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How to Write an Essay Efficiently

Last Updated: December 14, 2020 References

This article was co-authored by Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. . Alexander Ruiz is an Educational Consultant and the Educational Director of Link Educational Institute, a tutoring business based in Claremont, California that provides customizable educational plans, subject and test prep tutoring, and college application consulting. With over a decade and a half of experience in the education industry, Alexander coaches students to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence while achieving skills and the goal of achieving skills and higher education. He holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University and an MA in Education from Georgia Southern University. This article has been viewed 16,877 times.

You have an essay due tomorrow that you’re just now starting, or maybe there’s an essay question on your upcoming test that you won't have a lot of time to work on. Don’t worry! This article will show you how to write an essay as quickly and efficiently as possible without sacrificing quality. We’ll walk you through the whole process step-by-step, from outlining your essay and writing a solid first draft to polishing it before turning it in.

Outlining the Essay

• If you are writing the essay at home, let others around you know that you are working and not to be disturbed. If it is noisy around you, put on headphones to block the noise out so you can focus on the essay.
• Try writing at a time when you're less likely to be disturbed, like in the early morning or at night.

• For example, if the prompt is, “Explain the consequences of Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign,” you may then focus on identifying the consequences of Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign and analyze how it affected China in your essay.

• An analytical essay breaks down a topic or concept to better examine and understand it. For example, an analytical essay prompt might be, “What is the source of the violence and unrest in Shakespeare’s King Lear ?”
• An expository essay teaches or illuminates a point. For example, an expository essay prompt might be, “Explain the consequences of Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign.”
• An argumentative essay will make a claim or back up an opinion to change other people’s point of view. For example, an argumentative essay prompt might be, “Do you think Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy, a tragedy, or a combination of both? Why?”

• You can also draw lines from the topic to your ideas. Try to list three to five ideas that you can use in your essay. Think about examples that work with the topic or that correspond with the topic.
• You may need to review your sources to help you get ideas for the topic. Have the sources, such as online scholarly articles or textbooks, close by so you can review them during your brainstorm. Remember to bookmark your sources so you can cite them later on.

• However, many teachers will accept essays that are longer than five paragraphs and will allow you to have many body paragraphs in your essay. Speak to your instructor about their expectations on the structure of the essay so you can follow their guidelines.

• Note what you will include in your introduction, such as a strong opening line, a thesis statement, and a discussion of the main points of your essay.
• Briefly note the claim or focus of each body paragraph. Include a note on sources or quotes you will use in each body paragraph to support your claim.
• Have a brief summary of what will be in your conclusion section, such as a rephrasing of your thesis statement and a strong final line.

Creating a Strong Draft of the Essay

• If you do handwrite the essay, make sure you double space it so you can add in edits or adjustments when you revise it.

• Your thesis statement should tell the reader the point of your essay. It will consist of two parts. The first part will state the topic and the second part will state the point of your essay.
• For example, if your topic is “Do you think Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy, a tragedy, or a combination of both? Why?”, your thesis statement might be, “Though there are elements of tragedy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream , the structure, themes, and staging of the play fall into the genre of comedy.”

• In each body paragraph, start with an introductory sentence that explains what the paragraph is going to be about, or your claim. Then, use quotes from your sources as evidence to support the main idea of the paragraph. Respond to the quote and explain what it means. Finally, show how the quote supports your main idea.
• Make sure you end each body paragraph by answering the question, “What does this paragraph have to do with my thesis?” This will help to ensure you stay on track as you transition from paragraph to paragraph. It also keeps each body paragraph relevant to the overall idea of the essay.

• For example, you may reword your thesis statement as, “While there are tragic moments in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream , the structure, themes, and staging of the play fit within the genre of comedy.”

• Your introduction should include your thesis statement. You may find yourself editing your thesis statement when you complete your introduction. This is to be expected, as some of your wording in the thesis statement may need to be sharpened or adjusted.

Polishing the Essay

• Confirm that each of your body paragraphs includes quotes from the source text to support your claims. You should also cite your sources properly in your essay, based on whether your instructor wants APA or MLA style.

• You should also revise any sentences that sound awkward or long-winded. Break sentences up into several sentences if they are too long.
• If you are revising a handwritten essay, only cross out a word or phrase once and write neatly above it. Do not write large marks or dark scribbles on the essay, as this will make it harder to read.

• Reading the essay out loud can also help you catch any spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes.
• If you are writing the essay in class, leave at least five to ten minutes to proofread the essay carefully and thoughtfully before you turn it in.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed.. Educational Consultant. Expert Interview. 18 June 2020.
• ↑ http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/writing/writing-resources/writing-essays
• ↑ https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/writing-essay-hurry.html
• ↑ http://slc.berkeley.edu/some-tips-writing-efficient-effective-body-paragraphs
• ↑ http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic1/timed-essays-top-5-tips-for-writing-academic-essays-under-pressure/
• ↑ http://www.fastweb.com/student-life/articles/essay-tips-7-tips-on-writing-an-effective-essay

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12 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Academic Essay Writing Skills

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Written by  Scribendi

Anyone can learn to produce an academic essay if they begin with a few basic essay-writing rules. 

An academic essay must be based upon a solid but debatable thesis, supported by relevant and credible evidence, and closed with a succinct and thorough conclusion.

By adhering to the best way to write an essay, you can create valuable, persuasive papers even when you're under a time crunch!

What Makes a Good Essay?

As previously noted, the foundation of any good academic essay is its thesis statement. 

Do not confuse your thesis with your opening sentence. There are many good ways to start an essay , but few essays immediately present their main ideas.

After you draft your thesis, you can begin to develop your essay around it. This development will include the main supporting points of your essay, which will scaffold its main body. 

Essays also typically include a relevant and compelling introduction and conclusion.

Learn How to Write a Great Thesis Statement .

Understanding How to Write a Good Essay

When writing an academic essay, you must take a number of qualities and characteristics into careful consideration. Focus, development, unity, coherence, and correctness all play critical roles when it comes to distinguishing an exceptional essay from one that is less than perfect.

The following essay-writing tips can help writers organize, format, and support their essays in ways that fit their intended purpose and optimize their overall persuasiveness. Here are 12 essay tips for developing and writing your next academic paper.

1. Know What You Are Going to Write About Before You Start Writing

While untrained writers might just sit down and start typing, educated and experienced writers know that there are many steps to writing an essay.

In short, you should know what you want to say before you type a single word. The easiest way to narrow down a thesis and create a proper argument is to make a basic outline before you begin composing your essay.

Your outline should consist of rough notes that sketch out your introduction (including your thesis), the body of your essay (which should include separate paragraphs that present your main supporting points with plenty of evidence and examples), and your conclusion (which ties everything together and connects the argument back to your thesis).

2. Acquire a Solid Understanding of Basic Grammar, Punctuation, and Style

Before getting into more refined essay-writing techniques, you must have a solid grasp of grammar, punctuation, and style. Without these writing fundamentals, it will be difficult to communicate your ideas effectively and ensure that they are taken seriously.

Grammar basics include subject and verb agreement, correct article and pronoun use, and well-formed sentence structures. Make sure you know the proper uses for the most common forms of punctuation. Be mindful of your comma usage and know when a period is needed.

Finally, voice is tremendously important in academic essay writing. Employ language that is as concise as possible. Avoid transition words that don't add anything to the sentence and unnecessary wordiness that detracts from your argument.

Furthermore, use the active voice instead of the passive whenever possible (e.g., "this study found" instead of "it was found by this study"). This will make your essay's tone clear and direct.

3. Use the Right Vocabulary and Know What the Words You Are Using Actually Mean

How you use language is important, especially in academic essay writing. When writing an academic essay, remember that you are persuading others that you are an expert who argues intelligently about your topic.

Using big words just to sound smart often results in the opposite effect—it is easy to detect when someone is overcompensating in their writing.

If you aren't sure of the exact meaning of a word, you risk using it incorrectly. There's no shame in checking, and it might save you from an embarrassing word misuse later!

Using obscure language can also detract from the clarity of your argument—you should consider this before pulling out a thesaurus to change a perfectly appropriate word to something completely different.

4. Understand the Argument and Critically Analyze the Evidence

While writing a good essay, your main argument should always be at the front of your mind. While it's tempting to go off on a tangent about an interesting side note, doing so makes your writing less concise.

Always question the evidence you include in your essay; ask yourself, "Does this directly support my thesis?" If the answer is "no," then that evidence should probably be excluded. 

When you are evaluating evidence, be critical and thorough. You want to use the strongest research to back up your thesis. It is not enough to simply present evidence in support of an argument. A good writer must also explain why the evidence is relevant and supportive.

Everything you include should clearly connect to your topic and argument.   

5. Know How to Write a Conclusion That Supports Your Research

One of the most overlooked steps to writing an essay is the conclusion. Your conclusion ties all your research together and proves your thesis. It should not be a restatement of your introduction or a copy-and-paste of your thesis.

A strong conclusion briefly outlines the key evidence discussed in the body of an essay and directly ties it to the thesis to show how the evidence proves or disproves the main argument of your research.

Countless great essays have been written only to be derailed by vague, weakly worded conclusions. Don't let your next essay become one of those.     

6. Build a Solid Thesis to Support Your Arguments

A thesis is the main pillar of an essay. By selecting a specific thesis, you'll be able to develop arguments to support your central opinion. Consider writing about a unique experience or your own particular view of a topic .

Your thesis should be clear and logical, but it should also be debatable. Otherwise, it might be difficult to support it with compelling arguments.

7. Develop an Interesting Opening Paragraph to Hook In Readers from the Get-Go

No matter how you begin your essay, you must strive to capture the reader's interest immediately. If your opening paragraph doesn't catch the eye and engage the brain, any attempt at persuasion may end before the essay even starts. 

The beginning of your essay is crucial for setting the stage for your thesis.

8. Always Remember to Edit and Proofread Your Essay

Any decent writer will tell you that writing is really rewriting. A good academic essay will inevitably go through multiple drafts as it slowly takes shape. When you arrive at a final draft, you must make sure that it is as close to perfect as possible.

This means subjecting your essay to close and comprehensive editing and proofreading processes. In other words, you must read your paper as many times as necessary to eliminate all grammar/punctuation mistakes and typos.

It is helpful to have a third party review your work. Consider consulting a peer or professional editing service. Keep in mind that professional editors are able to help you identify underdeveloped arguments and unnecessarily wordy language, and provide other feedback.

Get Critical Feedback on Your Writing

Hire an expert academic editor , or get a free sample, 9. when developing your essay's main body, build strong and relevant arguments.

Every sentence in the main body of your paper should explain and support your thesis. When deciding how much evidence to include in an academic essay, a good guideline is to include at least three main supporting arguments.

Those main supporting arguments, in turn, require support in the form of relevant facts, figures, examples, analogies, and observations. 

You will need to engage in appropriate research to accomplish this. To organize your research efforts, you may want to develop a list of good research questions . 

10. Choose the Format of Your Essay before Writing It

The final shape that your essay takes depends a great deal on what kind of format you use. Popular college essay format types include the Modern Language Association of America ( MLA ), American Psychological Association ( APA ), and Chicago Manual of Style ( Chicago style).

These formats govern everything from capitalization rules to source citation. Often, professors dictate a specific format for your essay. If they do not, you should choose the format that best suits your field.

11. Create Clear Transitions between Your Ideas

Although unnecessary transition words are the enemy of clarity and concision, they can be invaluable tools when it comes to separating and connecting the different sections of your essay. 

Not only do they help you express your ideas but they also bring a cohesive structure to your sentences and a pleasant flow to your writing. Just be sure that you are using the right transition words for the right purpose and to the proper effect.

12. Always Include an Organized Reference Page at the End of Your Essay

As a key component of MLA, APA, and Chicago Style formatting, the reference or Works Cited page is an essential part of any academic essay.

Regardless of the format used, the reference page must be well organized and easy to read so that your audience can see exactly where your outside information came from. 

To produce a properly formatted reference page, you may have to familiarize yourself with specialized phrases and abbreviations, such as " et al ." 

How to Write a Good Hook for an Essay

The key to a good hook is to introduce an unexplored or absorbing line of inquiry in your introduction that addresses the main point of your thesis. 

By carefully choosing your language and slowly revealing details, you can build reader anticipation for what follows. 

Much like an actual worm-baited fishing hook, a successful hook will lure and capture readers, allowing the writer to "reel them in."

How to Get Better at Writing Essays

You can get better at writing essays the same way that you improve at anything else: practice, practice, practice! However, there are a few ways that you can improve your writing quickly so you can turn in a quality academic essay on time.

In addition to following the 12 essay tips and guidelines above, you can familiarize yourself with a few common practices and structures for essay development. 

Great writing techniques for essays include brainstorming and tree diagrams, especially when coming up with a topic for your thesis statement. Becoming familiar with different structures for organizing your essay (order of importance, chronological, etc.) is also extremely helpful.

How to Write a Good Introduction for an Essay

To learn how to write a good essay, you must also learn how to write a good introduction. 

Most effective essay introductions begin with relatively broad and general subject matter and then gradually narrow in focus and scope until they arrive at something extremely specific: the thesis. This is why writers tend to place their thesis statements at the very end of their introductory paragraph(s).

Because they are generally broad and often relate only tangentially to an essay's main point, there is virtually no limit on what the beginning of a good introduction can look like. However, writers still tend to rely on somewhat cliché opening sentences, such as quotations and rhetorical questions.

How to Write a Good Conclusion for an Essay

Briefly put, a good conclusion does two things. It wraps up any loose ends and drives home the main point of your essay. 

To learn how to write a good conclusion, you will want to ensure that no unanswered questions remain in the reader's mind. A good conclusion will restate the thesis and reinforce the essay's main supporting points.

Take Your Essay from Good to Great

About the author.

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing turn into a great one after the editing process. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained nearly 20 degrees collectively. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

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"The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing"

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4 Ways to Write Essays Faster

Life happens, and sometimes you forget to plan for an essay. All of a sudden it’s a couple of days before the deadline and you’re trying to figure out a way to get this essay done. If you’re in this situation, here are a few ways you can write that essay by the due date.

1. Write What You Know

If you’re stuck staring at a blank page with the time ticking down, the easiest way to put something to the page is to write what you already know about. Not only will it be the ideas and concepts you’re most familiar with so the essay will be accurate, but you’ll likely have a lot to say without having to do a lot of research versus something you’re not as knowledgeable about. And you’ll end up writing a lot of content quickly as well, so the more you know off the top of your head about the topic, the easier it’ll be.

But even if you don’t know about the topic or not enough to write most of an essay, some quick research can set you on the right track. If you’re writing on something that’s been well-researched or written about beforehand, a short 15 or 30-minute research session can give you a great resource for any topics you might want to go into and help you write down a few notes to include in your paper. Another way you can get an essay written by knowledgeable people is to work with an essay writing service Reddit users recommend, as they’ve likely been in your shoes and can help you decide the best service to write your paper.

2. Don’t Start From the Intro

Many students and even professional writers struggle with figuring out where and how to start their essays, no matter how long they’ve been writing. But if you’ve been assigned a certain topic or know you have a specific point or idea that you want to prove or get across, a great way to get started is to start not from the beginning, but at the end. It might seem counterproductive, but you’ll have a much better time working backward and putting all your focus on proving your point or explaining your perspective.

Or if you’re not sure what the ending of your essay or paper should be, writing the first sentences of the ideas you’re going over may give you the inspiration to get started and work from there. That way you’ll have covered what you want and can properly introduce or conclude the paper.

3. Make an Outline

If you’ve got a lot to cover or there are a lot of specifics you need to get into, writing an outline will be a big help. Not only will you have a better idea of where you’ll need to spend your time if you know the essay will cover a lot of ground and you have to insert information from your notes or research, but you can go ahead and knock out the paragraphs that’ll be easier to write.

