How should I plan my history essay?

Planning is essential to a successful history essay and it is important that you allocate enough time to make a plan of what you are going to write. I have a helpful planning method that involves four important stages which you can adapt in different ways to best suit you:

1. DECONSTRUCTION - it is crucial that you do this stage first in order to understand your essay question. This involves looking at the wording of the question in order to properly understand it. "Deconstructing" the question can include underlining particularly important words, defining them, thinking of synonyms, highlighting key dates, rewording the question etc. Anything that helps you get a better understanding of what the question is asking.

2. CONTENT - This stage involves writing down any relevant knowledge that you think will be useful for your answer. It is helpful to have a list of key facts and ideas jotted down in your plan that you can keep referring back to when writing your answer. This can be set out in bullet points or a spider diagram or any way you find most effective.

3. STRUCTURE - Based on the information you have wrote down in the content stage, you can then briefly structure your essay by coming up with different focuses for each paragraph and organising your content into each heading.

4. JUDGEMENT - Finally, it is important to clearly establish the line of argument that you will maintain throughout your essay before you start writing.