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"The Post-It Note Jaguar (covered with sticky notes)" by Scott Ableman is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A paragraph is a series of sentences which build on a single main topic or point. In academic essays they tend to be about 200 words long or so. Of course, some might be a bit shorter or longer, but you can use this average figure to estimate how many paragraphs you will need in your essay. For example, a 2000 word essay will tend to have around 10 paragraphs in it. Your essay should have an introduction paragraph and a conclusion paragraph. That leaves 8 paragraphs in your 2000 word essay. Each of these needs its own main topic or point. So you need to choose 8 main points that you want to make in your essay.

One way to plan an essay is to divide the total word count by 200 and then get that number of post-it notes and stick them on the back of a door, arranged from top to bottom. Each post-it note represents one paragraph. Write "Introduction" on a post-it note and stick it at the top. Then write "Conclusion" on another one and stick it at the bottom. On the other post-it notes write the main topic or point for that paragraph, and arrange them in between. Try out different orders of post-it notes and see which order you think makes the best structure for your essay. Think about what kind of sentences you might use to link them together into a logically connected argument. You might have more topics or point than there are paragraphs, so you will need to choose which points to include and which to leave out. You can make extra post-it notes with topics on them and try swapping different combinations of topics in and out to find out what arrangement makes the best structure. When you are happy with the choice of topics and their arrangement, that is your essay plan.