An outline can also help you start each paragraph off on the right foot. When you’re outlining you shouldn’t just think about the basic idea, but plan out what the rest of the paragraph will cover. Drum up a couple of sentences to go along with it that summarizes the main point, how it connects to the rest of the essay, and any evidence that you’ll need to have.

4. Lose the Distractions

One of the easiest ways to lose time when you’re writing is to get distracted. You’ll end up spending more time looking at your phone or listening to music than actually writing the essay. But if you’re a big fan of technology, you can use a distraction blocker that locks you out of other websites and apps like social media and video players that aren’t relevant to your paper.

These can take a lot of forms but they’re all designed around the concept of either completely blocking or making it obvious if you do visit one of these sites or apps that you should be working instead.

The second is to do it the old-fashioned way and put your other electronics or potential time-wasters far away enough that you won’t be tempted to reach for them. While this requires a bit more willpower on your part, it can be a useful method if you need to go to a variety of websites for your research.

Get That Essay Done

Writing an essay is a large undertaking on its own, and adding a close deadline can make it extra difficult. But if you follow these tips, you’ll have a better time sitting down and getting to work on your paper without dreading that close due date. And even if you’re not writing close to the deadline you’ll be able to write your essays faster and get back to the other things in your life.

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How to Write an Essay Fast: Tips and Examples

Almost every student has experienced a circumstance where they had just a few hours before the essay deadline. So, what is the best course of action in this case? We suggest that you should either begin writing right away or seek professional assistance. Hiring a pro to write your essay is an easy way out. You can just order essay from our research paper writing services , and in a blink of an eye, your piece is ready to be sent out on time. But, if you want to write it yourself, then you need to know how to write an essay quickly.

Step-by-Step Guide on How to Write an Essay Fast

The essay writing process isn't simple. Especially when you want to do it quickly under the pressure of upcoming deadlines, but don't panic! Whether you’re wondering how to write an essay in a day or just an hour, you can still write an engaging and good essay fast. Here are some tips to help you write a paper faster:

• Make a plan for your writing process - The first and most important thing to do is to understand a thesis statement, spend 10-15 minutes planning your essay, and brainstorm some ideas about your main point.
• Start essay writing - Start with a hook in the introduction; add three body paragraphs and explain your major point. Make a clear image of your ideas in the conclusion.
• Edit your paper - Always keep the last 5 minutes for proofreading your essay; slowly read complex sentences to avoid any grammar mistakes; after editing, give the appropriate title to your work.

These are some useful short tips to do a paper fast. But if you don’t feel like doing any writing, you can use the help of qualified writing service to get yourself a solid essay.

How Can You Write an Essay as Fast as Possible

We discussed a few tips to write an essay fast, but they may still not be enough for everyone to do their essay quickly. There are many reasons why it can get difficult: you struggle to understand the essay topic and the main idea of it, you lack motivation, you overthink an essay prompt, you get constantly distracted, etc. Sometimes we all feel that way, and it's normal, but to make writing your last-minute essay easier, we should overcome those feelings.

So, let's dive deeper into how to write an essay fast to help you with the paper you completely overlooked.

Step 1. Get Rid of Distractions and Plan Your Time

One of the reasons why you can't focus on writing is a constant distraction. Our digital gadgets distract us not only from the essay writing process but from many important things in life. So when you need to focus, set your mind on it and keep the electronic devices away from the working space.

The next step is to manage time. If you want to learn how to write essays quickly, you need to know how to divide the time left correctly. If you have only 2 hours before your deadline, it's crucial to distribute it accordingly. You have to do it in three main parts: outline, body paragraphs, and conclusion paragraphs. Besides that, keep extra 10 minutes for proofreading and revising your essay. Spend 25 minutes on essay structure and half of your 2 hours on shaping the paper's body. Usually, body paragraphs are needed most of the time, but distribution is on you. Spend more of it on the part you struggle to write.

Step 2. Write First Ideas Which Spring up in Your Mind

While reading an essay question carefully, start making a note of the very first ideas that pop up in your mind. This way, you'll have a view of what to write about. Then start analyzing the thesis statement, highlight the major points of the key sentences you want to discuss and then choose which ideas fit best to them.

Don't overthink the statement. To write essays faster, you need to have a concise view of what you are writing about from the very beginning. You don't have much time, so do not spend any of it on overthinking.

Step 3. Elaborate a Plan to Write an Essay Fast

If you have ever had only an hour left to write your essay or are now in that situation, you're lucky to be here reading this. It's entirely possible to do your paper in an hour, and we'll show you an essential step-by-step plan on how to write an essay fast.

But before planning the whole essay, you have to choose your topic. This is a no-brainer, but people are often stuck at this point. If you have the freedom to choose your own topic, determine the kind of theme you are familiar with and can discuss without having to spend much time on research. But if you have several topics, choose the one on which you can deliver a more in-depth analysis.

Now let's move to the next steps on how to plan the process to write an essay fast.

Step 4. Conduct a Research

Conducting research may seem difficult when you have an hour for the whole essay, but don't worry. You can manage that too! You already have the topic and the thoughts around it, and now you need a little research. So be brief and concise, look for the specific information that you're definitely using in your paper, and don't waste time on general concepts. To write an essay fast, you have to conduct research faster.

While searching on the internet, save bookmarks of your needed pages. This will serve not to start looking for the information all over.

Do these tips to write an essay fast make enough sense for you yet?! Anyways, don't pressure yourself! If it's manageable for others to write essay fast, then it is for you too. So read through carefully, act according to this plan, and you'll make it.

Step 5. Make an Outline

Before you start writing:

• Create an outline of your ideas, and organize your thoughts around the theme.
• Write down your words on paper and determine how they are logically connected.
• List your ideas and relate them to the larger concepts.

This way, you can have a general structure for your paper and step forward to write an essay fast. Regardless of how much effort and time you put into the work, it's useless if you can't organize your thoughts.

Now that you have an essay topic and the main idea around it, you can think of creating the thesis statement. Refer to the outlines you noted and try to express the major points of your essay with them. The statement will have two parts - outlining the topic and outlining the objective of your essay.

Now you are one step closer to mastering how to write essays quickly. Several steps to go, and you're all done!

Step 6. Write a Draft with Key Sentences for Each Paragraph

You should develop your arguments in the body and turn every idea you outlined before into separate paragraphs. Remember that each of the sections should have the same format. Start to incorporate your primary ideas into the opening sentence. After that, add your secondary supporting ideas to it. Also, do not forget to use proper sentence format.

You should clearly explain your topic in key sentences to strengthen the arguments. Every paragraph should contain supporting evidence, main points, and summarizing sentences.

Does it seem easier now to write an essay fast? Then, let us make it completely manageable for you with further steps.

Want to research how Steve Jobs revolutionized the world?

Discussing how Steve Jobs shaped modern technology makes a perfect research paper. Our writers are ready to make it even more perfect!

Step 7. Intro: Start with a Hook

After finishing the previous steps, then it is time to write an introduction. But how will you introduce something that hasn't been created yet? It may be unusual to write the beginning after you've already got the middle part, but it makes sense. Now that you have your thesis and arguments on paper, you can take the interesting elements and turn them into an attention-grabbing intro. Write a hook preceding it - it can be statistical information, a dialogue, a relevant anecdote, a quote, or just some fact, but it has to tie in with your thesis.

Also, if it's more comfortable to think of the hook first and then about the other parts, you're free to do so. Starting with the hook can help your creative process, but don't think too much about it. This way is more adjustable when you don't need to search for ‘how to write an essay quickly’ and have enough time to spend on it.

Step 8. Make a Strong Conclusion

Writing the conclusion paragraph is an important part of making a clear expression of everything you wrote above that. It is your opportunity to reinforce the thesis. Restate the arguments to leave the reader with something interesting to think about. It should be 3-5 strong conclusive sentences that place the whole information into a broader context. Don't forget to avoid introducing new points or ideas in your conclusion,

The introduction and conclusion is often the hardest part to write. So, you should save both for last, especially when you want to write an essay fast. It will take all of your time if you start thinking about them in the beginning when you haven't discussed any arguments yet. When you have the body paragraphs of your essay, it should be much easier to write a summarized conclusion and introduction.

Step 9. Check Everything

If you just typed ‘how to write an essay quickly’ and now reading this, then you already know you have to review your paper besides how much time you have before the deadline. So you always have to keep extra minutes to revise your work.

Check if there are any grammatical errors, if the paragraphs are in order - the main argument should be the first and last paragraph in your body, or if your work makes sense at all. These little elements affect the quality of your essay, especially the one you're writing in an hour.

This is the ultimate guide and your last step in learning to write an essay fast. Just don't panic and set your mind on doing it properly.

How to Write 500 Word Essay Fast

The essay writing process isn't so easy, especially when you want it done quickly. But it doesn't mean it's impossible. For example, have you ever wondered how to write a 500 word essay fast? If you are reading this article, you already have the answer. The previous examples we examined about writing papers faster are also adjustable to 500-word essays.

Let's do a small recap! First, decide on an interesting topic you want to write about, but don't overthink it. Instead, choose the one you know more about. Secondly, make a quick, basic outline of your thoughts and thesis statements. Then start working on your body paragraph, and lastly, do your introduction and conclusion. You can read above how to do each of these steps very easily.

In addition, you might be writing an SAT paper. In this case, you can apply these tips to the writing process with specific needs.

How to Write a Research Essay Fast

If you ever looked up 'how to write a research essay fast' and couldn't manage to find the solution through research, then we're here to help you out.

While writing a research paper requires a lot of effort—from developing a compelling thesis to locating relevant literature—doing so may be more fun if you select a topic you are passionate about. In addition, you have an opportunity to consider other people's discoveries and draw your own conclusions about what they signify.

Most essays have specifics that should be considered to be worth a good grade. If you don't know these needs, it can be difficult for you to complete the task properly. So then, what's your answer to it? Are you just sitting there wondering, 'how can I get research paper writing help ?' If you still haven't found the way, click on it, and there is your solution.

Pros and Cons of Writing an Essay Fast

As with everything else, writing your paper fast has its positive and negative sides too.

Let's start with the cons:

• When writing fast, you may not leave yourself the time for proofreading and editing the work, which will lead to not a very good essay and a satisfactory grade.
• Knowing that the deadline is coming closer can pressure you while preventing the creative process which can be destructive for your essay.
• Time spent on each part of the paper may not be enough or correctly distributed, which can mess with essay structure.

Pros of writing essay fast:

• The positive side of writing an argumentative essay fast is that now you know how to do it and don't need much time to waste.
• You are always on time for deadlines when you know how to write a good essay fast.
• Improves your time management skills.

So, It's entirely possible to write a good essay fast. For example, if you need to know how to write a process analysis essay, consider what we have already discussed above, and just like that, you are left with a great piece in a very short period!

There are many reasons why you can't finish your paper before the deadline. But it's not the end of the world, right? That's why essay writing services provide support for students. When you are in a position where you need to get your paper done fast by a professional, you can turn to EssayPro's cheap essay writing service. It's not a problem you have to worry about.

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College Info Geek

How to Write High-Quality Papers and Essays More Quickly

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I’m not gonna lie: writing papers can suck. Even as someone who basically writes papers for a living these days (like this article), I still viewed every college paper with a tinge of dread.

After all, writing a paper isn’t like working math problems or reading a chapter of a book. As frustrating as those activities can be, they always seemed more finite than the monumental task of “writing a paper.” You can’t just open the book and start working : you have to brainstorm, research, outline, draft, edit, and add those pesky citations.

As I moved through college, however, I developed a system for cranking out papers in record time. This let me spend more time on things that I enjoyed, such as writing for this blog and taking long walks through the woods. Today, I’m going to share this process so that you too can write papers more quickly (without a decrease in the quality of your writing).

Sound impossible? Read on to see how it works.

1. Understand the Assignment

The ultimate waste of time when writing a paper is to write something that doesn’t even answer the question the professor is asking. Don’t be afraid to ask the professor to explain any part of the assignment that’s unclear.

If the assignment seems vague, it’s not because the professor is trying to trip you up. Often, it’s that they know their field so well that it’s easy for them to think some things are “obvious”…even when they aren’t to us non-experts.

Remember: asking for clarification because you don’t understand the assignment doesn’t make you stupid; what’s stupid is to complete the assignment without understanding it.

Yet, when I was an English TA in college, I saw this problem all the time. Students would spend hours researching and writing a paper on a completely different topic than what the professor assigned. It doesn’t matter how good a paper is–if it doesn’t answer the question, it’s going to receive a bad grade.

Best case scenario, the professor is nice and lets you rewrite it, but why do all that extra work? Furthermore, asking the professor for clarification shows initiative –that you care about the assignment. Demonstrating this level of engagement with your assignments can only boost your grade.

2. Research with Ruthless Efficiency

Once you understand the assignment, you need to start researching. But beware! If you’re not careful, research can be one of the best ways to procrastinate. “One more source” can easily turn into hours that you could have been writing.

To overcome the temptation to procrastinate on research, I employ my favorite approach for beating all forms of procrastination: setting a time limit. As I explained in my guide to research , you shouldn’t spend more than 30 minutes per page of the final paper researching. That is, if the paper is supposed to be 5 pages, don’t spend more than 2.5 hours on research (maximum).

Spending any more time than this puts you at a point of diminishing returns. Don’t worry about not having enough information. If you find that you need more info after you start writing, you can always do more research . The goal of your initial research session is to give you just enough material to start writing. Get into the library or database, find your sources, take your notes , and then get to writing.

3. Create a Flat Outline

“It’s impossible to figure out every detail of your argument before you sit down, look at your sources, and actually try to write. Most students abandon their hierarchical outline soon after their fingers hit the keyboard.” – Cal Newport, “How to Use a Flat Outline to Write Outstanding Papers, Fast”

Ever since I learned the traditional method of outlining papers in 8th grade, I felt the system was broken. I never created an outline with bullets and numbers and letters before writing the paper. I always just made one up afterwards because I was required  to turn one in with the final paper.

Starting in college, I developed my own outlining technique that was much more effective. As it turns out, my technique wasn’t so original after all. As Cal Newport explains, it’s called a flat outline . In Cal’s words, the flat outline works as follows:

Don’t build a hierarchical outline. Instead, list the topics you want to tackle in the order you want to tackle. Revisit the library to find sources for the topics that still need support. Dump all relevant quotes from your sources under the topics. Transform your topic-level outline into your paper. Don’t start from a blank screen.

Isn’t this so much better? The flat outline works because it mirrors the writing process . No one sits down to write with a perfect idea of what they’re going to say. You discover what you’re going to say through the process of writing . The flat outline gives you just enough structure to overcome the dreaded “blank canvas” while still leaving room for discovery.

Struggling to write your draft? Here’s how to overcome writer’s block .

4. Create the Perfect Writing Environment

Okay, so you have a rock solid understanding of the topic, you’ve done your research, and your flat outline is ready. Now, you need to sit down and write the sucker. But not so fast: where you write makes a difference.

Because after procrastination, the greatest obstacle to writing a paper quickly is distraction. If you don’t have an environment where you can focus, you’ll waste hours jumping back and forth between the paper and whatever distractions come your way.

