How do I approach an essay question?

First thing is to read the question! This sounds silly but is probably one of the most important steps in understanding what you will be answering. What is helpful to do is annotate the question because there are keywords that indicate the kind of essay you will be writing. For instance, if the question begins with ‘To what extent ‘ you will be asked to weigh up several factors and make a decision about the importance of each. Next is planning stage, now depending on timings this could be between 5 and 10 minutes planning. Here you should be jotting down a plan whether it be in list or mind-map. You need to formulate your argument here so you can make a good plan, and maybe write down a quick 1 sentence answer to keep your plan focused. Next you should be writing down what point each paragraph will be making and listing the content relevant to this. This allows you to see what the direction of your essay is and what paragraph will have what content. The next part is writing, the important thing to remember is to keep to your timings and to make sure you are keeping to a rough structure of Point Evidence Analysis.