
  • McKeown, G. (2014). Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Crown Business.
  • Allen, D. (2015). Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Penguin Books.
  • Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown and Company.
  • Sinek, S. (2009). Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Portfolio.
  • Vanderkam, L. (2016). What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home. Portfolio.

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Essay writing

  • Introduction

Answering the question

Generating ideas, planning your essay, different planning methods.

  • Writing your essay
  • Developing your essay writing

Useful links for writing essays

  • Study Advice Helping students to achieve study success with guides, video tutorials, seminars and one-to-one advice sessions.
  • Academic writing LibGuide Expert guidance on punctuation, grammar, writing style and proof-reading.
  • Guide to citing references Includes guidance on why, when and how to use references correctly in your academic writing.
  • Reading and notemaking LibGuide Expert guidance on managing your reading and making effective notes.
  • Academic Phrasebank Use this site for examples of linking phrases and ways to refer to sources.
  • Ten stages of assignment success (Prezi) Based upon Burns and Sinfield, Essential Study Skills.
  • Critical Thinking A short video on Critical Thinking that the BBC have prepared in partnership with The Open University

The first thing to do when preparing to write an essay is to make a plan. You could just rush in and write everything that comes into your head, but that would make it difficult for your marker to read and would reduce the effectiveness of your ideas. These will make much stronger arguments if you group them together than they would do on their own.

The guidance on this page will show you how to plan and structure your essay to produce a strong and focused response to the question.

A very common complaint from lecturers and examiners is that students write a lot of information but they just don't answer the question. Don't rush straight into researching – give yourself time to think carefully about the question and understand what it is asking.

essay on planning

Underlining key words – This is a good start point for making sure you understand all the terms (some might need defining); identifying the crucial information in the question; and clarifying what the question is asking you to do (compare & contrast, analyse, discuss). But make sure you then consider the question as a whole again, not just as a series of unconnected words.

Re-read the question – Read the question through a few times. Explain it to yourself, so you are sure you know what it is asking you to do.

Try breaking the question down into sub-questions – What is the question asking? Why is this important? How am I going to answer it? What do I need to find out first, second, third in order to answer the question? This is a good way of working out what important points or issues make up the overall question – it can help focus your reading and start giving your essay a structure. However, try not to have too many sub-questions as this can lead to following up minor issues, as opposed to the most important points.

  • Answering the question and planning (video) Watch this brief video tutorial for more on the topic.
  • Answering the question and planning (transcript) Read along while watching the video tutorial.

essay on planning

The kinds of things to note briefly are:

  • What you already know about the topic – from lectures, seminars, general knowledge.
  • Things you don't know about the topic, but need to find out in order to answer the question.
  • Initial responses or answers to the question – what you think your conclusion might possibly be.

This helps you start formulating your argument and direction for answering the question. It also helps you focus your reading, as you can pinpoint what you need to find out and go straight to the parts of books, chapters, articles that will be most relevant.

After reading - After your reading, it is often good to summarise all your findings on a page. Again, a spider diagram can help with this.

Bringing together the key points from your reading helps clarify what you have found out, and helps you find a pathway through all the ideas and issues you have encountered. If you include brief details of authors and page nos. for key information, it can act as a quick at-a-glance guide for finding the evidence you need to support your points later.

It also helps you see how your initial response to the question might have changed or become more sophisticated in light of the reading you've done. It leads into planning your essay structure.

essay on planning

  • It enables you to work out a logical structure and an end point for your argument before you start writing.
  • It means you don't have to do this type of complex thinking at the same time as trying to find the right words to express your ideas.
  • It helps you to commit yourself to sticking to the point!

You need to work out what to include, and what can be left out. It is impossible to cover everything in an essay, and your markers will be looking for evidence of your ability to choose material and put it in order. Brainstorm all your ideas, then arrange them in three or four groups. Not everything will fit so be prepared to discard some points (you can mention them briefly in your introduction).

Outline what you are going to include in each section:

  • Introduction : Address the question, show why it's interesting and how you will answer it.
  • Main body : Build your argument. Put your groups of ideas in a sequence to make a persuasive argument. One main point in each paragraph.
  • Conclusion : Summarise your arguments and evidence, and show how they answer the original question.

Writing a summary - Some people plan best once they have written something, as this helps clarify their thinking. If you prefer to write first, try summarising the central idea of your essay in a few sentences. This gives you a clear direction for working out how you are going to break it down into points supported by evidence. You can then use one of the methods below to write a more detailed plan.

  • Structuring your essay (video) Watch this brief video tutorial for more on the topic.
  • Structuring your essay (transcript) Read along while watching the video tutorial.

essay on planning

Bullet points / linear plans - This type of plan lists the main points using bullet points or numbers. It can be a brief outline of the main point per paragraph, or a more detailed plan with sub-points and a note of the evidence to support each point (e.g. source and page no.).

No plan is perfect, so be prepared for your ideas to change as you write your essay. However, once you have an initial plan it is much easier to adapt it and see where new things fit if your thinking does change.

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Planning an Essay

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This page is the first of two that describe the processes involved in producing an essay for academic purposes, for school, college or university and covers the planning stages of essay writing, which are important to the overall process.

The second page, Writing an Essay , provides more information on the steps involved in actually writing an essay. We recommend you read both pages to gain a full understanding.

Developing the skill of essay writing takes practice, time and patience , your essay writing skills will improve and develop the more you write.

With the help of your course tutor (teacher or lecturer) and peers (other students) and from constructive feedback from the marker of your work, writing an essay will become easier as you progress through your studies and your confidence increases.

This page details general good practice in essay planning, including what you should do and what you should try to avoid. It is important however, that you understand the specific requirements of your school, college or university.

Writing an essay helps you to consider the issues raised in your course and to relate them to your own experience, way of thinking, and also any wider additional reading and research you may have undertaken in order to tackle the essay topic. 

Writing an essay (or other assignment) is an important part of the learning process.  In the writing of an assignment, learning occurs as you think through and interpret the points raised (together with those of other writers on the subject).

Presenting your experience and showing understanding within your assignment will, from the marker's point of view, demonstrate your knowledge of the subject area.

The Purpose of an Essay

The original meaning of an essay is ' an attempt ', or a try, at something. It is therefore appropriate to consider writing an essay as a learning exercise.

Essays, and other academic writing, focus the mind and encourage you to come to conclusions about what you are studying.

Writing is often the best possible way to assimilate and organise information. Writing helps to highlight any areas that you have not fully understood and enables you to make further clarifications. It develops your powers of criticism, analysis and expression, and gives you a chance to try out your and other writers' ideas on the subject.

The feedback you receive from the marker of your essay should help to advance your study skills, writing, research and  critical thinking skills .

What is the Marker Looking For?

As an essay - in the context of this page - is an assessed piece of work, it can be very useful to consider what the person who will be assessing the work, the marker, will be looking for.

Although different types of essays in different subject areas may vary considerably in their style and content there are some key concepts that will help you understand what is required of you and your essay.

When marking an assignment, a marker will look for some of the following elements, which will demonstrate you are able to:

Find relevant information and use the knowledge to focus on the essay question or subject.