To make sure you have the focus of a zen master, you must create a writing environment that enables zen-like focus . For a full guide to creating a distraction-free study space, check out our article on the topic . In the meantime, here’s a summary of the best practices:

• Go to a studious place. This could be a quiet part of the library, an off-campus coffee shop, or even your dorm room. Wherever you know that people won’t distract or interrupt you, that’s the place you must go.
• Make it comfortable. You won’t be able to focus on writing if your chair feels like a bed of nails or the table wobbles. Take care of your base physical comfort before writing anything else. Caveat: don’t write while in bed . Your bed is only for sleeping and…you know, that other s-word.
• Block digital distractions. Depending on how bad your internet/phone addiction is, this could be as simple as closing unrelated programs and putting your phone in airplane mode or as drastic as installing an app such as Cold Turkey Writer that blocks everything on your computer until you  write a certain number of words. If you need the internet to write (maybe you’re writing in Google Docs, for example), then you can install an app such as Freedom or SelfControl to block distracting sites.
• Assemble your supplies. Sitting down to write and realizing you left one of your sources back in your dorm is a definite productivity killer. Be sure you have your computer charged, sources assembled, and coffee/tea at the ready before your write a word.
• Put on your pump up playlist. If you don’t find it distracting, then I recommend using music that will get you in the zone to write. I have a few albums on rotation that get me into a mode of writing flow. For example, when writing this article I put on Muse’s The 2nd Law . You better believe I felt ready to conquer the world with that in the background. If you’re looking for a killer pre-made collection of study music, have a look at Thomas’s Ultimate Study Music Playlist .

5. Follow a Standard Structure

Each paper you write should not feel like reinventing the wheel. Your goal when writing a paper for a college class is to fulfill the assignment requirements in a way that goes just above and beyond enough to impress the professor. You’re not trying to break new ground in your discipline or redefine the way we use the English language (if you are, then you don’t need to read this article).

The way to make sure that you don’t get caught up in the structure is just to pick a standard structure for your discipline and follow it. Save the originality for your arguments. So how do you find these elusive standards? Ask your professor.  They can point you to some relevant guides or examples.

Also, pay attention to the readings your professor assigns for the class. This should give you some idea of the academic conventions you should follow in your papers. It’s easy to go through an article and focus so much on the information that you ignore the structure (which is a good thing–the structure shouldn’t distract you). But if you spend a couple reading sessions paying attention to structure, you’ll get a feel for how it should go.

If that seems too advanced or too much work, then another option is to Google “SUBJECT NAME paper template”. Just be careful about the source–a template from a university is fine; one on some random student’s Blogger page, not so much.

6. Focus On Quality Over Quantity

If the paper is supposed to have a final page count of 5-7, you may be tempted to write a paper that’s 7 or even 8 pages. After all, more is better, right?

Wrong.  Every professor I had in college told me that they would  always  prefer a good 5-page paper over an okay 7-page paper. Frankly, some topics don’t need 7 pages–5 is plenty. If you try to stretch it out, you may end up diluting your argument.

If you’re not convinced, consider this: I rarely wrote more than the minimum page count, and I consistently received A’s on papers in English, History, Religious Studies, and Education classes.

Knowing this, why would you ever write more than you need to? It’s not just a waste of time or effort; it may even be counterproductive .

Of course, your paper has to be good for this to work. For advice on improving the quality of your papers, check out my post on 6 Writing Tips to Make Your Papers 300% Better .

7. Draft and Edit Separately

Editing and drafting at the same time is, like all forms of multitasking , inefficient and ultimately impossible. Don’t do it. Write with your full attention and effort, and then  edit.

Similarly, never stop to look stuff up when you are writing. If you don’t know something, just make a note of it and come back to it later. At best, looking something up takes you away from writing, but even more likely it will pull you into an internet rabbit hole that will really derail the entire writing process.

The goal of writing this way is to keep you in the flow state  as long as possible. Because if you can just get to a place of flow, your momentum will be unstoppable.

8. Write the Conclusion and Introduction Last

One of the greatest barriers to starting a paper is coming up with an introduction. If you think about it, this difficulty makes sense: how are you supposed to introduce something you haven’t even created?

This is why you shouldn’t write the introduction until you’ve finished the main body of the paper. I know it seems like a counterintuitive approach, but I challenge you to try it. This method avoids what has happened to me more times than I can count: writing the paper and then realizing that my intro doesn’t even fit with the final paper.

The same goes for the conclusion. Write it last. After all, how can you conclude when you haven’t even finished writing? If you want more advice on the specifics of writing solid conclusions, check out my post on how to write a paper .

9. Don’t Edit Alone

When you’re writing the draft, you need privacy and focus. But when you’re editing, having someone else to look over your work can speed things up. Why? Because you’re inherently blind to the mistakes in your writing . You’ve been looking at the draft so long that mistakes won’t jump out at you the way they will to a fresh set of eyes.

When it comes to finding someone to help you edit, you have a few options:

• Get a trusted friend to read the paper. Just make sure they don’t end up distracting you.
• Take the paper to your college’s writing center.  Don’t expect them to be your copy editor, however. More than likely, the writing center staff will have you read the paper aloud to them. This lets you catch the errors yourself while still having the accountability of another person in the room.
• Ask your professor for feedback. This won’t always be possible, but sometimes your professor will be willing to give you feedback before you turn the paper in, especially if it’s a term paper or capstone project. Professors often build this feedback into the assignment by setting separate due dates for a proposal, a draft, and a final version. But even if they don’t, it never hurts to ask for feedback . The worst they can say is no.

10. Use a Citation Generator

Adding citations is the worst, especially when you just spent hours writing a paper and are so over it. If you don’t want to spend further hours paging through some arcane style manual, do yourself a favor and use a citation management/generation tool.

My favorite is Zotero , which allows you to keep track of research sources and even has a browser extension that will pull the citation info from a library catalog web page. But I also have friends who prefer EasyBib . It doesn’t matter which one you use–just pick one and watch your citation worries evaporate.

That being said, it doesn’t hurt to glance at your citations before submitting, as these tools aren’t perfect (especially when it comes to digital sources).

Bonus Tip: Take a Writing Intensive Class

This tip isn’t strictly part of the paper writing process, but it can make a big difference in your writing speed and quality. At my college, the definition of “writing intensive” varied from professor to professor, but it always meant a class with lots of writing, often one (short) essay per week in addition to a 20+ page final paper.

Each of these classes was intense, but at the end I always found myself a better writer. This went beyond just getting faster, although that was a major benefit. I also found that the quality of my arguments and analyses increased, along with massive improvements in my research skills.

If your college offers classes specifically geared to improve your writing, do yourself a favor and take a least one. Strong writing skills are always a benefit, both in college and beyond.

At the end of the day, writing a paper is still a lot of work. But if you follow the process in this article, you’ll be able to do it more quickly without a loss of quality.

What tactics do you use to speed up the paper writing process? Share them in the comments below, or discuss them in the College Info Geek Community .

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How to Write the Perfect Essay: A Step-By-Step Guide for Students

• June 2, 2022

• What is an essay? 

What makes a good essay?

Typical essay structure, 7 steps to writing a good essay, a step-by-step guide to writing a good essay.

Whether you are gearing up for your GCSE coursework submissions or looking to brush up on your A-level writing skills, we have the perfect essay-writing guide for you. 💯

Staring at a blank page before writing an essay can feel a little daunting . Where do you start? What should your introduction say? And how should you structure your arguments? They are all fair questions and we have the answers! Take the stress out of essay writing with this step-by-step guide – you’ll be typing away in no time. 👩‍💻

What is an essay?

Generally speaking, an essay designates a literary work in which the author defends a point of view or a personal conviction, using logical arguments and literary devices in order to inform and convince the reader.

So – although essays can be broadly split into four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive – an essay can simply be described as a focused piece of writing designed to inform or persuade. 🤔

The purpose of an essay is to present a coherent argument in response to a stimulus or question and to persuade the reader that your position is credible, believable and reasonable. 👌

So, a ‘good’ essay relies on a confident writing style – it’s clear, well-substantiated, focussed, explanatory and descriptive . The structure follows a logical progression and above all, the body of the essay clearly correlates to the tile – answering the question where one has been posed. 

But, how do you go about making sure that you tick all these boxes and keep within a specified word count? Read on for the answer as well as an example essay structure to follow and a handy step-by-step guide to writing the perfect essay – hooray. 🙌

Sometimes, it is helpful to think about your essay like it is a well-balanced argument or a speech – it needs to have a logical structure, with all your points coming together to answer the question in a coherent manner. ⚖️

Of course, essays can vary significantly in length but besides that, they all follow a fairly strict pattern or structure made up of three sections. Lean into this predictability because it will keep you on track and help you make your point clearly. Let’s take a look at the typical essay structure:  

#1 Introduction

Start your introduction with the central claim of your essay. Let the reader know exactly what you intend to say with this essay. Communicate what you’re going to argue, and in what order. The final part of your introduction should also say what conclusions you’re going to draw – it sounds counter-intuitive but it’s not – more on that below. 1️⃣

Make your point, evidence it and explain it. This part of the essay – generally made up of three or more paragraphs depending on the length of your essay – is where you present your argument. The first sentence of each paragraph – much like an introduction to an essay – should summarise what your paragraph intends to explain in more detail. 2️⃣

#3 Conclusion

This is where you affirm your argument – remind the reader what you just proved in your essay and how you did it. This section will sound quite similar to your introduction but – having written the essay – you’ll be summarising rather than setting out your stall. 3️⃣

No essay is the same but your approach to writing them can be. As well as some best practice tips, we have gathered our favourite advice from expert essay-writers and compiled the following 7-step guide to writing a good essay every time. 👍

#1 Make sure you understand the question

#2 complete background reading.

#3 Make a detailed plan 

#4 Write your opening sentences 

#5 flesh out your essay in a rough draft, #6 evidence your opinion, #7 final proofread and edit.

Now that you have familiarised yourself with the 7 steps standing between you and the perfect essay, let’s take a closer look at each of those stages so that you can get on with crafting your written arguments with confidence . 

This is the most crucial stage in essay writing – r ead the essay prompt carefully and understand the question. Highlight the keywords – like ‘compare,’ ‘contrast’ ‘discuss,’ ‘explain’ or ‘evaluate’ – and let it sink in before your mind starts racing . There is nothing worse than writing 500 words before realising you have entirely missed the brief . 🧐

Unless you are writing under exam conditions , you will most likely have been working towards this essay for some time, by doing thorough background reading. Re-read relevant chapters and sections, highlight pertinent material and maybe even stray outside the designated reading list, this shows genuine interest and extended knowledge. 📚

#3 Make a detailed plan

Following the handy structure we shared with you above, now is the time to create the ‘skeleton structure’ or essay plan. Working from your essay title, plot out what you want your paragraphs to cover and how that information is going to flow. You don’t need to start writing any full sentences yet but it might be useful to think about the various quotes you plan to use to substantiate each section. 📝

Having mapped out the overall trajectory of your essay, you can start to drill down into the detail. First, write the opening sentence for each of the paragraphs in the body section of your essay. Remember – each paragraph is like a mini-essay – the opening sentence should summarise what the paragraph will then go on to explain in more detail. 🖊️

Next, it's time to write the bulk of your words and flesh out your arguments. Follow the ‘point, evidence, explain’ method. The opening sentences – already written – should introduce your ‘points’, so now you need to ‘evidence’ them with corroborating research and ‘explain’ how the evidence you’ve presented proves the point you’re trying to make. ✍️

With a rough draft in front of you, you can take a moment to read what you have written so far. Are there any sections that require further substantiation? Have you managed to include the most relevant material you originally highlighted in your background reading? Now is the time to make sure you have evidenced all your opinions and claims with the strongest quotes, citations and material. 📗

This is your final chance to re-read your essay and go over it with a fine-toothed comb before pressing ‘submit’. We highly recommend leaving a day or two between finishing your essay and the final proofread if possible – you’ll be amazed at the difference this makes, allowing you to return with a fresh pair of eyes and a more discerning judgment. 🤓

If you are looking for advice and support with your own essay-writing adventures, why not t ry a free trial lesson with GoStudent? Our tutors are experts at boosting academic success and having fun along the way. Get in touch and see how it can work for you today. 🎒

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How to Write Faster: Writing Tips to Finish a First Draft in 6 Weeks

by J. D. Edwin | 0 comments

Free Book Planning Course!  Sign up for our 3-part book planning course and make your book writing easy . It expires soon, though, so don’t wait.  Sign up here before the deadline!

Do you have an abandoned or partial manuscript sitting in a drawer or on your hard drive, one you just couldn't finish, even after maybe years of chipping away at it? Me too. Until I learned how to write faster.  The Write Fast System not only boosted my writing productivity, but it has helped me finish numerous projects in record time.

Writing the first draft for any book is hard work, but it is also manageable. The amount of time it takes does not have to be daunting at all.

In fact, it's even possible to learn how to write faster and complete your book in less time – six weeks, even!

That's my goal for my upcoming blog series, to teach you what I've learned about writing faster, and not only that, but show you why improving your writing speed will make you a better writer as well.

How I Learned to Write Faster First Drafts

When you sit down in front of that endless blank page and think about your writing project, does it look utterly, incredibly vast, like a white desert waiting to be filled? Do you feel yourself wanting to stop before you even start, putting your book off for yet another day, because the idea of putting that many words on paper just feels too daunting? Do you find yourself going down that rabbit hole of “I'll never be able to do this”?

Maybe you are telling yourself, “One day I will start, that day will definitely come.” Doing this give yourself a little vote of confidence, even though you have no idea when that day will actually happen.

Maybe you get distracted by something shiny on social media, and promise yourself the writing will come the next day, when you “feel it”.

Maybe the “time of day” just feels wrong for writing. After all, it's morning and you work better as a night owl.

But sooner or later, you realize that these are just excuses.

My first book took me three years, and that’s just the time it took to write one draft. Altogether, if you count the time from the inception of the idea and the bits and pieces of poorly conducted planning, it took at least six .

I dreamed of the idea for at least two years, wrote bits and pieces, put it aside, changed my mind on and off, forgot where the story was going in between months of inaction, made notes, lost notes, renamed the characters, redesigned the plot, made the story too short, then too long, and everything in between. I even paid for several fancy book-writing tools. Mostly, I was wasting time.

By the end, I ended up with a 150K word behemoth and was so tired of looking at it that I couldn’t bring myself to write another draft.

What I learned in this experience, above all else, is how not to write a book.

Fast forward a few years, and I wrote my second book.

The  first draft of this book, 90K words long, took a little less than six weeks. I used Google docs for the whole thing, editing and formatting and all.

Not only that, it was a far more cohesive, well-plotted book with a tighter story and more well-developed characters. This book, titled Headspace , has become the first in a series and will be published this summer by Story Cartel Press.

So what changed in those years?

How did I go from a multi-year slog to turning out books that are not only fast and efficient, but also of far improved quality compared to that first disaster?

In a very special series of articles, I’m going to take you through the lessons, tips, and tricks in efficiency that I’ve learned over the past ten years so you can learn how to write faster.

These lessons have helped me improve my writing productivity greatly, even in a year like 2020. I hope that by sharing them with you, you will be able to write your best stories—specifically your first drafts, quickly and efficiently, without having to take a decade to figure it out.

Because, surprise of all surprises, productivity can be  learned !

How to Write Fast: The 3 Fast Writing Essentials

Learning anything takes time and that should come as no shock to anyone. However, the good news about productivty is that you can learn it while simultaenous accomplishing your goals and projects.

In this blog series, we will go into detail about how this process works,  but there are three core things you need in order to write fast:

• The correct mindset
• A set of writing techniques
• A good system.

Master these three and you will write faster, and finish your stories, too.

Develop a (Fast) Writing Mindset

Believe it or not, productivity begins with a mindset. This applies not only to your writing schedules and habits, but also how you view the first draft of your story.

The first draft is different from all the subsequent drafts. It is the starting point of everything. It serves as the skeleton of your story that holds up the flesh of the story.

In a drawing, it would be that first messy sketch under the final drawing that no one sees.

