Find a workable starting question for an essay

Before collecting more notes, decide what your essay needs to investigate. A focused question gives your reading a purpose and makes the first writing session easier to begin.

Read the task as a set of decisions

Copy the assignment prompt into your notes. Underline the action it asks for, such as compare, explain or evaluate. Circle the topic and mark any limits on period, texts or examples. Keep the required length and submission instructions on the same page.

Now write a provisional question in ordinary language. If the prompt asks you to compare two accounts, your question might be: “What does each account treat as the main cause, and what evidence makes their explanations different?” You can refine this question as you read.

Make a three-column evidence map

1. Possible point: write one idea that could help answer the question.
2. Evidence: give a specific passage, example or observation and its location.
3. Explanation: say why that evidence matters to your possible point.

A note such as “source A is useful” leaves work for later. A note such as “page 18 gives a different cause from source B; compare the assumptions behind each” tells you what to do next. Mark any point that currently lacks evidence.

Test the size of your question

Try answering it in two sentences. If the answer requires an entire history of the subject, narrow the scope. If it produces only a definition, ask what relationship, difference or tension you could investigate. Check the change against the assignment rather than following an interesting tangent away from it.

Choose one paragraph to begin

Pick a point with evidence you can already locate. Draft a claim, present the evidence and explain how it advances your answer. You can write this working paragraph before polishing the introduction. Leave a visible note wherever you still need to check a quotation or reference.

Finish the session with one next action: locate a missing passage, compare two examples or revise the question. This is more useful than adding “work on essay” to your list without saying what that work involves.