Structure knowledge and information logically, clearly and concisely.

Read purposefully and critically. (See our page: Critical Reading for more)

Relate theory to practical examples.

Analyse processes and problems.

Be persuasive and argue a case.

Find links and combine information from a number of different sources.

Answer the Question

One main factor, always worth bearing in mind, is that a marker will usually only award marks for how well you have answered the essay question.

It is likely that the marker will have a set of criteria or marking guidelines that will dictate how many marks can be awarded for each element of your essay.

Remember it is perfectly possible to write an outstanding essay, but not to have answered the original question.  This will, in all likelihood, mean a low mark.

Planning Your Essay

Planning is the process of sorting out what you want to include in your essay.

A well-planned and organised essay indicates that you have your ideas in order; it makes points clearly and logically.  In this way, a well-planned and structured essay enables the reader, or marker, to follow the points being made easily.

Essay assignments are usually formulated in one of the following ways:

As a question

A statement is given and you are asked to comment on it

An invitation to ‘ outline’ , ‘ discuss’ or ‘ critically assess’ a particular argument or point of view

Remember always write your essay based on the question that is set and not on another aspect of the subject. Although this may sound obvious, many students do not fully answer the essay question and include irrelevant information. The primary aim of an academic essay is to answer the task set, in some detail.

To help you do this, you might find the following list of stages helpful.

Producing an Essay Plan

The essay plan below contains ten steps.

It is often useful to complete the first six steps soon after receiving your essay question. That way information will be fresh and you are more likely to be thinking about your essay plan as you do other things.

Study the essay question intently.

Write the essay question out in full.

Spend some time, at least half an hour, brainstorming the subject area.

Write down your thoughts on the question subject, its scope and various aspects.

List words or phrases that you think need to be included.

Note the main points you should include to answer the question.

If, at this point, you feel unsure of what to include, talk to your tutor or a peer to clarify that you are on the right track.

Once you have finished the first six steps and you feel sure you know how to proceed, continue to expand on your initial thoughts and build a more in-depth essay outline.

Skim through any course material or lecture handouts and start to build up a more detailed outline. Scan through your own lecture notes, and if anything strikes you as relevant to the assignment task, write where to find it on your detailed outline

Write down where you will find the necessary information on each of the points in your detailed outline (lecture notes, course handouts etc.).  Indicate on the outline where you feel that some further research is necessary.

Be careful not to allow your outline to become too complicated; stick to main points and keep it relevant to the question.

If you have been given a reading list or a core text book then check the relevant sections of that.

See our page: Sources of Information for more ideas of where you can find relevant information for your essay.

Academic essays usually have a word limit and writing within the word limit is an important consideration. Many institutions will penalise students for not writing the correct amount of words – for example, the essay question may call for a 2,000 word essay, there may be a 10% grace, so anything between 1,800 and 2,200 is acceptable.

Think about the main elements that need to be covered in the essay. Make sure you allocate the greatest number of words to the 'main body of the essay' and not to a subsidiary point.

Decide how much space you can devote to each section of your outline.  For example, a third of a page for the introduction, half a page for point 1 which has two sub-points, one and a half pages for point 2 which has five sub-points etc.  Although you will not follow such a space scheme rigidly, it does enable you to keep things under control and to know how much detail to put in, keeping the balance of the essay as you originally planned.

Of course, you will make minor adjustments to your essay plan as you actually write. However, do not make major adjustments unless you are absolutely certain about the alternative and how it fits into your original scheme.

Having a strong essay plan makes the actual task of writing an essay much more efficient.

Continue to: Writing an Essay Sources of Information

See also: Essay Writing Tips Note-Taking for Reading Finding Time To Study

Planning as the Most Important Function of Management Essay

Introduction.

According to a common identification, there are currently four functions of management that are accepted by the majority of professionals: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. All four of these functions are essential and highly valued in management (Raduški, 2017). This essay argues that, although these elements are interconnected, planning can be considered to play the most significant role because it sets the main goals and strategies for further actions.

Several factors contributed to this conclusion. First of all, planning is the stage where managers set the goals and outline the steps that need to be taken to achieve desirable results (Kerzner, 2017). Dowson and Bassett (2018) claim that this is when all possible problems can be predicted and eliminated before they even arise. Having carefully planned the measures and their implementation, a manager can make a great contribution to the company’s efforts in achieving the goal.

As much as it is important, the task can certainly be challenging. Good planning skills include prioritizing, managing time and schedules, analytical and strategic thinking, possible risk assessment, as well as the ability to make quick decisions. According to Gaiya and Mkponkeabasi (2018), these skills tend to interact, so the lack of some of them can lead to serious setbacks in the work of the whole organization (Papke-Shields & Boyer-Wright, 2017). For example, if risks are not appropriately assessed, the costs may greatly exceed the expected figures. If priorities are not described concisely and reasonably, the team can spend too much time working on minor, secondary goals, getting distracted from the main objective. Thus, good managers should be able to plan all these stages with great consideration and responsibility; this is how they can prevent many problems.

In conclusion, it needs to be mentioned that the element of planning is not going to work correctly unless the rest of the functions are also performed by skilled and knowledgeable managers. However, considering their roles in an organization’s work, planning seems to stand out the most due to its highly important impact. Given that three other functions work synergistically, planning can become a key element to success.

Dowson, R., & Bassett, D. (2018). Event planning and management: Principles, planning and practice . Kogan Page Publishers.

Gaiya, A., & Mkponkeabasi, E. I. (2018). Managing quality improvement through concepts under the functions of management . GRIN Verlag.

Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling . John Wiley & Sons.

Papke-Shields, K. E., & Boyer-Wright, K. M. (2017). Strategic planning characteristics applied to project management. International Journal of Project Management , 35 (2), 169-179.

Raduški, D. (2017). Basic management functions in culture and arts organisations. Management: Journal of Sustainable Business and Management Solutions in Emerging Economies , 21 (81), 59-66.

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IvyPanda. (2022, October 14). Planning as the Most Important Function of Management. https://ivypanda.com/essays/planning-as-the-most-important-function-of-management/

"Planning as the Most Important Function of Management." IvyPanda , 14 Oct. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/planning-as-the-most-important-function-of-management/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Planning as the Most Important Function of Management'. 14 October.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Planning as the Most Important Function of Management." October 14, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/planning-as-the-most-important-function-of-management/.

1. IvyPanda . "Planning as the Most Important Function of Management." October 14, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/planning-as-the-most-important-function-of-management/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Planning as the Most Important Function of Management." October 14, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/planning-as-the-most-important-function-of-management/.

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Essay writing: Planning & drafting

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“Why should you make a plan for your essays? Why 'waste time' ...? Because it will pay off in the long run in terms of the relevance, organisation and clarity of your essay.” Don Shiach, How to Write Essays

An academic essay is a very specific form of writing. Its purpose is to answer the question in an organised and comprehensive manner. In order to do this, care should be taken at the planning stage so that you can be confident that you have included the most relevant material and that your reader can follow your line of argument as you make the points that lead to your conclusion.

1. Initial thoughts and reading

bookshelf

2. Rough planning

You should now be able to draft either a simple conclusion or a rough plan of your introduction. This is the point where you need to be deciding the key points for each of your paragraphs.

How many key points (paragraphs)?

The number of key points that you need to make to reach your conclusion will, to some extent, be dictated by the length of your essay. Academic paragraphs are usually between 200 and 300 words long (they vary more than this but it is a useful guide). With that in mind, you should be able to work out roughly how many points you need to make given the length of your essay. If we look at 3 examples:

2,000 word essay (200 for introduction, 200 for conclusion, leaves approx. 1,600 word main body) = 6-8 paragraphs (6-8 points) 3,000 word essay (300 for introduction, 300 for conclusion, leaves approx. 2,400 word main body) = 8-12 paragraphs (8-12 points) 4,500 word essay (450 for introduction, 450 for conclusion, leaves approx. 3,600 word main body) = 12-18 paragraphs (12-18 points)

The paragraphs in the longer essays will probably be grouped into themes to give your argument a bit more organisation.

Diagram of a branch splitting into two themes, each of which splits into several paragraphs

Plan your key points

Now you know how many points you need, spend time deciding what they are. You can do this as a list of bullet points, a mind map, a diagram; whatever works for you.

3. Gather the information you need for your essay

Laptop and books icons

We have workshops on finding quality information if you need any help and advice with this.  

4. Read and take notes   from the information you have gathered

Notes being taken

5. Create a detailed plan of the middle section of your essay

Using the reading you have done, revisit your draft introduction/conclusion to see if you want to amend it due to your reading. Once this is done, create a plan of the middle section of your essay which is much more detailed than your original rough plan and which takes into account any changes you made to the conclusion.

Include in your plan, your main sections and arguments, in the order in which you will present them. It may be a good idea to write out in full the topic sentence of each paragraph - the sentence that makes the point that the paragraph is about. You can see from this if your essay has a natural  flow , with the general narrative (logical story leading to your conclusion) making sense.

Arrows each labelled Point 1, then Point 2, through to Point 6, which leads to the conclusion

6. Write a full draft of your essay

Essay on a laptop

Many students write the middle section of the essay first. If this is your preferred method, use the detailed plan you have just created to help you do so. When you are satisfied with your middle section, tidy up the draft introduction or fill out your conclusion to add more detail.

This forms the basis of your essay. From now on you are revising and editing  it, not  writing  it.

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Essay on planning in an organisation.

essay on planning

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Read this essay to learn about Planning in an Organisation. After reading this essay you will learn about: 1. Concept of Planning 2. Nature of Planning 3. Planning and Decision Making 4. Managerial Planning in Business 5. Significance 6. Features of a Good Plan 7. Advantages 8. The Limitations.

  • The Limitations of Planning

Essay # 1. Concept of Planning:

Planning is an analytical thought process which covers:

(1) Assessment of the future;

(2) Determination of objectives and goals in the light of the future;

(3) The development of alternative courses of action to achieve such objectives; and

(4) Selection of the best course of action among these alternatives.

Planning is deciding in advance who will do what at a certain time and how it is to be achieved. Its focus is on making things happen. It is the first management function. Planning involves the determination of objectives based on intelligent forecasting and the development of a precise programme to achieve the objectives.

Planning in business is an on-going process because changes in business environment are continuous. A business enterprise is not living in a vacuum. It is an open, adaptive social subsystem living in a dynamic world, always trying to adapt itself to (and if possible, even influence) the ever-changing conditions of demand, supply, prices competition a technology, government policies, etc.

Essay # 2. Nature of Planning :

Important elements that describe the essential nature of planning are given below:

1. Focus on Objectives:

A plan must concentrate on accomplishing certain objectives. It lays down the ends and the means to achieve them.

2. Primacy of Planning:

Planning is the first of the managerial functions. It precedes all other management functions. It facilitates organising, directing, leading, and motivating as well as controlling. It is involved in all management functions.

3. Pervasiveness of Planning:

Planning is found at all levels of management. Top management looks after strategic planning. Middle management is in charge of administrative planning. Lower management has to concentrate on operational planning.

4. Efficiency, Economy and Accuracy:

Efficiency of plan is measured by its contribution to the objectives as economically as possible. We must have the maximum results at minimum cost. Planning also focuses on accurate forecasts.

5. Co-Ordination:

Planning co-ordinates the what, who, how, where and why of planning. Without co-ordination of all activities, we cannot have united and synchronized efforts.

6. Limiting Factors:

A planner must recognise the limiting factors (money, manpower, materials, machinery, and management) and formulate plans in the light of these critical factors.

7. Flexibility:

The process of planning should be adaptable to changing environmental conditions.

Essay # 3. Planning and Decision Making :

Decision making is an activity that diffuses itself throughout the entire process of planning. Making a decision is making a choice between two or more alternatives. The selected alternative is the decision. Choosing a course of action from all available alternatives is also called principle of alternative planning.

The best alternative so chosen is expected to accomplish the desired results, with efficiency, economy and certainty. The principle of alternative planning and decision making process are identical or similar.

Planning involves continuous collection, evaluation and selection of data. It involves scientific investigation and analysis of the possible alternative courses of action. The best alternative becomes our plan. Planning precedes nearly every decision except the most routine.

Essay # 4. Managerial Planning in Business :

Business planning is reasoning out what business we are in, where are we now and how do we get where we want to go. The essence of business planning is to assess the market opportunities which can be capitalized in the light of our capabilities and appraise the threats or risks and uncertainties to be overcome in the future.

The threats and risks are anticipated and considered as challenges/to be met by the management.

A proper and sound organisation structure must be planned to implement the adopted plans and policies. The strategy of a company (its basil long-term goals and plans) determines how the firm is to be structure and managed, i.e., how the business is organised and managed.

Management decisions and actions need a sound organisation. It helps the continued implementation of plans and programmes. Business planning also includes a review of performance and sound machinery for feedback of information to introduce corrections and a new planning-action-control cycle. Planning of controls can ensure the accomplishment of state goals.

Business planning should be a way or mode of life essential to maintain the health of an enterprise. It demands a firm determination and conviction to plan constantly and systematically and business planning must be an integral part of the management.

Essay # 5. Significance of Planning :

I. Planning focuses on the future direction, values and sense of purpose:

Continuous planning by management shows precisely what the enterprise wants to achieve in a given period as well as how it intends to accomplish the objectives formulated in advance. The organisation knows its present position and also where it wants to go. Basic objective indicate the direction of growth.

II. Planning provides a unifying decision making framework:

Every company has a number of functional departments such as production, finance, marketing and personnel. Managers in these departments must develop their own functional strategy or departmental direction. Without an overall corporate plan, there will be confusion and chaos. Without an overall corporate plan, there will be confusion and chaos.

With a clear, effective master plan each department knows what it must do to contribute to the achievement of company goals. All the departments will work in unison to achieve common corporate goals. Thus planning improves the decision making process with the organisation.

III. Planning helps to identify potential opportunities and threats:

Peter Drucker has pointed out that planning cannot completely eliminate the risks and uncertainties of our decisions. But it can certainly help to identify the potential opportunities and threats and at least minimize the risks or uncertainties. An appraisal of environmental conditions- the reveals opportunities and threats is a common step in the process of planning.