It is important to remember that the first draft does not have to be perfect. In fact, it doesn’t have to look anything like the final product. Remember that a first draft is a rough  draft. It can be ugly, flawed, and full of typos, but all it needs is to be written. The first draft is not the time to be a perfectionist. Accepting this will often help you conquer that first writer's block.

Rather than trying to write a perfect first draft, it’s far more productive to focus on producing a first draft that does its best to support future drafts.

This lesson was one of the most important ones I’ve learned on my journey.

Apply Writing Techniques

Writing can be taught.

More than that, writing can be learned.

The more you learn about the craft, technique, and act of writing, the more productively you will be able to write. This is the same principle as anything—you can build a house, paint a painting, or perform a dance choreography better when you are more familiar with the skills and craft involved.

But with endless resources, programs, seminars, and classes, how do you know where to start?

What’s going to be the most useful to you and what might turn out to be a waste of time? It’s easy to get overwhelmed or fall into the trap of feeling like you need an endless amount of education or even a university degree before you can write a decent book.

Good news—it’s a lot simpler than it looks.

With a targeting approach and a clear goal in mind, leveling up your writing skills – as well as your writing speed – doesn’t take nearly as much time as you might fear.

Use a System

What’s a system?

The word “system” can sometimes scare people off. It conjures images of computers and codes and complicated thingamajigs.

Many writers may not think systems have anything to do with their craft and shirk away from it. But it need not be that way—systems are your friends.

A system can be defined as “a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized framework or method.” To put it in simpler, clearer terms, it means a way to do things that is organized and repeatable .

When you have a system for how you approach a book, you will never be left lost and stranded, wondering what to do next.

You will always know the steps to take, from the first to the last. In this series, I will show you the system that’s worked for me as well as guide you on how to build better writing habits and continuously improve your own writing system. 

Want the full Write Fast System? My new book just launched and with it, you can stop agonizing over a draft for years. With The Write Fast System, you can get that first draft down in as little as 6 weeks and develop a repeatable process for revision that will get your books in the hands of readers sooner than you've ever imagined. 

A Preview of My How to Write Faster Series

I’m beyond excited to take this journey with you all! Below is a list of all the topics that will be covered in this series. I hope to offer practical tips that can be implemented right away, for amateurs, professional writers, or otherwise.

What Should Be Included in Your First Draft?

In this first post we will get a better understanding of what you should accomplish in writing your first draft, including identifying important elements and goals, as well as what isn't quite a important in this process.

Read this post in full here !

4 Key Reasons Planning a Novel Speeds Up Your Writing Process

This post helps you understand the importance of planning and the role it plays in writing a book quickly. The better your planning, the more you can save time on your writing. Writing fast isn't just about your typing speed, but how you approach the project as a whole.

This post is ready for you to study here .

How to Become a Successful Writer: 5 Productivity Tools

You will want to keep this post close by. It's going to serve as a helpful reference of what you need to achieve productive writing, and we'll use a variety of tools for your writer's toolkit to improve your writing flow.

Add these productivity tools to your writing toolkit today !

How to Write Good Fiction: 4 Foundational Skills and How to Build Them

Overwhelmed and don't know where to start building your skills? This is the post for you. This is where we will talk about how to identify your strengths and improve your weaknesses by learning some foundational skills that will enhance your productivity and keep you motivated and focused.

Read more about how to strengthen four foundational writing skills and become a better fiction writer.

4 Practical Exercises to Improve Writing Skills (and Keep Practicing)

Practice is important. But blind, untargetted writing sessions can slow your progress. As Ernest Hemingway says— never mistake motion for action . We will talk in this post about the importance of the practicing mindset and how to make the most of it when trying to build your writing speed. We will also discuss free writing and how it may or may not work for you.

You can read more about the importance of practice (and how to practice writing) in this post .

Writing a Book Outline: 5 Essential Sections That Build a Solid Story

The very first steps of planning your book can determine if you finish your story and find the enthusiasm to start your next draft. In this post I will reference James Scott Bell's “build a bridge” method, plus a few tips of my own.

Start writing a book outline today; use this post as a guide. 

Ending of Stories: How Planning an Ending Will Help You Write Faster

It may seem a little odd to talk about story endings when you haven’t even started writing. Deciding on the type of ending you want, however, is an important part of planning a book.

When a writer knows how their story ends, they can figure out important plot points in between, all the plot twists that eventually lead to that climatic moment.

In this article, writers can learn the essentials of a satisfying ending. You can read it here .

Scene Outline: How to Write Faster by Developing a List of Scenes

A scene outline, or scene list, can give your story plan focus and prevent burnout or confusion when actually writing your story.

Some people dislike the idea of planning scenes, but you would not believe how useful this exercise can be in helping build your story. Even better, you don't have to stick to it.

In this article, you'll learn how to create a scene list that gives your big story idea focus, which will help you not only write faster, but give you a higher chance of actually finishing your book. Read more about outlining a scene list here .

How to Revise a Novel: A Revision List to Edit With Confidence

My revision list is my best friend in writing draft one.

Not only does it serve as a central collection point for my notes, it also keeps me from having to revise as I write.

In this article , I share my revision list template with you as well as show you how to make it work for you. Used correctly, this tool will save you a lot of time during the editing phase.

Plotter vs. Pantser: When to Plot, When to Pants, and When to Combine Them

This series focuses heavily on planning. However, we are not all plotters.

Some of us are pantsers, but that doesn't mean some of these tips won't help you.

This article explores ways pantsers can make use of this series , and how planning in different ways can set writers up for success.

Writing Success: 3 Easy Steps to Develop Your Writing System

This article teaches writers what to do when it's time to actually write. After all the planning, all the ideas and thoughts and goals, this is where we put it all together into a system/writing process that you can use your first book and every book after it.

If you're ready to write but not sure how to start, learn about writing systems in this article .

Setting Writing Goals: How to Set Goals and Finish Your Book

The ultimate goal of this series is for you to not only start a book, but to finish it. But finishing the story is actually more than just a checkbox and in this post I will tell you why.

If you want to finish your story, you need to set writing goals that will push you to the end. This article can help you get organized.

Why Are Characters Important in a Story? 4 Ways Essential Characters Make Contributions

Part of efficient writing is knowing what's essentail and what's not. This applies not only to plot but characters as well.

In order for a secondary character —or any character—to matter in a story, they have to work as an essential character that impacts the protagonist, plot, setting, or another important aspect that shapes or moves a story forward.

This article teaches four ways that determine if (1) the character is essential, and (2) how they contribute to a story.

It also reviews the major types of characters and ways to determine if—for the characters who don't qualify as essential—you're better off revising their role, or cutting them from the plot.

Deadlines for Writers: 3 Easy Steps to Try as Your Deadline Looms

You're down to the wires. The deadline is coming up but you're not sure if you're going to be able to finish on time. This post teaches writers three tips and tricks that will help you wrap up your first draft fast.

It also shares how to set manageable deadlines that will ensure you finish instead of give up your manuscript.

Read more about deadlines for writers here .

The second draft will take work, and that is a lot more manageable if you get your first draft done sooner than later. Tweet this

Write Faster, Write Better, and Most Importantly, Write!

I’ve been asked more than once when I started writing.

The truth is, I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t writing. I dictated stories to my parents since before I could write myself. I stapled paper together and made my own books. I wrote for fun, wrote to relieve stress, wrote when I was happy, and wrote when I was sad. I've been a short story writer, fan fiction writer, blogger, novelist, and a few things in between.

I dealt with the unpredictability of the past year by writing two books, several short stories, and a number of articles. I’ve walked away from it every now and then, and sometimes I find myself procrastinating and putting it off, but at the end of day, I always find myself writing once more.

Writing lifts something in me that nothing else can. It’s joy, passion, and creation all rolled into one.

If this is true for you, too, I invite you to come join me for this series. We will take an in-depth look into exactly how to get the most out of your writing time, however limited it is, and get that book inside of you onto paper faster and more easily than ever before.

You will see that there is no trick to writers who churn out book after book, only basic skills, a simple system, and a solid mindset that anyone can obtain.

Until next time, I hope you’re warming up your engines to write. We’re in for a heck of a (fast) ride.

What writing techniques do you use to write faster?  Let use know in the comments !

Over the course of this series on how to write faster, I'd like to invite you to write a story while applying these writing tips, techniques, and strategies.

To do this, spend a few minutes today coming up with a story idea that you think would be worth writing from beginning to end, and set a goal word count for that story.

Then, I'd like you to spend fifteen minutes writing about what you're afraid will slow down your writing, or what usually slows down you writing. Getting the fears and worries down on the page could be the first step to you overcoming them.

I'd like you to check in on these fears and worries each time we look at a new post in these series, and journal about if you're being able to overcome them. Is writing fast helping you actually finish your book, instead of using potential obstacles as an excuse to stop?

When you're done, share your story idea

 in the Pro Practice Workshop (and if you’re not a member yet, you can join here ). Let us know what usually holds up your writing—and if you have a little extra time, give some feedback to other writers in the comments !

J. D. Edwin

J. D. Edwin is a daydreamer and writer of fiction both long and short, usually in soft sci-fi or urban fantasy. Sign up for her newsletter for free articles on the writer life and updates on her novel, find her on Facebook and Twitter ( @JDEdwinAuthor ), or read one of her many short stories on Short Fiction Break literary magazine .

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How to Write an Essay in Under 30 Minutes

Last Updated: December 19, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Arash Fayz . Arash Fayz is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of LA Tutors 123, an academic consulting and private tutoring company based in Los Angeles, California. Arash has over 10 years of educational consulting experience, managing the tutoring of students of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to score higher on standardized tests and gain admission to their target schools. He has a BA in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 601,127 times.

If you’re taking your SATs this year, you may be preparing to write a solid essay within the 30 minute time limit. Or you might be trying to improve your writing speed to complete essay exams faster and more efficiently. Writing a five paragraph essay in under 30 minutes can seem daunting, but with the right planning and time management, it is certainly achievable.

Sample Essays

Planning the Essay

• For example, you may get a prompt in the form of quotation: “Time has a doomsday book, on whose pages he is continually recording illustrious names. But as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters never to be effaced.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [3] X Research source
• You may then receive a question attached to the prompt: “Are there some heroes who will be remembered forever? Or are all heroes doomed to be forgotten one day?" Plan your response, and then write an essay to explain your views on this issue. Be sure to support your position with specific points and examples. You may use personal examples or examples from your reading, observations, or, knowledge of subjects such as history, literature, science. [4] X Research source

• For example, you may brainstorm the Longfellow quote/question by thinking of personal examples of heroes who are remembered or forgotten, such as family members, friends, teachers, or peers who have acted as heroes to you or to others. Or you may focus on a historical figure who seems to be a forgotten hero or a decorated hero.
• This essay question is asking for two sides of the discussion, the forgotten hero and the remembered hero. Your thesis should discuss both sides and choose one side to argue for or against.
• You may choose to spotlight a historical figure who encountered opposition and challenges in her life, such as the suffragette Susan B. Anthony. Anthony worked tirelessly for decades to get the government to recognize women’s right to vote, and was often derided by the government and by individuals within her own organization. She is a good example of a hero who was not recognized as a trailblazer until late in her life, though she is now remembered as a heroine in history. Try to refer back to the quotation in the essay prompt in your thesis, if possible, to show you have read the entire question.
• A possible thesis statement could be: “Though Longfellow argues that names, or heroes, may be forgotten over time, one historical figure, Susan B. Anthony, was derided in her lifetime for her beliefs but is now remembered as a heroine of her time.”

• Introduction: Your beginning paragraph should contain an engaging first sentence and your thesis statement. Some writers find it easier to write create a temporary introduction and revise it once they are finished with the essay. This will ensure the introduction is cohesive with the rest of the essay.
• Conclusion: This paragraph should summarize your main argument and restate your thesis. You may also want to include last thoughts around the essay question.

Writing the Essay

• Try to spend two to three minutes on each body paragraph. Then, take three minutes on your conclusion paragraph and go back to your introduction. Spend the last three minutes revising your introduction so it matches the tone and perspective of the rest of your essay.

• An interesting or surprising example: This could be a personal experience or a key moment in the life of the historical figure you are discussing in your essay. For example, you may discuss Anthony’s childhood as a Quaker and her later adoption of more casual dress and growing interest in social reform at the age of 26. [9] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source
• A provocative quotation: This could be from a source you used for your essay or one that feels relevant to your topic. For example, you may use a well known quote from Anthony, such as: “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.” [10] X Research source
• A vivid anecdote: An anecdote is a very short story that carries moral or symbolic weight. Think of an anecdote that might be a poetic or powerful way to start your essay.
• A thought provoking question: create a question that will get your reader thinking and engaged in your topic. For example: “Did you ever wonder how women received the right to vote in the United States?”

• Body paragraph 1: You may start by discussing Anthony’s early successes. Look at the establishment of the Women’s Loyal National League in 1863 by Anthony and Stanton. As the first national women’s political organization in the United States, it had a membership of 5000 and provided a platform for women to speak out on issues like slavery and women’s right to vote. [11] X Research source
• Body paragraph 2: You may discuss Anthony’s mid career struggles. Look at the split in the women’s movement in May 1869, with the establishment of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) by Anthony and Stanton, and the rival American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Note how after the Civil War, Anthony devoted her time and life to the suffrage movement, assuming leadership of the NWSA in 1890 and continuing to advocate for women’s rights. Anthony also remained unmarried, which gave her an advantage under the law, as married women at the time were not permitted to sign official documents and had to defer to their husbands. [12] X Research source
• Body paragraph 3: You may discuss Anthony’s later life, including her many speaking engagements throughout the United States on the need for women’s suffrage and equal rights. Though Anthony died in 1906, and did not live to see the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution, affording women the right to vote in the United States in 1920, her forty years of tireless work paved the way for the legal precedent and gave women a strong sense of empowerment and equality. [13] X Research source

• For example, you may restate your thesis: “Throughout her life, Susan B. Anthony’s sacrificed her time, energy, and personal livelihood to advocate for women’s rights, proving that though many heroes may be forgotten, their actions will live on in history.”

Editing the Essay

• For example, an essay on Susan B. Anthony could have the title: “An Unsung Heroine” or “Susan B. Anthony: An Advocate for Change”.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ Arash Fayz. Test Prep Tutor. Expert Interview. 1 November 2019.
• ↑ https://libguides.newcastle.edu.au/essay_planning/essay-planning
• ↑ https://resources.warburg.sas.ac.uk/pdf/emh823b2778298.pdf
• ↑ https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Writing-a-Response-or-Reaction-Paper
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/thesis-statements/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/test-terror.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/introductions/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/should-i-use-i/
• ↑ https://www.rochester.edu/sba/
• ↑ https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/553350/laCossJoanHarkin.pdf
• ↑ https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/susan-b-anthony
• ↑ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Susan-B-Anthony

About This Article

In order to successfully write an essay in under 30 minutes, you need to plan it out and work efficiently. Take a good 10 minutes to plan out the essay and come up with a thesis statement that will convey your argument and help guide your essay. It may seem like a large chunk of your time, but it will save you from having to rewrite or restructure your essay later on. Then, take 15 minutes to write your introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Use the last 5 minutes to proofread your essay and look for spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors. Don’t worry about coming up with a title until you’re finished. It will be much easier then. For tips about how to edit an essay you write in under 30 minutes, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write an Essay Fast: 12 Tips to Speed Up the Writing Process

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Do you need to write an essay fast and get an excellent score? Are you in a rush and need to complete the writing task in a day or just 1 hour? Or maybe you have an upcoming test with strict time constraints for the writing section, such as a 30-minute limit for the SAT essay or 45 minutes given for an ACT writing prompt? Whatever your case is, it's important to stay focused, organized, and efficient. And you are in the right place to master speedy writing. 

