How long do you spend on your literature essays?

Kura1984

I seem to need an insane amount of time to get an essay done from start to finish. Last term, I was spending, on average, about two weeks (on and off) on each essay. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't swotting 24/7, and I had days where I didn't even think about the essay. I do seem to need that time to process the information, however.

I messed up (for the first time) on one essay last term because, you'll probably raise an eyebrow here, I had only six days to complete it.. Fair enough, it was a heavy subject. I had to study the poetry of two heavyweight 16th-17th century poets and I had to put it all into context, but then I only handed in about 1200 words of the 2000 that I was asked for.

Is it unreasonable to need so long to do the work? I've heard of people sitting down the day before a due date and banging out (largely paraphrased-from-a-book) essays. Then they get marks in the region of 60%!!!

Can people shed light on this issue please? Is it all about effective reading? Or are there people out there who are equally 'slow' in their reading and writing (note: I'm not slow slow. I take things at an easy pace).

Thank you guys for answering. 'Tis much appreciated.

Reply 1

la fille danse

I look at how long I have to complete an essay, and spread the work out evenly. For example, I'm working on a 4,500 word essay right now, and I'm planning on having the whole thing done in five days - writing about 900 words a day, working on it a couple hours each day. So, overall I'll have spent 8-10 hours on it.

Reply 2

wilbur

For a weekly essay, about two days reading and an afternoon or two writing.

I wouldn't worry about spending a long time on your essays, but just think about what you're doing in that time. English is a subject where it's possible to do a great deal of unnecessary work... so if you're not thinking explicitly about the question then it's probably not going to be time spent usefully.

Reply 3

epitome

It depends what you think constitutes "an essay". From what you say, it seems to mean all the reading *and* the final writing (and any noting and drafting stages in between).

It takes me a minimum of 2 days to write a normal literature essay - more normally I allow 4. Two or so for the primary text or texts (obviously if the book is unusually long or short that's different), and day for critical reading, further reading and thinking, and planning; a nice full day to write. The writing itself, for a standard 2000-3000wd essay, takes me anywhere between 3.5 and 9 hours (hence allowing a full day, if I can). If it's an essay on short texts (like in Practical Criticism) I'll allow no more than 4 hours to do all the reading and writing.

Requiring 2 weeks to complete a standard-length course essay is a bit odd, and isn't really sustainable (as you've obviously realised). There might be several reasons it's taking you too long, and there are lots of things you could look at to change the situation:

You might be a naturally slow reader (I certainly am!), and it might take you longer than helpful to take in both the words and their meanings/wider implications. Some people are remarkably quick at this. However, this is something we just have to learn to work around. (Though, if you're interested, there are several methods to speed up accurate reading - I've never felt the need to try them, but apparently they can be very effective).

You might be thinking you're doing a lot of work when actually you're not. A really effective working day is 7-8 hours. Lots of people say they've been working "all day" and actually only do 2 hours' worth of work. Look very carefully at how much time you're *really* spending working...you might find that with concentrated and honest effort you could get the 2 weeks down to 4 days.

Do you spend too much time reading critical material? This can take up a massive, and unnecessary, amount of time. Be selective, and have a time-limit for this kind of work. (As I said above, for a standard 4-day programme, I allow one day for critical stuff, at most; often it's just a few hours).

Is a massive amount of time spent making plans in an inefficient way? (Being 'perfect' in presentation, for example; or writing things out several times [handwritten notes then computer]).

Or is the bulk of the time spent actually writing and editing? In which case, you might need to brutally cut down the perfectionism (which really does waste a lot of time for minimum results, sometimes - and is a real problem for some people), or find ways to speed it up! You could try just splurging out your ideas into paragraphs (following a loose plan), and see what happens.

Basically, there are lots of places to waste time in the essay-writing process. What takes you most time? And are you *honestly* using your time efficiently? (That is, if you think you're reading for 4 hours, is it really only one after you factor in tea-making and toilet/email/TSR breaks?). If you can identify the most time-consuming part of it, you should find it easier to cut it down.

Good luck!

Reply 4

the_alba

I've spent anything between one day and a whole term working on an essay (ie. researching it, taking notes, organising a structure). It depends on length obviously, and how comfortable you are with your material. When I feel a deadline approaching I try to write 1000 words a day.