IV. Planning provides performance standards:

A good plan specifies clearly the targets to be accomplished. For example, your company’s five-year plan may prescribe that rate of return on shareholders’ investment must double within five years from 15 per cent to 30 per cent per annum. The performance of the company is measured and controlled on the basis of such a specific performance standard.

V. Tuning with the environment:

In general, organisations that plan have been the winners as against the non-planners. Planning helps the managers to control the events rather than being controlled by them. A manager can establish through planning a profitable relationship with the environment and minimise risk and insecurity.

VI. The need for planning arises from constant change:

A business enterprise lives in a dynamic and complex environment. Economic, social, political and technological trends must be noted and their influence must be taken into account in our plans and policies from time to time. An enterprise and its environment are mutually interdependent interacting with each other continuously. A business organisation lives in the world of resources, opportunities and limits.

It can survive and grow only when it continuously adapts and responds in time to changes in the environment. Change is the essence of life. If there is anything constant, it is change. We are living in a dynamic world. Change also implies progress.

Management, through comprehensive business planning, can anticipate, meet and adapt creatively to ever-changing environmental conditions and demands. Planning aids the manager to assure the survival of the organisation under keen competition and changing environment.

Essay # 6. Features of a Good Plan :

Some kind of planning is very much a part of every managerial act as breathing is a plan of living. Every plan laying down precisely a future course of action is a managerial decision taken today for tomorrow.

A good plan, according to L.F. Urwick, a noted management authority, must have the following features:

(i) A good plan is based on clearly defined objectives — overall corporate objectives as well as functional and/or individual objectives, i.e.. precise objectives of the departments well as the individuals working in the departments.

Management by objectives (MBO) is now the most widely applied method of planning under which objectives, policies and plans are set at all levels of management through meaningful participation between the boss and the subordinate officer throughout the enterprise.

(ii) A good plan is simple and easily understandable.

(iii) It is flexible or adaptable to deal with new conditions.

(iv) It is balanced in all respects and gives equal emphasis to all vital areas of business.

(v) It provides for a proper analysis and classification of actions, i.e., it establishes necessary guides and standards of performance.

(vi) It uses the available resources to the utmost before creating new resources and a new managerial setup.

(vii) It is viable or feasible and reasonable,

The best test of effective planning is its realistic and viable nature. A good plan must be pragmatic and must lead the organisation forward on the path of progress and prosperity.

Essay # 7. Advantages of Planning :

i. Integrated, consistent and purposeful action is more easily achieved. All efforts are directed towards desired objectives or results. Unproductive work and waste of resources can be minimised. Managers can relate decisions to each other and to the goals of the enterprise.

ii. Planning enables a company to remain competitive with other rivals in the industry. Progressive management can improve product or service, methods and facilities, well in time before it is forced to do so by the competition.

iii. Through careful planning, crises can be anticipated, and mistakes or delays avoided. Trouble can be more often easily corrected in its earlier stages than after a crisis has developed. By anticipating the future risk or uncertainty or impending crisis, planning helps the manager to be prepared to meet such contingencies. Forewarned is forearmed. Prevention is better than cure. Thus, a management cannot be caught unawares of the possible troubles.

iv. Planning can point out the need for future change and the enterprise can manage the change effectively. For instance, planning can reveal future uncertainties or changes in the economy and the management can be prepared to face the change with reasonable success. Management of change is based on planning.

v. Planning enables the systematic and thorough investigation of alternative methods or alternative solutions to a problem. Thus, we can have sound decisions on selection of the best method or the best alternative to solve any business problem.

vi. Plans are based on adequate information of the past and present as well as on the intelligent forecasting of the future. Hence, we have accurate and realistic plans of production, marketing, etc. Planning maximises the utilisation of available resources and ensures optimum productivity and profits.

vii. Planning provides a sound basis for reasonable and effective control. The twin of planning is control. Planning and control go hand in hand. Under planning, we have deadlines for the starting and completion of a project. We have also standards of performance reflected in our goals or targets.

A budget is not only a plan but also an instrument of control. Thus, planning facilities controlling. We have the planning- action-control-re-planning cycle in practice. Planning provides the groundwork for laying down control standards.

viii. We determine our goals, policies, procedures and time bound action programmes in advance and all activities are co-ordinated and directed along the predetermined channels. Hence, there is no problem of confusion or chaos, no need to grope in the dark. We have an orderly and smooth journey to arrive at our destination.

ix. The Systems approach to business planning and business management demands synthesis, better co-ordination and integration of all functional areas of business organisation and we have overall planning of the enterprise as a whole.

Planning enables management to relate the whole enterprise to its complex environment profitably. We can visualize the interrelation of different departments as well as inter­relations of the enterprise with all environmental forces.

x. Under keen competition and the fast-changing environmental forces, particularly in the branch of science and technology, business planning in a comprehensive manner alone can assure survival and growth or prosperity.

xi. Planning facilitates effective delegation of authority to act, removes communication difficulties, provides proper machinery for co-ordination and integration of all functions.

Essay # 8. The Limitations of Planning :

There are some very practical limitations on detailed planning in advance for a long period. Virtually all work needs planning, at least informal and a few minutes ahead. On-the-spot plans made by someone are in evitable. The need for planning is unquestioned.

The real problem centres round how far in advance and in the what, detail a company should plan in practice. It is said that extensive planning for long periods in advance are impractical as there are certain important limitations.

i. The accuracy and reliability of most of the forecasts diminishes, rapidly as these forecasts are projected further and further into the future. A plan is useful only as long as the planning premises or assumptions on which it is based prove substantially accurate.

The future is un-predictable and uncertain. To that extent, the value of a plan is lost. Environmental factors are uncontrollable and unpredictable to a large extent. The means to overcome unreliable forecasts offer only partial remedies. Planning cannot give perfect insurance against risk or uncertainty.

ii. Planning is many a times very costly. Costs may exceed their actual contribution. For small and medium size concerns, comprehensive planning may not be a feasible activity — Planning must justify its existence.

iii. In the planning process, the quality of the output is only as good as the quality of input. (Computer programmers have a good expression for this, ‘GIGO’ — “Garbage In Garbage Out” ). Even if input-output is good, plans may remain on paper and never put into operation. Thus, planning may be ineffective.

iv. Tendency towards inflexibility or reluctance to change, once the plans are established, is another limitation on planning. Standing plans are more inflexible than single use plans. Standing plans soon become customary and there is resistance to change even though the change is desirable.

v. Planning delays action. Emergencies demand on-the-spot decisions. Planning is a time-consuming activity.

vi. Planning encourages a false sense of security against risk or uncertainty.

vii. When we have comprehensive and detailed planning, the initiative of individual operators and supervisors is bound to be reduced, particularly in large enterprise where we have centralised planning and control However, if extensive planning is based on participation by the subordinate staff and employees, we may not have elimination of initiative or creativity.

viii. Standing plans demand repetitive operations. In the absence of repetitive operations such plans lose their significance. Under such conditions, such use plans are preferable to accommodate special needs of a problem.