In this guide, we have compiled 12 valuable tips to help you create top-notch papers and write faster within tough time constraints. Whether you are faced with a challenging topic that requires in-depth analysis, or need to produce a high-quality essay quickly for a test or assignment, these suggestions will come in handy. 

Let’s jump into the topic and find out how to write an essay quickly and efficiently. Alternatively, you can pay for essay to get results twice as fast.

How Long Does It Take to Write a Paper Fast

Every student wants to know how to write an essay fast and with less effort. It is a complicated task, as it requires a lot of previous preparation and understanding of basic writing and research principles. The amount of time required to complete a paper depends on several factors:

• Length of an essay
• Topic complexity
• Depth of preliminary research
• Writing skills.

Generally, if you have a good topic understanding and have a solid outline, you will be able to write a 5-paragraph essay in a few hours or even less. On the other hand, if you are writing a research paper , it may take several days to complete, even if you are working fast. 

In this blog, we will discuss how to write a paper fast to help you quickly cope with assignments and enjoy your student life.

Tips on How Write an Essay Fast

Let’s start with a clear goal – you need to write an essay quickly and get the highest possible score. Start with appropriate preparation. Ensure you dedicate enough time to planning, understanding the task, creating an outline, and writing your essay. Consider an essential structure for your text that can be easily applied during the test or assignment.

The secret of fast and effective writing is appropriate planning and a clear understanding of assignments. Practice and learn from the best essay examples to write papers faster. In the following sections, we will focus on quick essay writing tips to improve your essays and make the whole writing process much more manageable.

1. Ged Rid of Distractions

To write essays faster, you need to be entirely concentrated on your work. Focusing intensely on something for an hour or more can be complicated, but this is the only way to complete your task quickly. Remember that you don’t have much time. Most likely you will spend 30% of your time on the planning and research part. Turn off all your gadgets, and ensure that messages and calls don’t distract you. Organize your workplace and dedicate time to writing. 

You can write your essay fast but should focus only on this task. It is essential to clarify what can be a distraction and fix it. For example, you may want to check your social media all the time. Then put your gadgets in another room to focus on your assignment.

2. Plan Every Minute of Your Time

Every minute of your writing process should be planned. If you need to learn how to write an essay in an hour, start planning the exact amount of time for creating each section of your paper. You may use our Assignment Calculator to divide your task into smaller pieces and stay on track. 

Let’s look at this 60 minutes example and what your time-planning can look like. You will need 5 minutes to create an outline and 10 minutes for each part of your text. An introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion will take 50 minutes in sum. Allot additional 5 minutes for revision. 

Ensure you are not spending 30 minutes on the hook intro to your essay. Be precise with the timing.

3. Set a Timer to Achieve Your Writing Goal

For fast essay writing, you need to have a lot of experience. As we have mentioned before, being proficient in time management is essential. But how to feel time and see the difference between 10 and 20 minutes? Practice is the answer. Set up a timer for 60 minutes and try to finalize your essay. Ultimately, you will see how much more time you need to improve your text. 

You may be a talented college essay writer and find that you can create a masterpiece in 60 minutes without any specific preparations. Who knows! But try working with a timer first! Write your essay fast and check how many essential points you are missing.

4. Carefully Read the Task

Start with careful assignment reading to learn how to write a good essay fast. No doubt that this is 50% of your success. 

When it comes to writing assignments, you may be given a prompt that includes questions or 3 different positions to choose from. Alternatively, you may be presented with a quote and tasked with elaborating on its meaning and explaining your understanding. It is essential to understand what each specific task is about. In this case, you won’t spend 20 minutes writing the answer to a wrong question. 

If you find that you don't fully understand the writing task at first glance, don't worry. Get acquainted with instructions again, and if necessary, read them one more time. And only after that move to the next step to avoid unnecessary confusion.

5. Do Quick Research

If you need to write an essay in 30 minutes, it may sound problematic to conduct research before commencing. However, if you have an hour or 2 for your text, it is possible to run a quick research that will improve your text significantly. 

To finish an essay fast, you must learn to conduct research quickly. If you have the Internet access, look at the statistics on your topic, as numbers often strengthen your statements. Search for the latest data, new discoveries, or approaches in analysis in your area. Maybe, you’ll find interesting facts or evidence supporting your point of view. Do not forget to save all relevant links.

6. Identify the Main Idea and Stick to It

Before jumpstarting the writing process, you must define the statements you will argue in your essay. Be clear with your main idea to do an essay fast. Otherwise, you will spend all your time discussing what viewpoint is the best to stand on. 

Here’s what you should consider in choosing the right statement for your essay:

• You don’t need the right answer – opt for the one you can find argumentation on. Choose the main idea that can be easily elaborated and developed.
• Find a unique angle. If you have 3 prompt perspectives and need to select only one, be original and try to stand on an issue not presented in a prompt.
• To finish essays quickly, do not choose the most complicated but the most perspective point of view. It’s better to have a lot of various arguments for your statements.
• If possible, choose a position that can be supported by personal experience. Giving personal examples or sharing your feelings on the topic is vital and will make your text outspoken.
• Do not change your statements while developing the topic. If you want to get an essay done fast, be consistent with your chosen position.

7. Create an Outline

When you need to write a long essay fast, don’t spend much time on devising a detailed essay outline . However, you need to build a basic structure for your text, as it will definitely save time in the long run. 

What can be included in your outline?

• Intro: Write a few catchy sentences to introduce your topic.
• Thesis statement: Outline your position on this topic.
• 1st Body paragraph: Present the first argument followed by analysis and examples.
• 2nd Body paragraph: Mention the second argument.
• 3rd Body paragraph: Elaborate on the third argument.
• Conclusion: Summarize your argumentation and provide a call to action.

Even if you don’t go deep with each point in your outline, clarify the critical thoughts for each part of your paper.

8. Follow a Basic Structure

The fastest way to write an essay is to be strict with the basic structure you decide to use. Usually, it will be an introduction, 2 or 3 body paragraphs and a conclusion section. If you already have an outline, you know the crucial points for each section. In this stage, the best way to save time is to stick to this essay structure without trying to add a few new paragraphs. 

For a solid paper, you should be logical and consistent in argumentation. If you are working on 5 paragraph essay, do not try to change its organization in the middle of the writing process.

9. Choose Quality Over Quantity

Writing an essay really fast does not mean you need to write a lot and put into the paper everything you have in your head. Submitting longer text than required doesn’t mean you will have a better score. Paradoxically, students tend to make more mistakes in lengthy pieces.

For example, if the task is to write a 1000-word essay, and students are trying to expand it to 1500 words, there is a risk that such paper will contain many errors. In this case, you will have less time for planning, research, and outlining and probably no time for proofreading. Don’t compromise on the quality of your text, since it’s more critical for advanced scoring! 

>> Read more: How to Write a 1000 Word Essay

10. Write an Introduction and Conclusion Last

If you want your paper done fast, start with the main body and argumentation paragraphs first. It can sound strange, as we got used to beginning with the essay introduction . But how will you hook your reader if you are unsure about your arguments yet? The solution is simple. Create 3 paragraphs with argumentation, then move to an introduction section. It will be way easier to identify what can entice your reader and become a benefit for the intro paragraph. 

Also, you will write your conclusion section only after you finish everything. By doing so, you will be able to paraphrase your thesis statement and wrap up only essential aspects.

>> Learn more: How to Conclude an Essay

11. Separate Drafting and Revision

Drafting your essay and carrying out a final essay revision are two separate processes, and you need to plan time for each one accordingly. For writing papers faster, draft your text right after creating an outline. It does not mean you should go into details. But add one introductory sentence to each text part and then move to more profound idea development. 

Revision of your ideas and argumentation is also a separate process. Plan at least 5 minutes to go through drafted ideas and critically analyze them. 

Quite often, students do drafting and revision at once. But we recommend separating this process to make your writing more efficient.

12. Proofread Your Essay

Writing a paper in less than an hour does not mean you can submit it with grammar or spelling mistakes. You should have at least 5-7 minutes for proofreading. Even if you are working on a 20-minute essay, allocate enough time for further improvements. Deep and valuable thoughts and arguments won’t help if your paper has many mistakes. Check the most common spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors that may occur in your text. Pay attention to the general structure and ensure you are not missing any logical connections. 

Proofreading is as important as building a solid statement for your essay. This is the ground for excellent grading.

Mistakes to Avoid While Writing an Essay Quickly

You may feel pressure to write your essay in under 30 minutes, but it does not mean you can’t create great work. How to succeed with this task? Be focused on your paper and try to avoid the most common mistakes. 

Here is the list of typical flaws:

• Repeating introduction sentences in the conclusion. You need to summarize your thoughts at the end, not paraphrase your intro.
• Not planning enough time for research and revision. You may think you won’t forget to proofread your essay before submission, but you will often run out of time.
• Including too much information into a 200-word essay. Use only facts and information that will benefit your text, not everything you know on a topic.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Fast Essay Writing

Submitting a last-minute essay can be quite a challenge for anyone. However, after some practice, you may feel it is more effective than spending days on a paper. It is evident that fast writing has pros and cons, and here we will cover them.

The advantages of a fast-written essay are:

• Ability to submit your work on time
• Honing effective time management skills and increasing productivity
• Nurturing concentration on important facts and only necessary information
• Gaining confidence and approaching future tasks with ease.

At the same time, there are a lot of disadvantages of working with time-limited writing assignments. Here are some of them:

• Deadline pressure can make writers less creative.
• You may not plan enough time for proofreading, and it will affect even a well-written essay.
• You may have no time for research, and it will make your essay less valuable and robust.
• Focusing on each essay part separately may cause logic gaps in a text.

Bottom Line on How to Write Essays Quickly

In your study life, you will definitely face situations when you need to write an essay fast – in 20 or 60 minutes. It may look tricky, as last minute paper submission is always stressful. But in this blog, we provided you with the most effective tips on writing your essay fast and easy. 

It can be a piece of cake for you – just plan your time, pay attention to details, and do not forget about the proofreading part. We did our best to share actionable suggestions on how to write faster. Follow our advice on content writing and be confident in your academic writing success!

Buy essay papers from our academic writing service. Powered by great experience, our writers will find a quick solution to your request.

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

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FAQ on How to Write an Essay Fast

1. can you write an essay in 30 minutes.

As a student, you will often be given tasks with 30 minutes allotted to complete it. Creating a solid essay in 30 minutes can be daunting, but it is definitely achievable. You need to hone time planning and research skills to handle your paper quickly.

2. How to finish an essay fast?

Usually, you will come to a conclusion section at the last minute. To finish a good essay fast, you can use suggestions at the end, underline your point of view or ask your reader to think on this topic. For example, you may ask the readers’ choice in this situation. Or you may come up with a rhetorical question at the end.

3. How many minutes is a 300 word essay?

On average, people will need 7.5 minutes to type 300 words on a computer and almost 15 minutes for handwriting. However, it does not mean that 7 minutes will be enough to finish your assignments. Identify statements and argumentation, spend time on an outline and draft, and finally have some time for editing and proofreading.

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How to Write an Essay Fast ­– A High-Quality Paper

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Essay writing, particularly crafting a college essay under a tight deadline, can be a daunting and stressful experience.  The challenge intensifies when you are expected to complete an essay in just a few hours or days. Time becomes a valuable commodity, and maximizing it efficiently becomes critical for success. To navigate this high-pressure situation, you’ll need all the guidance and assistance you can get. Read on to discover how to write an essay fast without compromising on quality.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 How to write an essay fast – In a nutshell
• 2 Definition: How to write an essay fast
• 3 Basic essay format: How to write an essay fast
• 4 The 5 steps of How to write an essay fast
• 5 How to write an essay fast: Example
• 6 Essay checklist

How to write an essay fast – In a nutshell

• Always plan your time before writing an essay
• Brainstorm and outline the structure your essay will take
• Aim to revise your essay a few times before submitting it

Definition: How to write an essay fast

Essay writing is a fundamental skill for college students, regardless of their major. You’ll be obliged to compose an essay at some point during your degree. This can be a compulsory assignment where you must write on a predetermined topic or an essay on your chosen topic. Either way, essay writing is something you can’t avoid as a student.

Basic essay format: How to write an essay fast

Essay writing isn’t merely a linear listing of concepts. It also necessitates a well-structured framework and format to compile all research in one place. Each essay must include an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion to contain all the pertinent material.

The 5 steps of How to write an essay fast

Follow these procedures on how to write an essay fast to meet the deadline, whether you have a week, a few days, or just a few hours remaining.

How to write an essay fast: Step 1: Organize

Having a basic schedule of how much time you invest in each section of your essay helps you avoid lingering longer than necessary in an area. Set deadlines with built-in breaks regardless of the time you have.

When planning on how to write an essay fast, time allocation should be as follows: 

• Brainstorming: 10 %
• Outlining: 10 %
• Writing: 40 %
• Revising: 30 %
• Taking breaks in between: 10 %

If you have a few hours:

• Brainstorming: 15–30 minutes
• Outlining: 15–30 minutes
• Writing: 2–3 hours
• Revising: 1–2 hours

If you have a few days:

• Brainstorming: Day 1
• Outlining: Day 1
• Writing: Days 1, 2, and 3
• Revising: Days 2 and 3

How to write an essay fast: Step 2: Brainstorm

The second step in devising a plan on how to write an essay fast should be brainstorming. Complete these tasks to quickly brainstorm your topic:

Top 5 things I want colleges to know about me

• I’m an honors student
• I play football
• I am the eldest in a family of four
• I beat cancer
• I love cooking, comics, and science

Adjectives related to my personality and character

• Responsible

2 things that make me different from other applicants

• Extensive knowledge of history that has won me many trivia competitions
• Self-taught fluent Korean and Spanish speaker

How to write an essay fast: Step 3: Outline

Outlining is the third step on how to write an essay fast. Use a narrative framework if you have a single story on overcoming a challenge or personal growth. This essay genre narrates a story chronologically. This structure is simpler if you are short on time.

If several of your stories share a common theme, use a montage framework to link them. Use this outline if you have more than a few hours to work on your paper.

How to write an essay fast: Step 4: Write

Unique storytelling sets you apart from others and helps your essay stand out. Keep these in mind on how to write an essay fast:

• Emphasise key instances rather than summarizing a lengthy time frame.
• Be open and honest with your feelings and thoughts.
• Be authentic and strike the right tone.
• Keep the spotlight on you and not on someone else.
• Describe sensory details to evoke vivid images.

How to write an essay fast: Step 5: Revise

Finishing up on the conclusion doesn’t mean you’re done with the essay. Always review your paper for completeness and allow sufficient time for revising your essay. You should strive for three rounds of revision to review the content, clarity, and grammar.

Prioritize clarity and precise grammar if you’re pressed for time.

How to write an essay fast: Example

Overcoming a challenge, a sports injury narrative.

This essay describes how a student overcame a hardship, specifically a sports injury, using a narrative structure. As this topic is often overused, the essay must contain a vivid description, a compelling opening and conclusion, and an insightful analysis.

Essay checklist

Topic and framework

• I’ve chosen a topic with personal significance.
• This essay reveals something distinct from the rest of my application materials.
• My narrative is lucid and well-structured.
• I’ve concluded with a creative or insightful ending.

Writing style and tone

• I’ve created an attention-grabbing introduction with vivid visuals.
• My essay is demonstrative rather than descriptive.
• I’ve used the proper tone and style.
• I’ve used detailed, vivid, and difficult-to-replicate personal stories.
• My article demonstrates my positive characteristics and values.
• This essay is about me, not another individual or entity.
• My writing contains self-reflection and insight.
• I’ve kept to the word limit, staying within 10% of the maximum word count.

