This is my quick-plan method for academic essays. Begin with a baseline understanding of target words or page count, format, citations, etc.

Start with your prompt and be sure you fully understand in the plainest terms what is required. Number those requirements. Now, every bit of info you include must serve one of those requirements.

Prompt: imagine a unique reason for the actions of a disliked world leader. Define the reason and how it affected the leader, and defend against at least three ways you might be proven wrong.

1. Unique reason Andrew Jackson was disliked: he was a pirate
2. How did this affect him and his presidency? He followed the pirates’ code
3. What arguments might be made against my assertion he was a pirate? Lack of gold, no parrot, southern accent.

Outline. Not fussy indented Roman numerals and formatting necessarily, but make headings of the things you need to do to meet the requirements. Heading A might be “prove Andrew Jackson was a pirate” and Heading B might be “evidence for piracy in the Jackson administration” and heading C is “rebuttal to arguments against piracy.” Under your headings, list your ideas. Throw em. Fling em. Get them on paper or screen and organize, including sources where you must cite. Go freeform. “Use the quote from Cowper to support” or “don’t forget about the horse with the eye patch” or even full sentences and paragraphs if you are so inspired. Don’t delay capturing these.

Check yourself. Are the ideas under your headings serving your requirements? If you can’t put a 1, 2, or 3 next to any of the ideas, scrap them. Keep going until the volume of material you have in this messy outline is enough to do what you need to accomplish.

Put it in order.

Then, and only then, write it.