Planning and structuring
Discover how to use planning, structure and flow to develop focused, engaging and coherent academic writing.
Go to: Getting started | Using ITAR | Stages | Using signposting to improve the flow
Planning involves exploring ideas and preparing for writing. Structuring focuses on how ideas are organised and presented. While planning and structuring are different activities, they have complementary roles.
Planning is like having a sense of a route before you go on a journey and structuring is like knowing how you are going to get there and even the different stops along the way. If you plan your writing journey now, you are less likely to get lost en route!
Getting started
Your assignment brief provides an important starting point for the planning process. Some assignment briefs offer detailed information on how writing should be structured. Others are more flexible, and might ask open-ended questions to support you to develop an argument.
Either way, it is important not to skip taking a good look at the guidance that has been provided for you, whatever form this takes. This will help you to align your work with the course outcomes and marking criteria.
Top tips
- Highlight the key requirements and criteria for assessment in the brief
- Make a note of any initial thoughts on how you might tackle the assignment
- Seek clarification from your tutor to avoid any misunderstanding
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Using ITAR - Instruction, Topic, Aspect and Restriction
Use ITAR to understand what is being asked of you. The ITAR acronym – Instruction, Topic, Aspect and Restriction – provides a structured approach to question or topic analysis for university assignments.
This can help with planning and structuring your writing, supporting you to stay on course and to figure out what you should or should not be including in your writing.
Watch: Using ITAR for essay and exam questions
Watch the following 5-minute video for more information on how to use ITAR, including examples from three different subject areas:
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Stages of planning and structuring
The planning process might involve:
- Generating ideas, themes and questions relating to your topic
- Creating a loose outline with headings and subheadings
As your plan becomes more detailed, you may have a stronger sense of the structure of your writing. You might be able to:
- Add detail to your headings and subheadings Identify what will be contained within your introduction, main body and conclusion
- Assign a wordcount to different sections of your writing
- Consider the transition between different paragraphs and/or sections of your writing
- Draft and re-draft your writing to refine it and ensure it aligns with what has been asked of you
Take a flexible approach
Often our process does not follow the sequential order given above and may go through a few cycles of the listed activities before we feel relatively confident with what we have written. At different stages of the process, we might use different strategies.
For example, in the early stages of the planning process, you may prefer to speak your ideas aloud, and in the later stages, you might use your wordcount to support you to create a detailed plan of the different sections of your writing.
Explore the interactive resource for this topic
Explore this resource to discover different strategies for planning and structuring your writing, including the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Study resource: Planning and structuring
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Using signposting to improve the flow
Signposting is a way to guide the reader through your writing to support flow and readability.
In the planning and structuring stages of writing, this might involve drafting and ordering headings and subheadings, as well as thinking about the logical transitions between different sections.
As your writing becomes more detailed, you can start to use words and phrases to show the reader where the argument is going. Here are some basic examples:
- Introduction: "This essay will explore..."
- Transitions: "Furthermore," "In addition," "Conversely,"
- Conclusion: "In summary," "To conclude,"
Explore the interactive resource for this topic
Use the resource below for more information on how to use large, medium and small signposts within your writing to support flow.
Study resource: Improving the flow
Academic Phrasebank
The Academic Phrasebank from the University of Manchester provides a useful collection of phrases and sentence-starters for different aspects of academic writing including sections on ‘Being Cautious’ and ‘Signaling Transition’.
University of Manchester - Academic Phrasebank
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Continue your journey
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