How to write an essay fast?

When planning on how to write an essay fast:

• Set yourself deadlines

How to write an essay fast and meet the word count?

If your college essay exceeds the word count, trim sentences that contain digressions or irrelevant information.

How to write an essay fast and revise thoroughly?

While editing your college essay, first consider the essay’s message and overall structure. Then, evaluate the text’s flow, tone, style, and clarity. Lastly, concentrate on correcting grammar and punctuation errors.

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How to Write an Essay Quickly and Efficiently

Have ever panicked when given an assignment that requires high quality at the shortest time limit? Probably we are thinking the same thing. Delivery of a high-quality essay makes me frantic and stay stuck.  The panic and tension usually mess up the overall quality. However, you won’t feel the same. You can relax.

Here are the ten excellent tips for writing quality work within the time constraint.

1. Develop a right mindset

The first step to making before engaging in an essay work is setting the right mindset and mood. Feel positive. Do not feel like giving up, stay focused and take a deep breath. Furthermore, avoid distractions such as accessing the phone as this will lead to procrastination of an assignment.

2. Planning

Before you commence writing an essay , please take your time and draft an outline of the essay. This should be no more than 10 minutes. The time is valuable since it will help you to be organized and won’t spend more time restructuring the essay.

3. Understanding the essay question

The essay to be written is normally guided by the prompt or a question, and quotes among others. Reading and understanding the question is essential.

4. Study the essay question

The essay will likely be directed by a question or a prompt, like a quote, with a question. It’s important that you read the question carefully and understand what it is asking of you. Rushing over a question presented for an essay results in skimming which leads to a miss of instructions, and getting out of the topic. Such rush normally happens due to intense pressure. Ensure you underline the key points and instructional words. For example, “analyze” or “contrast”. This will enable you to focus on the required task hence you will keep it in mind. in addition, note the sources of your work finding for referencing purposes.

After understanding the question, make sure you plan your response in chronological order then write a draft explaining your ideas and views regarding the question or prompt. Your explanation should be supported with examples or points. Do not be in a hurry when writing the points. This will help you to avoid issues of doubling up the points. It is recommended that you type the notes in the created word document or put them in bullet points and a summary of an elaboration on the point. Ensure that you do not leave out the relevant example to support such points or mix them up. Consequently, organize your points and examples to give comprehensive sentence structures. Please do not copy and paste your sentences as this might lead to plagiarism. Ensure that you maintain your integrity and originality.

5. Brainstorm the thesis statement

The statement normally is a summary or a leading sentence that gives the reader clarity and an answer to the question or topic. It tells the reader what the essay is about. Furthermore, the reader will understand your position upon understanding the thesis statement. For example, you may brainstorm on a given phenomenon or a problem, such as malnutrition as the cause of infant mortality in a given region.

6. Develop an outline

Make sure you make an outline of the main paragraphs of the essay.

Introduction :

This should contain a statement that welcomes the reader to your essay. The stamen should be engaging as well as should make the reader be curious about what is entailed in the essay. Furthermore, the introduction should have a thesis stamen as the last sentence of the introduction followed by a transition.

It usually has one to three paragraphs. However, you may exceed based on the content of information to be provided as required by the question.  Each paragraph should address key major points independently based on the thesis statement. Consequently, ensure that you support the point with a relevant example or at least two to make your argument stronger. The same should happen to all the remaining paragraphs. You should note that all these ideas should relate to the thesis statement and should be linked with the transition to ensure a flow.

Conclusion:

After completing writing your essay, ensure that you add a concluding paragraph that summarizes the main ideas or arguments besides restating the thesis statement. Synthesis of these ideas in a convincing way to show the reader that you are in support of your thesis statement. Lastly, ensure that you inform the reader of your next step and your thoughts regarding the topic.

7. Write your essay within 15 minutes

Using a well-elaborated outline of your essay, concentrate on the composition of the different parts of the essay at a time. Spend at least two minutes in each and every body paragraph. Ensure that all the sentences have well-developed transitions. Do not discuss the same ideas in different paragraphs.

Remember that introduction and conclusions are normally involving so they come after you have typed the body of the essay. This will enable you to work on them in an easier way since you have taken a lot of time discussing the main ideas and now you are familiar with the topic. Therefore, spend another three minutes writing your conclusion and revisit the introduction. Make sure that your introduction has a hook. For example, you can use a thought to provoke a question or quotation, or an example that is of surprise. Revise the introduction thoroughly and ensure that it gets the required perspective of the whole essay. Be straight to the point and ensure that you maintain your style. Make sure that the sentences are adequate and are not wording to avoid redundancy.

8. Reference your work

If the essay instruction requires you to include citations and a bibliography , ensure that you correctly do the in-text citations as you write the paper to save time. Follow the right procedure of the referencing style needed as well as list them in the bibliography on the last page of the document.

9. Proofread

After completing your essay proofread it and check each and every sentence, paragraph, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. After finishing proofreading, read the work again to confirm whether it flows well within the shortest time possible.

10. Reward the essay

Always set a target for the essay by rewarding it. This will increase your motivation level. It is always worth rewarding yourself whenever you achieve the set goals. Therefore, essay writing is not exempted from such activities. Always have something that is great and makes you feel proud and I see nothing other than an excellent essay!

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About 1 in 5 U.S. teens who’ve heard of ChatGPT have used it for schoolwork

Roughly one-in-five teenagers who have heard of ChatGPT say they have used it to help them do their schoolwork, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17. With a majority of teens having heard of ChatGPT, that amounts to 13% of all U.S. teens who have used the generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot in their schoolwork.

Teens in higher grade levels are particularly likely to have used the chatbot to help them with schoolwork. About one-quarter of 11th and 12th graders who have heard of ChatGPT say they have done this. This share drops to 17% among 9th and 10th graders and 12% among 7th and 8th graders.

There is no significant difference between teen boys and girls who have used ChatGPT in this way.

The introduction of ChatGPT last year has led to much discussion about its role in schools , especially whether schools should integrate the new technology into the classroom or ban it .

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand American teens’ use and understanding of ChatGPT in the school setting.

The Center conducted an online survey of 1,453 U.S. teens from Sept. 26 to Oct. 23, 2023, via Ipsos. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents, who were part of its KnowledgePanel . The KnowledgePanel is a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey was weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with their parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income, and other categories.

This research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, an independent committee of experts specializing in helping to protect the rights of research participants.

Here are the  questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its  methodology .

Teens’ awareness of ChatGPT

Overall, two-thirds of U.S. teens say they have heard of ChatGPT, including 23% who have heard a lot about it. But awareness varies by race and ethnicity, as well as by household income:

• 72% of White teens say they’ve heard at least a little about ChatGPT, compared with 63% of Hispanic teens and 56% of Black teens.
• 75% of teens living in households that make $75,000 or more annually have heard of ChatGPT. Much smaller shares in households with incomes between $30,000 and $74,999 (58%) and less than $30,000 (41%) say the same.

Teens who are more aware of ChatGPT are more likely to use it for schoolwork. Roughly a third of teens who have heard a lot about ChatGPT (36%) have used it for schoolwork, far higher than the 10% among those who have heard a little about it.

When do teens think it’s OK for students to use ChatGPT?

For teens, whether it is – or is not – acceptable for students to use ChatGPT depends on what it is being used for.

There is a fair amount of support for using the chatbot to explore a topic. Roughly seven-in-ten teens who have heard of ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use when they are researching something new, while 13% say it is not acceptable.

However, there is much less support for using ChatGPT to do the work itself. Just one-in-five teens who have heard of ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use it to write essays, while 57% say it is not acceptable. And 39% say it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT to solve math problems, while a similar share of teens (36%) say it’s not acceptable.

Some teens are uncertain about whether it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT for these tasks. Between 18% and 24% say they aren’t sure whether these are acceptable use cases for ChatGPT.

Those who have heard a lot about ChatGPT are more likely than those who have only heard a little about it to say it’s acceptable to use the chatbot to research topics, solve math problems and write essays. For instance, 54% of teens who have heard a lot about ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use it to solve math problems, compared with 32% among those who have heard a little about it.

Note: Here are the  questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its  methodology .

• Artificial Intelligence
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Many Americans think generative AI programs should credit the sources they rely on

Americans’ use of chatgpt is ticking up, but few trust its election information, q&a: how we used large language models to identify guests on popular podcasts, striking findings from 2023, what the data says about americans’ views of artificial intelligence, most popular.

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Software may be eating the world , but it is also heating it.

In December 2023, representatives from nearly 200 countries gathered in Dubai for COP28, the U.N.’s climate-change conference, to discuss the urgent need to lower emissions. Meanwhile, COP28’s website produced 3.69 grams of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) per page load, according to the website sustainability scoring tool Ecograder . That appears to be a tiny amount, but if the site gets 10,000 views each month for a year, its emissions would be a little over that of a one-way flight from San Francisco to Toronto.

This was not inevitable. Based on Ecograder’s analysis, unused code, improperly sized images, and third-party scripts, among other things, affect the COP28 website’s emissions. These all factor into the energy used for data transfer, loading, and processing, consuming a lot of power on users’ devices. Fixing and optimizing these things could chop a whopping 93 percent from the website’s per-page-load emissions, Ecograder notes.

While software on its own doesn’t release any emissions, it runs on hardware in data centers and steers data through transmission networks, which account for about 1 percent of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions each. The information and communications technology sector as a whole is responsible for an estimated 2 to 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. By 2040, that number could reach 14 percent —almost as much carbon as that emitted by air, land, and sea transport combined.

Within the sphere of software, artificial intelligence has its own sustainability issues. AI company Hugging Face estimated the carbon footprint of its BLOOM large language model across its entire life cycle, from equipment manufacturing to deployment. The company found that BLOOM’s final training emitted 50 tonnes of CO 2 —equivalent to about a dozen flights from New York City to Sydney.

Green software engineering is an emerging discipline consisting of best practices to build applications that reduce carbon emissions. The green software movement is fast gaining momentum. Companies like Salesforce have launched their own software sustainability initiatives , while the Green Software Foundation now comprises 64 member organizations, including tech giants Google , Intel , and Microsoft . But the sector will have to embrace these practices even more broadly if they are to prevent worsening emissions from developing and using software.

What Is Green Software Engineering?

The path to green software began more than 10 years ago. The Sustainable Web Design Community Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was established in 2013, while the Green Web Foundation began in 2006 as a way to understand the kinds of energy that power the Internet. Now, the Green Web Foundation is working toward the ambitious goal of a fossil-free Internet by 2030.

Green Software Resources

• The Green Software Foundation offers a catalog of green software patterns for AI, the cloud, and the Web.
• The W3C’s Sustainable Web Design Community Group released a draft of its Web sustainability guidelines , with both tactical and technical recommendations for business and product strategy, user-experience design, Web development, and hosting and infrastructure. The draft guidelines also include impact and effort ratings to give software engineers an idea of the level of difficulty in terms of implementation and the level of impact in terms of sustainability.

“There’s an already existing large segment of the software-development ecosystem that cares about this space—they just haven’t known what to do,” says Asim Hussain , chairperson and executive director of the Green Software Foundation and former director of green software and ecosystems at Intel .

What to do, according to Hussain, falls under three main pillars : energy efficiency, or using less energy; hardware efficiency, or using fewer physical resources; and carbon-aware computing, or using energy more intelligently. Carbon-aware computing, Hussain adds, is about doing more with your applications during the periods when the electricity comes from clean or low-carbon sources—such as when wind and solar power are available—and doing less when it doesn’t.

The Case for Sustainable Software

So why should programmers care about making their software sustainable? For one, green software is efficient software, allowing coders to cultivate faster, higher-quality systems, says Kaspar Kinsiveer , a team lead and sustainable-software strategist at the software-development firm Helmes .

These efficient systems could also mean lower costs for companies. “One of the main misconceptions about green software is that you have to do something extra, and it will cost extra,” Kinsiveer says. “It doesn’t cost extra—you just have to do things right.”

Green software is efficient software, allowing coders to cultivate faster, higher-quality systems.

Other motivating factors, especially on the business side of software, are the upcoming legislation and regulations related to sustainability. In the European Union, for instance, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive requires companies to report more on their environmental footprint, energy usage, and emissions, including the emissions related to the use of their products .

Yet other developers may be motivated by the climate crisis itself, wanting to play their part in fostering a habitable planet for the coming generations. And software engineers have tremendous influence on the actual purpose and emissions of what they build.

“It’s not just lines of code. Those lines have an impact on human beings,” says June Sallou , a postdoctoral researcher specializing in sustainable-software engineering at the Delft University of Technology , in the Netherlands. Because of AI’s societal impact in particular, she adds, developers have a responsibility to ensure that what they’re creating isn’t damaging the environment.

Building Greener Websites and Apps

The makers of COP28’s website could have taken a page from directories like Lowwwcarbon , which highlights examples of existing low-carbon websites. The company website of the Netherlands-based Web design and branding firm Tijgerbrood , for instance, emits less than 0.1 grams of carbon per page view.

Creating sustainable websites like Tijgerbrood’s is a team effort that involves different roles—from business analysts who define software requirements to designers, architects, and those in charge of operations—and includes green practices that can be applied at each stage of the software-development process.

Tips for Greener Websites and Apps

First, analysts will have to consider if the feature, app, or software they’re designing should even be developed in the first place. Tech is often about creating the next new thing, but making software sustainable also entails decisions on what not to build, and that may require a shift in mind-set.

The design stage is all about choosing efficient algorithms and architectures. “Think about sustainability before going into the solution—and not after,” says Chiara Lanza , a researcher at the Sustainable AI unit of the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya , in Barcelona.

During the development stage, programmers need to focus on optimizing code. “We need the overall amount of energy we’re using to run software to go down. Some of that will come from writing [code] efficiently,” says Hannah Smith , a sustainable digital tech consultant and director of operations at the Green Web Foundation.

Tijgerbrood ’s website optimized the company’s code by using low-resolution images and modern image formats, loading animations only when a user scrolls them into view, and removing unnecessary code. These techniques help speed up data transfer, loading, and processing on a user’s device. The website also uses minimal JavaScript. “When a user loads a website [with] a lot of JavaScript, it causes them to use a lot more energy on their own device because their device is having to do all the work of reading the JavaScript and running [it],” explains Smith.

When it comes to operations, one of the most impactful actions you can take is to select a sustainable Web hosting or cloud-computing provider. The Green Web Foundation has a tool to check if your website runs on green energy , as well as a directory of hosting providers powered by renewable energy . You can also ask your hosting provider if you can scale how your software runs in the cloud so that peak usage is powered by green energy or pause or switch off certain services during nonpeak hours.

AI the Green Way

Programmers can apply green software strategies when developing AI as well. Trimming training data is one of the major ways to make AI systems greener. Starting with data collection and preprocessing, it’s worth thinking about how much data is really needed to do the job. It may pay to clean the dataset to remove unnecessary data, or select only a subset of the dataset for training.

“The larger your dataset is, the more time and computation it will take for the algorithm to go through all the data,” hence using up more energy, says Sallou .

For instance, in a study of six different AI algorithms that detect SMS spam messages, Sallou and her colleagues found that the random forest algorithm , which combines the output of a collection of decision trees to make a prediction, was the most energy-greedy algorithm. But reducing the size of the training dataset to 20 percent—only 1,000 data points out of 5,000—dropped the energy consumption of training by nearly 75 percent, with only a 0.06 percent loss in accuracy.

Choosing a greener algorithm could also save carbon. Tools like CodeCarbon and ML CO 2 Impact can help make the choice by estimating the energy usage and carbon footprint of training different AI models.