The limitations on planning must be balanced against the benefits that can be expected.

If the plans are simple, flexible and feasible, if we have well-defined objectives which are understood by all, if we evolve plans under democratic participative leadership and, above all, if we have adequate, accurate and up to date data for planning, we can safety conclude that planning is bound to be a blessing or a boon to business organisations.

In reality, no enterprise can exist today without some planning. In the modern computer era, management information service, research and development department, marketing research sections can provide ample raw material for building up the superstructure of a comprehensive business plan.

The raw material is usually in the form of statistical data, i.e., facts and figures. The planners process this data by application of scientific methods involving systematic classification, analysis and investigation.

The latest mathematical or quantitative decision making tools and techniques such as operations research, enable us to secure rational solutions with minimum bias for many managerial problems. After the processing of date with the help of scientific methods, we have the finished product, viz., information.

On the basis of adequate, accurate and up to date information we can formulate a good plan of action’ which can yield optimum results and which can achieve the desired goals when it is implemented efficiently. Plans based on facts and figures can be very sound and realistic planning is never wishful thinking.

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Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Ecofying Cities, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

Right now, our economy operates as Paul Hawken said, "by stealing the future, selling it in the present and calling it GDP." And if we have another eight billion or seven billion people, living on a planet where their cities also steal the future, we're going to run out of future really fast. But if we think differently, I think that, in fact, we can have cities that are not only zero emissions, but have unlimited possibilities as well. Alex Steffen

The urgency of urban planning today

Within a few decades' time, we can expect the planet to become more crowded, resources more precious, and innovative urban planners increasingly important. By midcentury, the global population will likely top nine billion, and more than half will live in cities. What will these cities look like? Will we have the resources to power them and comfortably provide for their residents? Will global urbanization harmonize with efforts to curb climate change and secure a sustainable future, or are these forces hurtling towards a head-on collision?

The TED speakers featured in Ecofying Cities underscore the urgency, but also suggest that some optimism's in order as they outline the issues and offer imaginative solutions.

There's no single reason for or response to the complex environmental, economic and social challenges that are part of our future in cities. They call for multiple approaches, originating from different sources — individuals, communities, governments, businesses — and deployed at different levels — in the home, the neighborhood, the city, region, nation and across the globe — to respond to the challenges at hand. As Alex Steffen reminds the urban planners, architects, designers, elected leaders and others involved in the effort, "All those cities are opportunities."

Urbanism and the environment: A brief history

For centuries, successful city-building has required careful attention to the environmental consequences of urban development. Without this, as Jared Diamond demonstrated in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed , a city inevitably ended up fouling its nest, thus entering a spiral of epidemics, economic hardship, decline and, ultimately, oblivion. Civilizations evolved different ways of dealing with environmental considerations — some with more success than others. For example, thanks to elaborate aqueducts and sewer systems, the Romans were able to build and sustain for centuries large cities that featured a reliable public water supply and state-of-the-art public health conditions.

In other civilizations, however, residents simply abandoned cities when they could no longer rely on their environment to supply the resources they needed. Often this was a direct result of their own activities: for example, deforestation and the attendant erosion of fertile soil, epidemics due to contaminated water and, with the advent of coal-fired industrialization, air pollution.

Urban planning got its start as a profession largely dedicated to averting different types of crises arising from urban growth and providing conditions for public health. This was particularly true in the many 19th century European and North American cities transformed by industrialization and unprecedented rates of population growth. Rapidly deteriorating air and water quality made it necessary to introduce regulations to protect the health of the residents of these cities.

The planners' first-generation improvements included sewers, water treatment and distribution, and improved air quality through building codes and increased urban green space. It's especially remarkable today to think that these interventions were adopted in response to observable health consequences, but without knowledge of the contamination mechanisms at work: germ theory didn't arrive on the scene until Louis Pasteur published his work in the 1860s. From the late 19th century onward Pasteur's findings bolstered the case for even more urban sanitation improvements, particularly those designed to improve water quality.

Starting in the 1950s, however, planners no longer narrowly targeted immediate health effects on urban residents as their chief environmental concern. Their work also absorbed and reflected Western society's deeper understanding of, and respect for, natural processes and growing awareness of the long-term environmental impacts of cities from the local to the planetary scale.

Rachel Carson is often credited as the first to popularize environmentalism. Published in 1962, her landmark book Silent Spring sounded a warning call about how pesticides endanger birds and entire ecological systems. Soon after, air pollution became a rallying point for environmentalists, as did the loss of large tracks of rural and natural land to accelerated, sprawling development. Today, sustainable development and smart growth, which largely overlap and address multiple environmental considerations, enjoy wide currency; most urban planning is now based on these principles.

Today, as we reckon with population growth, advancing rates of urbanization, and widespread recognition of climate change, we know that the cities of the future share a common destiny. The choices we make about how we build, inhabit and maintain these cities will have global and long-term effects.

Sustainable development: Two schools of thought

In modern urban planning, there are two general categories of sustainable development. The first doesn't challenge the present dynamics of the city, allowing them to remain largely low-density and automobile-oriented, but still makes them the object of measures aimed to reduce their environmental load (for example, green construction practices). Ian McHarg spearheaded this approach as a way to develop urban areas in harmony with natural systems; the planning principles he formulated gave special care to the preservation of water and green space. His lasting influence is visible in many of the more enlightened suburban developments of recent decades which respect the integrity of natural systems. Today, the Landscape Urbanism movement promotes these same ideas.

A second school of urban development focuses on increasing urban density and reducing reliance on the automobile. This approach advocates transit-oriented and mixed-use development along pedestrian-friendly "complete streets." On a regional scale, it aims to reduce sprawl by creating a network of higher-density multifunctional centers interconnected by public transit. Today, it's common for plans with a metropolitan scope to follow this approach.

Studying the city: About these materials

Cities are arguably the most complex human creation (with the possible exception of language) so it's not surprising that we study them at multiple scales and from diverse perspectives. We can approach cities through a narrow focus on an individual building or a neighborhood, expand the investigation to consider a metropolitan region in its entirety, or study the global system of cities and its interconnections. What's more, we can think about cities as built environments, social networks, modified ecologies, economic systems and political entities. Aware of the multiple ways that we engage with cities, the Romans had two words to refer to them: urbs referred to the physical city with its wall and buildings, and civitas , the city as a collection of residents.

Ecofying Cities explores urban areas at different scales. In some cases, the TED speaker focuses on a neighborhood project, like The High Line in Manhattan; others describe city-wide transformation, as in Curitiba, Brazil, or a regional or national initiative like China's plan for a network of eco-cities to house its growing urban population. Likewise, the talks explore cities from different disciplinary perspectives including urban planning, urban design, transportation planning, architecture, community organization and environmental science. What unites them all? A commitment to sustainability and a belief that sustainability is more about creating positive effects rather than reducing negative impacts.

The message emanating from Ecofying Cities is one of complexity, optimism and uncertainty. We can't be sure that the changes these speakers suggest will be enough to help us balance supply and demand in the sustainability equation. But we can expect that their ideas and efforts will improve the built environment — as well as quality of life — in cities, thereby providing hopeful perspectives for a sustainable future.

