There are many elements that must come together to create a

good essay. The topic should be clear and interesting. The author’s
voice should come through, but not be a distraction. There should
be no errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, or capitalization.
Organization is one of the most important elements of an essay
that is often overlooked. An organized essay is clear, focused,
logical and effective.

Organization makes it easier to understand the thesis. To illustrate,

imagine putting together a bike. Having all of the necessary tools,
parts, and directions will make the job easier to complete than if
the parts are spread across the room and the tools are located all
over the house. The same logic applies to writing an essay. When
all the parts of an essay are in some sort of order, it is both easier
for the writer to put the essay together and for the reader to
understand the main ideas presented in the essay.

Strategy 1. Reverse
Outlining

If your paper is about

Huckleberry Finn, a working
thesis might be: “In Although organization
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain makes tasks easier to
develops a contrast between complete, there is not just
life on the river and life on the one way of organizing. For
shore.” However, you might
example, there are hundreds
feel uncertain if your paper
of ways to organize a
really follows through on the
thesis as promised.
This paper may benefit from
reverse outlining. Your aim is
to create an outline of what
you’ve already written, as
opposed to the kind of outline
that you make before you
begin to write. The reverse
outline will help you evaluate
the strengths and weaknesses
of both your organization and
your argument.
Read the draft and take notes
Read your draft over, and as
you do so, make very brief
notes in the margin about what
each paragraph is trying to
accomplish.
Outline the Draft
After you’ve read through the
entire draft, transfer the brief
notes to a fresh sheet of
paper, listing them in the order
in which they appear. The
outline might look like this:
kitchen. The glasses can go
in the cupboard to the right
of the sink or to the left of it.
The silverware can be
placed in any number of
drawers. Pots and pans can
be hung on hooks over the
island in the center of the
kitchen or hidden in
cupboard space beneath the
counter. It does not matter
as much where these items
are placed, but that they are
organized in a logical
manner. Essays, like
kitchens, can also be
organized in different ways.
There are three common
strategies; however, it is
important to note that these
are broad categories.
Variations of these
strategies can be used, and
they may be combined with
one another.[1]
 Paragraph 1: Intro

Paragraph 2: Background on Huck Finn

Paragraph 3: River for Huck and Jim

Paragraph 4: Shore and laws for Huck and Jim

Paragraph 5: Shore and family, school

Paragraph 6: River and freedom, democracy

Paragraph 7: River and shore similarities

Paragraph 8: Conclusion

Examine the Outline

Look for repetition and other organizational problems. In the
reverse outline above, there’s a problem somewhere in Paragraphs
3-7, where the potential for repetition is high because you keep
moving back and forth between river and shore.

Re-examine the Thesis, the Outline, and the Draft Together

Look closely at the outline and see how well it supports the
argument in your thesis statement. You should be able to see
which paragraphs need rewriting, reordering or rejecting. You may
find some paragraphs are tangential or irrelevant or that some
paragraphs have more than one idea and need to be separated.

Strategy 2. Talk It Out

If your paper is about President Roosevelt’s New Deal, and your

working thesis is: “The New Deal was actually a conservative
defense of American
capitalism.” This
strategy forces to
explain your thinking
to someone else.

Find a Friend, your

T.A., your Professor,
a relative, a Writing
Center tutor, or any
sympathetic and intelligent listener.
People are more accustomed to talking than writing, so it might be
beneficial to explain your thinking out loud to someone before
organizing the essay. Talking to someone about your ideas may
also relieve pressure and anxiety about your topic.

Explain What Your Paper Is About

Pay attention to how you explain your argument verbally. It is likely
that the order in which you present your ideas and evidence to
your listener is a logical way to arrange them in your paper. Let’s
say that you begin (as you did above) with the working thesis. As
you continue to explain, you realize that even though your draft
doesn’t mention “private enterprise” until the last two paragraphs,
you begin to talk about it right away. This fact should tell you that
you probably need to discuss private enterprise near the
beginning.

Take Notes
You and your listener should keep track of the way you explain
your paper. If you don’t, you probably won’t remember what you’ve