Tips for Greener AI

Tools for measuring software’s carbon footprint.

To write green code, developers need a way of measuring the actual carbon emissions across a system’s entire life cycle. It’s a complex feat, given the myriad processes involved. If we take AI as an example, its life cycle encompasses raw material extraction, materials manufacturing, hardware manufacturing, model training, model deployment, and disposal—and not all of these stages have available data.

“We don’t understand huge parts of the ecosystem at the moment, and access to reliable data is tough,” Smith says. The biggest need, she adds, is “open data that we can rely on and trust” from big tech data-center operators and cloud providers like Amazon , Google, and Microsoft .

Until that data surfaces, a more practical approach would be to measure how much power software consumes. “Just knowing the energy consumption of running a piece of software can impact how software engineers can improve the code,” Sallou says.

Developers themselves are heeding the call for more measurement, and they’re building tools to meet this demand. The W3C’s Sustainable Web Design Community Group, for instance, plans to provide a test suite to measure the impacts of implementing its Web sustainability guidelines. Similarly, the Green Software Foundation wrote a specification to calculate the carbon intensity of software systems. For accurate measurements, Lanza suggests isolating the hardware in which a system runs from any other operations and to avoid running any other programs that could influence measurements.

Other tools developers can use to measure the impact of green software engineering practices include dashboards that give an overview of the estimated carbon emissions associated with cloud workloads, such as the AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool and Microsoft’s Azure Emissions Impact Dashboard ; energy profilers or power monitors like Intel’s Performance Counter Monitor ; and tools that help calculate the carbon footprint of websites, such as Ecograder , Firefox Profiler , and Website Carbon Calculator .

Green Software Measurement Tools 

Developers can use these tools to measure the impact of green software engineering practices.

The Future Is Green

Green software engineering is growing and evolving, but we need more awareness to help the discipline to become more widespread. This is why, in addition to its Green Software for Practitioners course , the Green Software Foundation aims to create more training courses, some of which may even lead to certifications. Likewise, Sallou coteaches a graduate course in sustainable software engineering , whose syllabus is open and can be used as a foundation for anyone looking to build a similar course. Providing this knowledge to students early on, she says, could ensure they bring it to their workplaces as future software engineers.

In the realm of artificial intelligence, Navveen Balani , an AI expert and Google Cloud Certified Fellow who also serves on the Green Software Foundation’s steering committee, notes that AI could inherently include green AI principles in the coming years, much like how security considerations are now an integral part of software development. “This shift will align AI innovation with environmental sustainability, making green AI not just a specialty but an implied standard in the field,” he says.

As for the Web, Smith hopes the Green Web Foundation will cease to exist by 2030. “Our dream as an organization is that we’re not needed, we meet our goal, and the Internet is green by default,” she says.

Kinsiveer has observed that in the past, software had to be optimized and built well because hardware then was lacking. As hardware performance and innovation leveled up, “the quality of programming itself went down,” he says. But now, the industry is coming full circle, going back to its efficiency roots and adding sustainability to the mix.

“The future is green software,” Kinsiveer says. “I cannot imagine it any other way.”

• AI in the 2020s Must Get Greener—and Here’s How ›
• Making Information Tech Greener Can Help Address the Climate Crisis ›
• Why Bloat Is Still Software’s Biggest Vulnerability ›
• Software Sucks, but It Doesn’t Have To - IEEE Spectrum ›
• Green Software Foundation | GSF ›

Rina Diane Caballar is a writer covering tech and its intersections with science, society, and the environment. An IEEE Spectrum Contributing Editor, she's a former software engineer based in Wellington, New Zealand.

The impact of CO2 on climate change is a very controversial theme.

CO2 is the gas of life. Many scientists says (ex.: Freeman Dyson) that CO2 is making the earth greener. CO2 is food for the plants. Also the climate alarmism is causing the increase of the energy costs that is making the situation in developing countries even worst. I am totally against pollution. I think we must fight pollution, but C02 is not a polluting gas

See the opinion of Dr. Judith Curry, Dr.Richard Lindzen and the greenpeace founder Patrick Moore about it.

That's is a new prospect to look at things, but I doubt whether we really care this.I have never seen an article on CO2 emission due to nonsense wars/conflicts going all around. We tend to account the incremental CO2 emission but close our eyes to the giant ones.

I can't take this article seriously without a discussion on how much energy Bitcoin mining takes.

Oh, Buoy! Satellite Data Helps Pinpoint Ocean Waves

Robert kahn: the great interconnector, video friday: spacehopper.

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Write down your thoughts and shred them to relieve anger, researchers say

Writing negative reactions on paper and shredding it or scrunching and throwing in the bin eliminates angry feelings, study finds

Since time immemorial humans have tried to devise anger management techniques.

In ancient Rome, the Stoic philosopher Seneca believed “my anger is likely to do me more harm than your wrong” and offered avoidance tips in his AD45 work De Ira (On Anger).

More modern methods include a workout on the gym punchbag or exercise bike. But the humble paper shredder may be a more effective – and accessible – way to decompress, according to research.

A study in Japan has found that writing down your reaction to a negative incident on a piece of paper and then shredding it, or scrunching it into a ball and throwing it in the bin, gets rid of anger.

“We expected that our method would suppress anger to some extent,” said Nobuyuki Kawai, lead researcher of the study at Nagoya University. “However, we were amazed that anger was eliminated almost entirely.”

The study, published in Scientific Reports on Nature , builds on research on the association between the written word and anger reduction as well as studies showing how interactions with physical objects can control a person’s mood. For instance, those wanting revenge on an ex-partner may burn letters or destroy gifts.

Researchers believe the shredder results may be related to the phenomenon of “backward magical contagion”, which is the belief that actions taken on an object associated with a person can affect the individuals themselves. In this case, getting rid of the negative physical entity, the piece of paper, causes the original emotion to also disappear.

This is a reversal of “magical contagion” or “celebrity contagion” – the belief that the “essence” of an individual can be transferred through their physical possessions.

Fifty student participants were asked to write brief opinions about an important social problem, such as whether smoking in public should be outlawed. Evaluators then deliberately scored the papers low on intelligence, interest, friendliness, logic, and rationality. For good measure, evaluators added insulting comments such as: “I cannot believe an educated person would think like this. I hope this person learns something while at the university.”

The wound-up participants then wrote down their angry thoughts on the negative feedback on a piece of paper. One group was told to either roll up the paper and throw it in a bin or keep it in a file on their desk. A second group was told to shred the paper, or put it in a plastic box.

Anger levels of the individuals who discarded their paper in the bin or shredded it returned to their initial state, while those who retained a hard copy of the paper experienced only a small decrease in their overall anger.

Researchers concluded that “the meaning (interpretation) of disposal plays a critical role” in reducing anger.

“This technique could be applied in the moment by writing down the source of anger as if taking a memo and then throwing it away,” said Kawai.

Along with its practical benefits, this discovery may shed light on the origins of the Japanese cultural tradition known as hakidashisara ( hakidashi sara refers to a dish or plate) at the Hiyoshi shrine in Kiyosu, just outside Nagoya. Hakidashisara is an annual festival where people smash small discs representing things that make them angry. The study’s findings may explain the feeling of relief that participants report after leaving the festival, the paper concluded.

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Indio High student wins Desert Dialogues for writing about the importance of extracurriculars

Desert dialogues is a weekly short-answer writing contest that allows local students to share their perspective on a variety of local issues..

Last week's prompt, crafted by Mariangela Bautista from Desert Mirage High School, invited students to imagine themselves as administrators within their school districts and to consider what policy they would first implement.

From implementing stricter regulations to reduce school fights, refining tardy policies to accommodate traffic issues, establishing open campus lunch policies and enforcing uniforms or more equitable dress code standards, students had plenty to discuss.

Congratulations to the Vanessa Lemus, the second Rajah to earn the Desert Dialogues spotlight. First identified as Student B , the junior advocated for equitable access to extracurricular activities.

"Every student merits an opportunity to pursue their interests beyond the traditional classroom setting. A bustling school where every hallway echoes with creativity and enthusiasm," Lemus wrote. "Extracurriculars will no longer be an afterthought — they'll be the heartbeat of our educational community."

Learn more about this week's spotlighted student below:

Q&A with Vanessa Lemus from Indio High School

What's a song that you're playing on repeat?

A song that I am playing on repeat is "Girls Just Wanna Have Some" by the Chromatics. I first heard it in a Netflix TV show, "Baby," which I am currently watching. Great show!

If you had to be on a reality TV show or game show, which would it be?

If I had to choose a reality TV show or game show to be on, it would likely be "The Amazing Race." The idea of traveling to different countries, solving challenges and competing against other teams excites me. It is not just about winning; it is about the adventure, cultural immersion and pushing oneself beyond comfort zones. "The Amazing Race" offers a unique blend of physical, mental and strategic challenges, making it an exhilarating experience. Plus, the opportunity to bond with a teammate while navigating through diverse landscapes and cultures adds an extra layer of excitement to the journey.

What are you proudest of?

One of my proudest achievements is receiving the President's Volunteer Service Award for my dedication to a non-profit organization. I devoted over 100 hours volunteering, drawing cartoon characters for children in hospitals. This experience was deeply fulfilling as it brought joy to young patients during challenging times. Being recognized with such an esteemed award affirmed the impact of my contribution. It reinforced my belief in the power of creativity and compassion to make a difference in people's lives. This recognition inspired me to continue serving my community with enthusiasm and dedication, knowing that even small gestures can have a significant impact.

We extend our gratitude to the high school students whose responses we published last week:

• Tess Martinez, Palm Desert High School
• Alanys Naranjo, Indio High School
• Brayan Ortiz, Desert Mirage High School
• Destiny Pantoja, Indio High School

Desert Dialogues will return on Monday, April 29 with a new set of student essays for our readers to consider and vote on.

Jennifer Cortez covers education in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at [email protected] .

‘The Walking Dead’ Emmy Plans: Spinoff ‘The Ones Who Live’ Submits for Limited Series, Danai Gurira Up for Both Acting and Writing

AMC Networks also reveals its submissions for other spinoffs dramas 'Daryl Dixon' with Norman Reedus and 'Dead City' with Jeffrey Dean Morgan

By Clayton Davis

Clayton Davis

Senior Awards Editor

• ‘The Walking Dead’ Emmy Plans: Spinoff ‘The Ones Who Live’ Submits for Limited Series, Danai Gurira Up for Both Acting and Writing 4 hours ago
• Oscar Rules Updated for 2025 Awards: Original Score Shortlist Increased, Drive-In Theater Eligibility Removed and More 5 hours ago
• Prime Video Eyes Big Emmy Push for ‘Expats’ With Nicole Kidman, Ji-young Yoo and 24 Awards Submissions (EXCLUSIVE) 2 weeks ago

AMC Networks remain hopeful the Emmy chances for its zombie apocalypse property are not dead.

The network announced its Emmy submission strategy for the three spinoffs from “ The Walking Dead ” universe: “Daryl Dixon,” “Dead City,” and “The Ones Who Live.”

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“Daryl Dixon,” starring Norman Reedus, will compete in the drama series categories. As the titular character, Reedus will aim for a lead drama actor nod, while his co-star Clémence Poésy, who plays nun Isabelle Carriere, being considered for a supporting mention. Reedus’ travel show “Riding with Norman Reedus,” now in its sixth season, will vie for a hosted nonfiction series or special.

“Dead City,” which features the characters Maggie and Negan (Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in Manhattan in search of Maggie’s son (and Glenn, rest in peace) will see both actors competing in the lead races. The season finale “Doma Smo” will represent for both director Gandja Monteiro and writer Eli Jorne.

Despite its popularity, “The Walking Dead,” which ran from 2010 to 2021, struggled to make a significant impact at the Emmys , with only 16 nominations and two wins across 177 episodes and 11 seasons. Other spinoffs like “Fear the Walking Dead,” “World Beyond,” and “Tales of the Walking Dead” have also been ignored.

Emmy submissions are due May 9 with the eligibility deadline for all series concluding their runs by May 31. Nominations-round voting runs from June 13 to June 24.

AMC’s Emmy submissions are below. All are subject to change.

“Monsieur Spade”

• Outstanding Limited Or Anthology Series
• Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Clive Owen
• Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Cara Bossom
• Outstanding Directing For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Scott Frank
• Outstanding Writing For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Scott Frank & Tom Fontana
• Outstanding Production Design For A Narrative Period Or Fantasy Program (One Hour Or More) – Benoît Barouh, Production Designer
• Outstanding Casting For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Constance Demontoy, Casting by (UK); Olivia Scott-Webb, Casting by (France); Agnès Alberny, Casting by (France)
• Outstanding Cinematography For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – David Ungaro, AFC (103)
• Outstanding Period Costumes – Nathalie Chesnais, Head Costume Supervisor
• Outstanding Picture Editing For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – François Gedigier (102)
• Outstanding Period Or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Hairstyling – Dominique Segonds, Hair Dresser and Hair Supervisor
• Outstanding Period Or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Makeup (Non-Prosthetic) – Florence Rodriguez, Makeup Artist and Makeup Supervisor
• Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics – Laetitia Sadier and Lukas Frank
• Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music – Carlos Rafael Rivera, Original Music by
• Outstanding Music Supervision – Thibault Deboaisne, Music Supervision
• Outstanding Sound Editing For A Limited Or Anthology Series, Movie Or Special – Nicolas Moreau, Sound EditorOutstanding Sound Mixing For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Téphane Bucher, Production Mixer; Olivier Dô Hûu, Re-Recording Mixer (102)

“Parish”

• Outstanding Drama Series
• Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series – Giancarlo Esposito
• Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series – Zackary Momoh
• Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series – Skeet Ulrich
• Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series – Bradley Whitford
• Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series – Paula Malcomson
• Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series – Karen Gaviola (106)
• Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series – Theo Travers, Hanna Mcintosh, Eduardo Javier Canto, Ryan Maldonado (106)
• Outstanding Production Design For A Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour Or More) – Alec Hammond, Production Designer (101)
• Outstanding Casting For A Drama Series – Sharon Bialy, Casting by; Gohar Gazazyan, Casting by; Sherry Thomas, Casting by
• Outstanding Cinematography For A Series (One Hour) – Amy Vincent, ASC (101
• Outstanding Contemporary Costumes – Carol Cutshall, Costume Designer
• Outstanding Picture Editing For A Drama Series – Matthew V Colonna (101
• Outstanding Main Title Design – Untold Studios
• Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Original Dramatic Score) – Wow Jones & Jimijame$, Music by
• Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics – Wow Jones & Jimijame$, Music by (103
• Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music – Wow Jones & Jimijame$, Music by
• Outstanding Music Supervision – Joel C. High, Music Supervisor (101
• Outstanding Sound Editing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour) – Daniel Colman Mpse, Supervising Sound Editor (101)
• Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour) – Bj Lehn, Production Sound Mixer; Mark D. Fleming CAS, Re-Recording Mixer; Myron Nettinga, Re-Recording Mixer
• Outstanding Stunt Coordination For Drama Programming And/Or Outstanding Stunt Performance – Andy Dylan, Stunt Coordinator 

“Dark Winds” — Season 2

• Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series – Zahn McClarnon
• Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series – Kiowa Gordon
• Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series – Jessica Matten
• Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series – Jeri Ryan
• Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series – Chris Eyre (206)
• Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series – John Wirth & Graham Roland (206)
• Outstanding Casting For A Drama Series – Rene Haynes CSA, Casting by; Jennifer Schwalenberg CSA, Local Casting
• Outstanding Cinematography For A Series (One Hour) – Paul Elliot (203
• Outstanding Picture Editing For A Drama Series – Bridget Durnford (204
• Outstanding Picture Editing For A Drama Series – Christopher A. Smith (206
• Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Original Dramatic Score) – Kevin Kiner, Music by; Sean Kiner, Music by; David Kiner, Music b
• Outstanding Music Supervision – Rick Clark, Music Supervisor (206
• Outstanding Sound Editing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour) – Rob Webber, Sound Supervisor (204)
• Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour) – David Stevens, Production Sound Mixer; Rick Ash, Re-Recording Mixer; Scott Webber, Re-Recording Mixer (206)