Let´s begin with writer and futurist Alex Steffen´s TEDTalk "The Sharable Future of Cities" for a look at the interplay between increasing urban density and energy consumption.

essay on planning

Alex Steffen

The shareable future of cities, relevant talks.

essay on planning

Jaime Lerner

A song of the city.

essay on planning

Majora Carter

Greening the ghetto.

essay on planning

Robert Hammond

Building a park in the sky.

essay on planning

Michael Pawlyn

Using nature's genius in architecture.

essay on planning

William McDonough

Cradle to cradle design.

essay on planning

James Howard Kunstler

The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs.

essay on planning

Ellen Dunham-Jones

Retrofitting suburbia.

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Planning is extremely important for the successful implementation of what you are going to do – that's the axiom. That said, our free directory of planning essay sample papers clearly demonstrates that the importance of proper arrangements doesn't really matter in what sphere you are working. Business and computing, fashion and traveling, finance and marketing, even healthy eating – all they require a good plan if you want to get a good result. More so if you are going to write a piece about planning, its principles, and implementation strategies.

In such a case, a must-do is checking out our helpful directory of samples. Each example there was thoroughly planned out and written by a professional with the best outcome in mind. Actually, this is a common approach practiced by all WowEssays.com writers who are approved for helping our customers.

By the way, you might want to remember this information as it may come in handy in case you're having a hard time with your essay about planning. Addressing WowEssays.com for quick and effective assistance will be your resilient 'Plan B'!

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Let Crystal Clanton Move On

Democrats are taking the wrong lesson from this..

On June 9, 1954, a young lawyer named Fred Fisher was a junior member of the legal team that, under the leadership of Joseph Welch, was opposing Sen. Joe McCarthy in the televised Army–McCarthy hearings. It had been reported in the New York Times that Fisher, a World War II veteran, had been a member of the leftist National Lawyers Guild while a student at Harvard Law School. The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 , in response to the American Bar Association’s support for segregation, and had many Communists among the membership, which is why it was a means of attack for McCarthy and his team. (I was an NLG member throughout law school in the early 1970s, and for some years afterward.)

McCarthy, who deceptively styled himself “Tail Gunner Joe,” sensed weakness, attacking Fisher as a Communist in an attempt to discredit Welch and his colleagues.

Welch would have none of it. He famously defended Fisher in memorable terms:

Let us not assassinate this lad, further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

The stunning rebuke, watched by millions who had tuned into the live hearing broadcast, pierced McCarthy’s seeming invulnerability, and has widely been credited as the beginning of his downfall.

When Welch said, “We all know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild,” he was standing up for the principle that careers should not be destroyed because of youthful associations.

But these sorts of character attacks are regrettably still with us, almost 70 years after Welch’s courageous stand, and they are not the exclusive province of the extreme right. Consider the case of Crystal Clanton, a young attorney who is still suffering the consequences of a vile text she authored before she ever went to law school.

At age 20, Clanton texted an alarmingly racist message to a co-worker that read, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all … I hate blacks. End of story.” The text surfaced a few years later, when she was working as national field director for the right-wing outfit Turning Point USA. Without denying that she’d sent the text, Clanton somewhat implausibly claimed that she had “no recollection of these messages and they do not reflect what I believe or who I am and the same was true when I was a teenager.” She was promptly separated from her job.

Fortunately for Clanton, she had made an influential friend while working at Turning Point USA. Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had been Clanton’s mentor. The young woman was soon living at the Thomases’ home in Virginia, and with the Thomases’ encouragement, Clanton eventually attended the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Thanks at least in part to the justice’s recommendation, she secured two prestigious federal court clerkships following graduation, including one with Judge William Pryor of the 11 th Circuit Court of Appeals, well known as a “feeder” to the Supreme Court.

Regardless of what you think of the Thomases’ specific politics, this should be an apparent success story. Whatever caused Clanton to send her deeply offensive text, she evidently overcame any prejudices to the satisfaction of Justice Thomas—the abhorrent text may even have been the result of a lapse that did not dictate the rest of her adult behavior. “I know Crystal Clanton and I know bigotry,” he later wrote . “Bigotry is antithetical to her nature and character.”

Instead, Clanton has become the target of political figures who begrudged her a fresh start on a promising career. Stories in the national media reported her clerkships as if they amounted to a scandal, rather than an achievement, with headlines often including variations on “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE.”

Most troubling, a group of seven Democratic legislators filed a judicial ethics complaint against the two judges who hired Clanton. Citing the infamous text, as well as several other alleged incidents of racist statements, the complaint asserted that placing her in “close proximity to judicial decision-making threatens to seriously undermine the public’s faith in the federal judiciary.”

Pryor defended both himself and Clanton in a letter to the judicial panel adjudicating the ethics complaints. He called the accusations a “smear [of] the reputation of an innocent law student.”

It is not a judicial ethics violation to give a young person a chance at redemption, and the complaint against the two judges was unanimously dismissed by a panel of judges from the U.S. 2 nd Circuit.

That cleared the way for Thomas to offer Clanton a clerkship at the Supreme Court, an otherwise unremarkable hiring decision that generated another round of national headlines, again branding Clanton the “ I Hate Black People ” lawyer.

In a classic demonstration of punching down, the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus wrote a series of columns about Clanton—beginning when she was still in law school —that read like a campaign to make her an unemployable pariah. Thomas’ decision to hire Clanton, she said, is a “ stain ” on the entire federal judiciary.

Marcus got her metaphor backward. Thomas probably wasn’t intentionally channeling Joseph Welch, but he had gotten it right when he responded to the judicial ethics complaint. “We have reached a sorry state of affairs,” he said, “when a young adult can be indelibly marked with today’s ‘scarlet letter’ of defamation.”

Character attacks have been a recurrent feature of American politics since at least the time of Thomas Jefferson . They have often been effective, even if false (see: Clinton, Hillary , 2016), and they can be salutary when true (see: Moore, Roy , 2017). Office seekers know that character attacks come with the territory. But that should not be true of young people who find themselves involuntarily embroiled in controversies, and it is especially unfair when the attacks are based on youthful incidents, from years earlier, that have dubious bearing on whom they have become.

Donald Trump’s Republicans have abandoned decency as a value, with no concern for collateral damage. Liberals could set a far better example by allowing Crystal Clanton to get on with her life.

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  • How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

  • Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
  • Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
  • Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
  • Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
  • Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
  • Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

  • Make a claim
  • Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
  • Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
  • Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

  • Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
  • Cite data to support your claim
  • Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
  • Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

  • Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
  • Highlight the problems with this position
  • Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
  • Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

  • Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
  • Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
  • Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
  • Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

  • Ad hominem fallacy
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  • Appeal to authority fallacy
  • False cause fallacy
  • Sunk cost fallacy

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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essay on planning

By Ann Carrns

Most people go to college to improve their financial prospects, though there are other benefits to attending a postsecondary institution. But as the average cost of a four-year degree has risen to six figures, even at public universities, it can be hard to know if the money is well spent .

A new analysis by HEA Group, a research and consulting firm focused on college access and success, may help answer the question for students and their families. The study compares the median earnings of former college students, 10 years after they enrolled, with basic income benchmarks.

The analysis found that a majority of colleges exceed minimum economic measures for their graduates, like having a typical annual income that is more than that of a high school graduate with no higher education ($32,000, per federal Scorecard data ).

Still, more than 1,000 schools fell short of that threshold, though many of them were for-profit colleges concentrating in short-term credentials rather than traditional four-year degrees.

Seeing whether a college’s former students are earning “reasonable” incomes, said Michael Itzkowitz, HEA Group’s founder and president, can help people weigh whether they want to cross some institutions off their list. Someone deciding between similar colleges, for example, can see the institution that has produced students with significantly higher incomes.

While income isn’t necessarily the only criterion to consider when comparing schools, Mr. Itzkowitz said, “it’s a very good starting point.”

The report used data from the Education Department’s College Scorecard to assess the earnings of about five million former students who had attended about 3,900 institutions of higher education, 10 years after they first enrolled. (The analysis includes data for people who didn’t complete their degree.) The report includes public colleges as well as private nonprofit and for-profit schools; the schools may offer nondegree certificates, associate degrees and bachelor’s degrees.

The analysis found that schools where students earned less than their peers who never attended college were generally those offering nondegree certificates, which can often be completed in 18 months or less, as well as for-profit institutions, although the list also includes some public and private nonprofit schools. At 71 percent of for-profit schools, a majority of students were earning less than high school graduates 10 years after enrolling, compared with 14 percent of public institutions and 9 percent of private nonprofit schools, Mr. Itzkowitz said.

“College is, indeed, worth it,” Mr. Itzkowitz said, but paying for it can be “substantially riskier” depending on the type of school you attend or the credential you seek.

(Another report found that former students of for-profit colleges tend to experience more financial risk than those who attended similarly selective public colleges. Those risks include having to take on more debt for higher education, a greater likelihood of defaulting on student loans and a lower likelihood of finding a job.)

Jason Altmire, president and chief executive of Career Education Colleges and Universities, a trade group representing for-profit career colleges, said lumping together schools offering mainly short-term certificate programs with colleges offering four-year degrees didn’t make sense. People who want to work in certain careers — hairdressing, for instance — generally can’t work in the field unless they earn a certificate, he said.

Mr. Altmire also said that income data from for-profit certificate schools might be skewed by “gender bias” because the programs had a higher proportion of women, who were more likely than men to work part time while raising families, lowering a school’s reported median income.

The HEA report also compared colleges’ performance with other benchmarks, like the federal poverty line ($15,000 annual income for an individual), which is used to determine eligibility for benefits for government programs like subsidized health insurance and Medicaid. Incomes at the “vast majority” of colleges exceeded this cutoff, the report found, although 18 — nearly all of them for-profit schools offering nondegree certificate programs in beauty or hairstyling — had students with median incomes below that threshold.

Majors also matter, since those in science, technology, engineering and nursing typically lead to significantly higher salaries than majors in the arts or humanities. (Last year, HEA published a separate analysis of the college majors that pay the most.)

When comparing the earnings after college, students and families shouldn’t look at the data in a vacuum, said Kristina Dooley, a certified educational planner in Hudson, Ohio. Many schools where former students go on to be top earners have programs focusing on health sciences, technology or business, but that may not be what you want to study.

“Use it as one piece of information,” Ms. Dooley said.

She said that students shouldn’t rule out a college just because it wasn’t at the pinnacle of the income list. Do ask questions, though — like whether its career services office helps with setting up internships and making alumni connections to assist you in finding a good-paying job.

Amy S. Jasper, an independent educational consultant in Richmond, Va., said postgraduate income might matter more to students and families who had to get a loan for college. “How much debt do they want to incur?” she said. “That is something that needs to be taken into consideration.”

But, she said, the benefits of college are not just financial. “I’d like to think that picking the right school is also about becoming a better person and contributing to the world.”

Here are some questions and answers about college costs:

What colleges had the highest median incomes?

Marquee names, like most Ivy League schools, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are heavily represented at the top of HEA’s analysis. Their students had median incomes of at least $90,000 a decade after enrollment. (A handful of for-profit schools, focused on careers like nursing and digital production, can be found there as well.) But the highest-earning colleges on the list? Samuel Merritt University, a nursing and health sciences school in Oakland, Calif., and the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, each with incomes above $129,000. You can see the data on the HEA website .

How much does college cost?

The average estimated “sticker” price for college — the published cost for tuition, fees, housing, meals, books and supplies, transportation and personal items — ranges from about $19,000 a year at a two-year community college to about $28,000 for in-state students at a public four-year university to almost $58,000 at a four-year private college, according to 2022-23 data from the College Board . Some students, however, may pay much less because of financial aid.

Are some college programs required to meet income benchmarks?

A federal “gainful employment” rule , which aims to make career programs more accountable, is scheduled to take effect in July. The new rule, which mostly affects for-profit schools but also applies to certificate programs at all types of colleges, requires schools to show that at least half of their graduates earn more than a typical high school graduate in their state and that their graduates have affordable student loan payments. Colleges that miss either benchmark must alert students that the school could lose access to federal financial aid. Schools that fail the same standard twice in three years will become ineligible for federal aid programs.

A Guide to Making Better Financial Moves

Making sense of your finances can be complicated. the tips below can help..

Credit card debt is rising, and shopping for a card with a lower interest rate can help you save money. Here are some things to know .

Whether you’re looking to make your home more energy-efficient, install solar panels or buy an electric car, this guide can help you save money and fight climate change .

Starting this year, some of the money in 529 college savings accounts can be used for retirement if it’s not needed for education. Here is how it works .

Are you trying to improve your credit profile? You can now choose to have your on-time rent payments reported to the credit bureaus  to enhance your score.

Americans’ credit card debt and late payments are rising, and card interest rates remain high, but many people lack a plan to pay down their debt. Here’s what you can do .

There are few challenges facing students more daunting than paying for college. This guide can help you make sense of it all .

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Computer Science > Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Title: sora: a review on background, technology, limitations, and opportunities of large vision models.

Abstract: Sora is a text-to-video generative AI model, released by OpenAI in February 2024. The model is trained to generate videos of realistic or imaginative scenes from text instructions and show potential in simulating the physical world. Based on public technical reports and reverse engineering, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the model's background, related technologies, applications, remaining challenges, and future directions of text-to-video AI models. We first trace Sora's development and investigate the underlying technologies used to build this "world simulator". Then, we describe in detail the applications and potential impact of Sora in multiple industries ranging from film-making and education to marketing. We discuss the main challenges and limitations that need to be addressed to widely deploy Sora, such as ensuring safe and unbiased video generation. Lastly, we discuss the future development of Sora and video generation models in general, and how advancements in the field could enable new ways of human-AI interaction, boosting productivity and creativity of video generation.

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Settlement shows how Trump lawyers crafted plan for fake electors to file papers falsely saying he won Wisconsin in 2020

MADISON, Wis. -- Settlement shows how Trump lawyers crafted plan for fake electors to file papers falsely saying he won Wisconsin in 2020.

