Essay Plan Template

To access the template, sign up to Ayoa, or log in. Once you’ve signed up, navigate to the homepage before selecting “Create New” and choosing a new mind map. Finally, find and open Morning of the Exam Ritual from the available templates.

The first thing when looking at an essay question is to distinguish which words are important, and which are merely joining words. You will want to highlight the important ones, and ensure you are referring back to them throughout your essay. Your introduction should paraphrase the question, then act as a mini essay plan, talking about each point you will be making in chronological order.

Helpful tip – if you are producing an essay under timed conditions, take 5 minutes to write down your essay plan before delving into the exam question to ensure you’re clear on what needs to be in your introduction, so the information that follows matches what you initially stated.

When starting to plan the main body of your essay, you need to be aware of the acronym PEEL (point, evidence, explanation, link). Note the words used may be slightly different from what your specific college/ university uses, but they will all mean the same and follow this structure. Point is where you will start talking about your first idea/ topic you wish to talk about in your essay. When putting this onto the mind map, you can create a notes section on the ‘point’ web and start noting down ideas.

After your initial point has been decided, you must identify what material backs it up. This tends to be an outsourced piece of material, so you can add web links and image attachments to easily reference your source. You can have more than one piece of evidence to back up your point, however use the mind map to your advantage here – create visual links between each piece of evidence to help the flow of your essay.

Under the explanation stage, use your own opinion to explain how your evidence links to your point. You may find it useful to make either a notes column or extra branches on the mind map to brief ideas on what you are going to say. Your essay plan should not have everything you want to say word for word, it’s just an outlined structure.

The final stage is to always ensure at the end of every point, you link back to the essay question. Mind maps are particularly useful for this as they offer visual aids such as arrows and web links, to visually demonstrate how each not only your paragraph links back to the question, but how it links onto the next point.

Lastly, you must make your conclusion. Your conclusion should be short and sweet, not include any additional points, and essentially just be a few lines summarising your paragraphs.

Quick tip – include the link to your markscheme in your essay plan mind map to ensure you are always checking you are on the right track.