“The Walking Dead: Dead City”

• Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series – Jeffrey Dean Morgan
• Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series – Lauren Cohan
• Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series – Gandja Monteiro (106)
• Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series – Eli Jorne (106)
• Outstanding Main Title Design – Picture Mill
• Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Season Or A Movie – Ajoy Mani, Visual Effects Producing Supervisor; Johann Kunz, Special Effects Supervisor
• Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series – Norman Reedus
• Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series – Clémence Poésy
• Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series – Daniel Percival (102)
• Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series – David Zabel & Jason Richman (102)
• Outstanding Production Design For A Narrative Period Or Fantasy Program (One Hour Or More) – Clovis Weil (103)
• Outstanding Cinematography For A Series (One Hour) – Tomaso Fiorillo (102)
• Outstanding Picture Editing For A Drama Series – Shari Mead (102)
• Outstanding Main Title Design – Prologue Films
• Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup – Greg Nicotero
• Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Original Dramatic Score) – David Sardy (105)
• Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Season Or A Movie Or Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Single Episode – Joa M’changama, VFX Supervisor

“The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live”

• Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Andrew Lincoln
• Outstanding Lead Actress In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Danai Gurira
• Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Matthew Jeffers
• Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Pollyanna Mcintosh
• Outstanding Directing For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Michael Slovis (104)
• Outstanding Writing For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Danai Gurira (104)
• Outstanding Main Title Design – Huge Designs
• Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Season Or A Movie Or Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Single Episode – Johann Kunz, SPFX Supervisor; Charlotta Forssman, VFX Supervisor
• Outstanding Cinematography For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie – Adrian Peng Correia (101), Wesley Cardino (Episode TBC)

“Planet Earth III”

• Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Series
• Outstanding Narrator – David Attenborough, Narrator
• Outstanding Directing For A Documentary/Nonfiction Program – Will Ridgein (Ocean)
• Outstanding Cinematography For A Nonfiction Program – Luke Nelson, Kevin Flay, Justin Maguire, John Shier, Barrie Britton, Daniel Hunter, Edward Saltau, Pete Cayless, Justine Evans, Jake Davis, Oliver Mueller, Ronan Donovan, Alain Lusignan, Ryan Deboodt, Cyril Ruoso, Pascal Lorent, Stuart Trowell, Rolf Steinmann, Braydon Moloney (Extremes)
• Outstanding Music Composition For A Documentary Series Or Special (Original Dramatic Score) – Hans Zimmer, Original Music by; Jacob Shea, Original Music by; Sara Barone, Original Music by
• Outstanding Sound Editing For A Nonfiction Or Reality Program – Johnny Crew & Tim Owens (Freshwater)
• Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Nonfiction Or Reality Program – Graham Wild & Oliver Baldwin & Olga Reed (Deserts And Grasslands)

“The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula” Season 5

• Outstanding Reality Competition Program (501)
• Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Reality Competition Program – The Boulet Brothers
• Outstanding Costumes For Variety, Nonfiction Or Reality Programming – Mindy L’amour, Venus Prototype
• Outstanding Hairstyling For A Variety, Nonfiction Or Reality Program – Marco’s Wigs
• Outstanding Makeup For A Variety, Nonfiction Or Reality Program – The Boulet Brothers

“Cooper’s Bar” Season 2

• Outstanding Comedy Series
• Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series – Rhea Seehorn
• Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series – Hannah Davis (204)
• Outstanding Writing For A Comedy Series – David Conolly & Hannah Davis & Nick Morton (204)

“Ride With Norman Reedus” Season 6

• Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series Or Special

“The Disappearance of Shere Hite”

• Exceptional Merit In Documentary Filmmaking
• Outstanding Narrator – Dakota Johnson
• Outstanding Picture Editing For A Nonfiction Program – Eileen Meyer

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An Update on Battlefield 2042 and Welcoming Motive Studio to the Team

The team expands as we set our sights on what’s next.

Battlefield Community –

When Battlefield 2042 launched, we promised to bring four seasons of content to the game, including new maps, additional specialists, weapons, vehicles, and more. As our seasons continued, the feedback we received made it clear your appetite for more Battlefield 2042 remained strong. We took the opportunity to evolve the game to make it even better for you and continue to learn valuable lessons for our own developmental processes.

Last month, we released the seventh season of Battlefield 2042 – Turning Point, which added an intense new urban map set in Chile as well as several weapons and a new gadget, with a revamped map based on the Stadium location from Hourglass, two themed events, and a new weapon and vehicle to come.

While we’ve enjoyed and are proud of creating these seasons of additional content for Battlefield 2042, it is now necessary for us to turn from the present to the future. What this ultimately means is that Season 7 will serve as the final season for Battlefield 2042. After Season 7 concludes, we will continue to support the game with new in-game challenges, events, modes, and of course, ongoing maintenance, but we are moving away from delivering official seasons.

We know this news may be disappointing.  However, as we looked at what the future of the series required, it became clear it was time for us to shift our resources and focus to be fully dedicated to what comes next.

As I’ve mentioned in previous updates, we have an ambitious vision to embrace and unlock the vast potential of the series’ class-based squadplay and immersive, intense battles.

To that end, Motive Studio – the talented developers known most recently for their work on the critically acclaimed remake of Dead Space and Star Wars: Squadrons – are building a team focused on Battlefield at their studio.  We’re tremendously excited for Motive, as they are bringing their expertise with Frostbite and compelling storytelling to the fold, joining DICE, Criterion, and Ripple Effect in building a Battlefield universe across connected multiplayer experiences and single-player.

Battlefield 2042 has been an important chapter of the series we all know and love, and your feedback has been important in helping us build this game into something special while also assisting us in laying the foundation for the future. Battlefield is an experience that is defined by the passion of its community as much as its team-driven tactics and explosive battles, and I look forward to the day that we can tell you more about what’s coming next.

Byron Beede (General Manager, Battlefield) 

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Guest Essay

It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes

By Andrew W. Kahrl

Dr. Kahrl is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of “The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.”

Property taxes, the lifeblood of local governments and school districts, are among the most powerful and stealthy engines of racism and wealth inequality our nation has ever produced. And while the Biden administration has offered many solutions for making the tax code fairer, it has yet to effectively tackle a problem that has resulted not only in the extraordinary overtaxation of Black and Latino homeowners but also in the worsening of disparities between wealthy and poorer communities. Fixing these problems requires nothing short of a fundamental re-examination of how taxes are distributed.

In theory, the property tax would seem to be an eminently fair one: The higher the value of your property, the more you pay. The problem with this system is that the tax is administered by local officials who enjoy a remarkable degree of autonomy and that tax rates are typically based on the collective wealth of a given community. This results in wealthy communities enjoying lower effective tax rates while generating more tax revenues; at the same time, poorer ones are forced to tax property at higher effective rates while generating less in return. As such, property assessments have been manipulated throughout our nation’s history to ensure that valuable property is taxed the least relative to its worth and that the wealthiest places will always have more resources than poorer ones.

Black people have paid the heaviest cost. Since they began acquiring property after emancipation, African Americans have been overtaxed by local governments. By the early 1900s, an acre of Black-owned land was valued, for tax purposes, higher than an acre of white-owned land in most of Virginia’s counties, according to my calculations, despite being worth about half as much. And for all the taxes Black people paid, they got little to nothing in return. Where Black neighborhoods began, paved streets, sidewalks and water and sewer lines often ended. Black taxpayers helped to pay for the better-resourced schools white children attended. Even as white supremacists treated “colored” schools as another of the white man’s burdens, the truth was that throughout the Jim Crow era, Black taxpayers subsidized white education.

Freedom from these kleptocratic regimes drove millions of African Americans to move to Northern and Midwestern states in the Great Migration from 1915 to 1970, but they were unable to escape racist assessments, which encompassed both the undervaluation of their property for sales purposes and the overvaluation of their property for taxation purposes. During those years, the nation’s real estate industry made white-owned property in white neighborhoods worth more because it was white. Since local tax revenue was tied to local real estate markets, newly formed suburbs had a fiscal incentive to exclude Black people, and cities had even more reason to keep Black people confined to urban ghettos.

As the postwar metropolis became a patchwork of local governments, each with its own tax base, the fiscal rationale for segregation intensified. Cities were fiscally incentivized to cater to the interests of white homeowners and provide better services for white neighborhoods, especially as middle-class white people began streaming into the suburbs, taking their tax dollars with them.

One way to cater to wealthy and white homeowners’ interests is to intentionally conduct property assessments less often. The city of Boston did not conduct a citywide property reassessment between 1946 and 1977. Over that time, the values of properties in Black neighborhoods increased slowly when compared with the values in white neighborhoods or even fell, which led to property owners’ paying relatively more in taxes than their homes were worth. At the same time, owners of properties in white neighborhoods got an increasingly good tax deal as their neighborhoods increased in value.

As was the case in other American cities, Boston’s decision most likely derived from the fear that any updates would hasten the exodus of white homeowners and businesses to the suburbs. By the 1960s, assessments on residential properties in Boston’s poor neighborhoods were up to one and a half times as great as their actual values, while assessments in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods were, on average, 40 percent of market value.

Jersey City, N.J., did not conduct a citywide real estate reassessment between 1988 and 2018 as part of a larger strategy for promoting high-end real estate development. During that time, real estate prices along the city’s waterfront soared but their owners’ tax bills remained relatively steady. By 2015, a home in one of the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods worth $175,000 received the same tax bill as a home in the city’s downtown worth $530,000.

These are hardly exceptions. Numerous studies conducted during those years found that assessments in predominantly Black neighborhoods of U.S. cities were grossly higher relative to value than those in white areas.

These problems persist. A recent report by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy found that property assessments were regressive (meaning lower-valued properties were assessed higher relative to value than higher-valued ones) in 97.7 percent of U.S. counties. Black-owned homes and properties in Black neighborhoods continue to be devalued on the open market, making this regressive tax, in effect, a racist tax.

The overtaxation of Black homes and neighborhoods is also a symptom of a much larger problem in America’s federated fiscal structure. By design, this system produces winners and losers: localities with ample resources to provide the goods and services that we as a nation have entrusted to local governments and others that struggle to keep the lights on, the streets paved, the schools open and drinking water safe . Worse yet, it compels any fiscally disadvantaged locality seeking to improve its fortunes to do so by showering businesses and corporations with tax breaks and subsidies while cutting services and shifting tax burdens onto the poor and disadvantaged. A local tax on local real estate places Black people and cities with large Black populations at a permanent disadvantage. More than that, it gives middle-class white people strong incentives to preserve their relative advantages, fueling the zero-sum politics that keep Americans divided, accelerates the upward redistribution of wealth and impoverishes us all.

There are technical solutions. One, which requires local governments to adopt more accurate assessment models and regularly update assessment rolls, can help make property taxes fairer. But none of the proposed reforms being discussed can be applied nationally because local tax policies are the prerogative of the states and, often, local governments themselves. Given the variety and complexity of state and local property tax laws and procedures and how much local governments continue to rely on tax reductions and tax shifting to attract and retain certain people and businesses, we cannot expect them to fix these problems on their own.

The best way to make local property taxes fairer and more equitable is to make them less important. The federal government can do this by reinvesting in our cities, counties and school districts through a federal fiscal equity program, like those found in other advanced federated nations. Canada, Germany and Australia, among others, direct federal funds to lower units of government with lower capacities to raise revenue.

And what better way to pay for the program than to tap our wealthiest, who have benefited from our unjust taxation scheme for so long? President Biden is calling for a 25 percent tax on the incomes and annual increases in the values of the holdings of people claiming more than $100 million in assets, but we could accomplish far more by enacting a wealth tax on the 1 percent. Even a modest 4 percent wealth tax on people whose total assets exceed $50 million could generate upward of $400 billion in additional annual revenue, which should be more than enough to ensure that the needs of every city, county and public school system in America are met. By ensuring that localities have the resources they need, we can counteract the unequal outcomes and rank injustices that our current system generates.

Andrew W. Kahrl is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of “ The Black Tax : 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.”

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NPR editor Uri Berliner resigns with blast at new CEO

David Folkenflik

Uri Berliner resigned from NPR on Wednesday saying he could not work under the new CEO Katherine Maher. He cautioned that he did not support calls to defund NPR. Uri Berliner hide caption

Uri Berliner resigned from NPR on Wednesday saying he could not work under the new CEO Katherine Maher. He cautioned that he did not support calls to defund NPR.

NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner resigned this morning, citing the response of the network's chief executive to his outside essay accusing NPR of losing the public's trust.

"I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years," Berliner wrote in an email to CEO Katherine Maher. "I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay."

NPR and Maher declined to comment on his resignation.

The Free Press, an online site embraced by journalists who believe that the mainstream media has become too liberal, published Berliner's piece last Tuesday. In it, he argued that NPR's coverage has increasingly reflected a rigid progressive ideology. And he argued that the network's quest for greater diversity in its workforce — a priority under prior chief executive John Lansing – has not been accompanied by a diversity of viewpoints presented in NPR shows, podcasts or online coverage.

Later that same day, NPR pushed back against Berliner's critique.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff . "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

Yet Berliner's commentary has been embraced by conservative and partisan Republican critics of the network, including former President Donald Trump and the activist Christopher Rufo.

Rufo is posting a parade of old social media posts from Maher, who took over NPR last month. In two examples, she called Trump a racist and also seemed to minimize the effects of rioting in 2020. Rufo is using those to rally public pressure for Maher's ouster, as he did for former Harvard University President Claudine Gay .

Others have used the moment to call for the elimination of federal funding for NPR – less than one percent of its roughly $300 million annual budget – and local public radio stations, which derive more of their funding from the government.

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

Berliner reiterated in his resignation letter that he does not support such calls.

In a brief interview, he condemned a statement Maher issued Friday in which she suggested that he had questioned "whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity." She called that "profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning."

Berliner subsequently exchanged emails with Maher, but she did not address those comments.

"It's been building up," Berliner said of his decision to resign, "and it became clear it was on today."

For publishing his essay in The Free Press and appearing on its podcast, NPR had suspended Berliner for five days without pay. Its formal rebuke noted he had done work outside NPR without its permission, as is required, and shared proprietary information.

(Disclosure: Like Berliner, I am part of NPR's Business Desk. He has edited many of my past stories. But he did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Earlier in the day, Berliner forwarded to NPR editors and other colleagues a note saying he had "never questioned" their integrity and had been trying to raise these issues within the newsroom for more than seven years.

What followed was an email he had sent to newsroom leaders after Trump's 2016 win. He wrote then: "Primarily for the sake of our journalism, we can't align ourselves with a tribe. So we don't exist in a cocoon that blinds us to the views and experience of tens of millions of our fellow citizens."

Berliner's critique has inspired anger and dismay within the network. Some colleagues said they could no longer trust him after he chose to publicize such concerns rather than pursue them as part of ongoing newsroom debates, as is customary. Many signed a letter to Maher and Edith Chapin, NPR's chief news executive. They asked for clarity on, among other things, how Berliner's essay and the resulting public controversy would affect news coverage.

Yet some colleagues privately said Berliner's critique carried some truth. Chapin also announced monthly reviews of the network's coverage for fairness and diversity - including diversity of viewpoint.

She said in a text message earlier this week that that initiative had been discussed long before Berliner's essay, but "Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it."

She added, "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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