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COMMENTS

  1. Full article: What Is Planning?

    Recent JAPA articles have drawn from psychology and anthropology. Examining professional planning as an occupation and institution, such as ethical, equity, or historical dimensions. Some work on planning education, as it relates to practice, could fit in this category. Reviewing how planning research is conducted.

  2. How to plan an essay: Essay Planning

    Essay planning is an important step in academic essay writing. Proper planning helps you write your essay faster, and focus more on the exact question. As you draft and write your essay, record any changes on the plan as well as in the essay itself, so they develop side by side. One way to start planning an essay is with a 'box plan'.

  3. 7 Steps for Writing an Essay Plan (2024)

    The 7-Step Guide on How to write an Essay Plan. Figure out your Essay Topic (5 minutes) Gather your Sources and take Quick Notes (20 minutes) Brainstorm using a Mind-Map (10 minutes) Arrange your Topics (2 minutes) Write your topic Sentences (5 minutes) Write a No-Pressure Draft in 3 Hours (3 hours)

  4. How to Write an Essay Outline

    Revised on July 23, 2023. An essay outline is a way of planning the structure of your essay before you start writing. It involves writing quick summary sentences or phrases for every point you will cover in each paragraph, giving you a picture of how your argument will unfold. You'll sometimes be asked to submit an essay outline as a separate ...

  5. PLANNING AS A MANAGEMENT FUNCTION IN BUSINESS ORGANISATIONS

    Planning is the continuous managerial process of anticipating and forecasting the future environment of the business organization, formulating the long-term and short-term goals to be achieved ...

  6. How to Structure an Essay

    Chronological structure. The chronological approach (sometimes called the cause-and-effect approach) is probably the simplest way to structure an essay. It just means discussing events in the order in which they occurred, discussing how they are related (i.e. the cause and effect involved) as you go. A chronological approach can be useful when ...

  7. Management Planning Paper

    As a basic function of management, planning is vital for success of any company as it determines the current position and gives a way of reaching future expectations. It simplifies ways of achieving set goals in an organization. Strategic planning is vital as it enables establish a company's strengths and weakness (Rane 2007).

  8. Planning and decision making in management Reflective Essay

    Planning and decision making are among the most valuable foundations on which businesses and organizations are built. For any organization to succeed in its undertaking, it needs to properly plan for virtually all aspects of its operations. The right decisions have to be made by its managers to see the business through successful operations.

  9. The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay

    The essay writing process consists of three main stages: Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline. Writing: Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion. Revision: Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling ...

  10. How to Write an Essay Plan

    In many ways, writing an essay plan is like planning a car journey. You'll have a clear sense of where you're going, but you might have to take some detours along the way. A step-by-step guide to filling in the essay plan. If the essay plan template looks daunting then don't worry, try breaking it down into stages: 1.

  11. Planning

    Planning is one of the most underestimated and important parts of building a startup. Whether someone is planning to build a business or just looking for ways to organize the work, planning can help structure company's vision, goals, and growth. The plan doesn't have to be complicated. It should include some high level goals that are ...

  12. Planning and structuring your essay

    Planning your essay makes it much more likely that you will end up with a coherent argument. It enables you to work out a logical structure and an end point for your argument before you start writing. It means you don't have to do this type of complex thinking at the same time as trying to find the right words to express your ideas.

  13. PDF Essay Planning: Outlining with a Purpose

    Outlining is a vital part of the essay planning process. It allows the writer to understand how he or she will connect all the information to support the thesis statement and the claims of the paper. It also provides the writer with a space to manipulate ideas easily without needing to write complete paragraphs.

  14. How to Plan an Essay

    This page is the first of two that describe the processes involved in producing an essay for academic purposes, for school, college or university and covers the planning stages of essay writing, which are important to the overall process. The second page, Writing an Essay, provides more information on the steps involved in actually writing an ...

  15. Planning as the Most Important Function of Management Essay

    According to a common identification, there are currently four functions of management that are accepted by the majority of professionals: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. All four of these functions are essential and highly valued in management (Raduški, 2017). This essay argues that, although these elements are interconnected ...

  16. Planning & drafting

    An academic essay is a very specific form of writing. Its purpose is to answer the question in an organised and comprehensive manner. In order to do this, care should be taken at the planning stage so that you can be confident that you have included the most relevant material and that your reader can follow your line of argument as you make the points that lead to your conclusion.

  17. Strategic Planning and Implementation

    Strategic Planning and Implementation. This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. The mission of s strategic planning is to drives organisations and businesses forward.

  18. Essay on Planning in an Organisation

    Learn about the concept, nature, significance, features, advantages and limitations of planning in an organisation. The essay covers the key elements of planning such as objectives, alternatives, selection, efficiency, co-ordination and flexibility. It also explains the role of planning in business and the benefits of planning for decision making and performance.

  19. Introductory essay

    Introductory essay. Written by the educators who created Ecofying Cities, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material. Right now, our economy operates as Paul Hawken said, "by stealing the future, selling it in the ...

  20. How To Write a Great Career Goals Essay

    1. Understand the concept of career goals. Before you write your career goals essay, you must first identify your career ambitions. Career goals are a form of personal development. Focus on the professional or educational goals you would like to achieve aside from a high salary. The qualities of your goals are a more accurate measure of success ...

  21. Planning Essay Examples

    Find free essay samples on planning from various topics and fields. Learn how to plan effectively and efficiently for different purposes and scenarios. See examples of planning essay topics, structure, and format. Get inspired by professional writing and tips.

  22. essay on financial planning

    essay on financial planning. Financial planning is the lifelong process of wisely managing your finances so you can achieve your dreams and goals—all while navigating the uncertainties life throws your way. A comprehensive financial plan acts as a roadmap, guiding you on your journey towards financial security and independence. ...

  23. Thomas' clerk Crystal Clanton should get to move on.

    At age 20, Clanton texted an alarmingly racist message to a co-worker that read, "I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all … I hate blacks. End of story." The text surfaced a few years later ...

  24. How to Write an Argumentative Essay

    Make a claim. Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim. Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim) Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives. The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays.

  25. What are the papers saying about Jeremy Hunt's 2024 Spring Budget?

    From a reported £300 million tax raid on second-home owners, to a crackdown on public sector bureaucracy, here's what the papers are saying about Hunt's upcoming budget. The Sunday Times In a last-ditch attempt to cut personal taxes by 2p in the pound, Hunt and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are expected to meet tonight to decide on whether to cut ...

  26. Report Helps Answer the Question: Is a College Degree Worth the Cost

    How much does college cost? The average estimated "sticker" price for college — the published cost for tuition, fees, housing, meals, books and supplies, transportation and personal items ...

  27. Sora: A Review on Background, Technology, Limitations, and

    Sora is a text-to-video generative AI model, released by OpenAI in February 2024. The model is trained to generate videos of realistic or imaginative scenes from text instructions and show potential in simulating the physical world. Based on public technical reports and reverse engineering, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the model's background, related technologies, applications ...

  28. Settlement shows how Trump lawyers crafted plan for fake electors to

    Settlement shows how Trump lawyers crafted plan for fake electors to file papers falsely saying he won Wisconsin in 2020. By The Associated Press. March 4, 2024, 11:23 AM. 1:12.