Reply 5

silence

i can spend a few days, or even weeks, just thinking about it. then a couple of days of reading specifically for the essay (complemented by general reading from the previous week or two on the part of the course itself), then it is possible to bang out an essay in a day or two.

i think the idea of effective reading goes a lot further than perhaps being able to skimread lots and lots of different journals - i seem to find that it's more about picking a handful of sources (between 3 and 5 perhaps) and getting a firm understanding of that they're saying.

for example, an essay in the third week of term on wordsworth's 'the prelude' - first two weeks of term i'd have been browsing through thematic and biographical material, trying to understand who wordsworth was, when he was writing and the whole romanticism movement in general. about four days before the essay's due, i'd look at journal articles or books specific to the essay question, then maybe a day or two before start writing. so for me, the essay seems to be more of an icing on the cake of study rather than the spongey texture and filling. if that makes sense.

Reply 6

dreamqueen

I juxt work on the basis of how long I've got for the essay, so currently I have an essay a week so I spend between two and three days getting secondary material, reading and note-making and choosing my question and writing a short essay plan. Then write and correct the essay in the next few days, aiming to get it finished the day before it's due in in case I hit an unexpected problem and need some extra time. But if I have a vacation essay I know I have the time to think about it a lot so I might write little bits and intersperse it with revision and stuff so it ends up taking the whole six week vacation to finish - but that's not representative of the time it actually took if you see what I mean. I think it's just a matter of finding how you work and playing to that, e.g. I know I get agtated if I haven't started the actual essay so I don't make many notes but I have a friend who makes copious notes and then only starts the essay very late. Also (and I find this really hard) you can't think about making the essay perfect, you have to think about what you can do in the time you've got, because the tutor can't compare what you give them to the perfect essay in your head, so be realistic about what you include

Reply 7

chel

i usually spend 2-4 days rereading texts, making notes and researching. By the end of which i'll have made a comprehensive plan (basically a detailed plan including quotes etc). Then i'll write the essay which can take 1-2 days. However, after this i will redraft and redraft untill the deadline, whether that be 2days or 2 weeks.
For me it doesn't really matter how long the essay is supposed to be, i always write way too much anyway, in fact often i spend longer on short essays because i struggle to cut down.
Everyone's different, you've clearly got into a system of writing that works for you so stick with it, just make sure you think and plan ahead

Reply 8

Freckles

I'm about to write my fourth literature essay this year and they've all been 1500 words. I'm not very good at working in one go, I always get distracted and will do something else for hours in between, even though I shouldn't. I guess just the writing and staring at the screen, thinking about what to say, part takes me between 10 and 20 hours per essay. It really depends on the book, too, though. If it's something you enjoyed, it'll be much quicker. I finished my Huck Finn essay in two days, because I really felt I had lots to say, whereas I have spent weeks on another one. And currently, I don't even know which question I'll be doing for the one that's due in 2 weeks time. So that one will probably be really stressful again. I'm finding it really hard to write about books I'm not passionate about...

Reply 9

Profesh

This entire thread reads like a litany of cases-in-point as to why I wouldn't be able to hack English Literature at University. Biographical material? Third-party critiques? Research?

What the ****?

Reply 10

PinkPigeon

I'm pretty terrible but still have been comfortably sitting in the 60-70% mark on my essays...I intend to do a little more next year when it starts to count though- usually I'll spend a couple of afternoons in the library looking for sources and reading critical material (assuming I'm already familiar with the texts I'm writing about, which I always have been sofar as we've usually already had lectures/seminars on them) and then I'll spend one day drafting a massive plan (usually A4 or longer in bullet points) then I can do the actual writing in a couple of hours if I actually concentrate.

I tend to leave things a bit to the last minute though, so re-drafting doesn't happen all that often, with the exception of an hour or so to read through, make a few little changes and usually cut off a large number of words!

Reply 11

Freckles

My main problem is that I'm lacking concentration and I get distracted a lot. The whole thing could be done within a few hours if I actually focused. Like right now, where I should be writing a paper on Toni Morrison, but instead I'm HERE!!! :frown:

Reply 12

Miss_Scarlett

ow long do you spend on your literature essays?
A: Too long, considering the time allowed in the exam is 1 hour...

Reply 13

PinkPigeon

Freckles

I know the feeling 100%, you have to take into account hours of faffing around on facebook, suddenly NEEDING to check the prices of flights for my trip in the summer or 'remembering' that I never replied to that e-mail which I absolutely HAVE to do at that moment.... :rolleyes: