(TRIGGER WARNING) UNI STUDENTS! advice please! 3 essays in 3 days?

[Lee]

I hope you enjoyed your Easter break. Stay safe and work diligently. Good luck.

Spoiler

It's possible to complete writing one essay / literature review in a day, even if you do find yourself preoccupied with doing other things. I remember staying up many late hours trying to finish one. I wouldn't advise it, but it is a way that is often sought after as a last resort if the stress has become too overbearing.

For your case, with three, it might be a bit more difficult. But that depends on your current level of motivation, confidence and knowledge for the topics you're planning to discuss in your essays.

Notes that are helpful and relevant can guide you towards meeting the minimum or maximum requirement for the essay. With organised notes (and references to classic literature), you can develop skeleton plans that can be used to build the structure for your essays.

If you haven't started taking notes, then that's the probably the first step I'd take. It doesn't have to be perfect, but having a general idea for where to start often serves as a good way to keep your mind active and move yourself towards working proactively with the goal of finishing it.

Writing 3000 words at first may seem daunting, but as you begin to deconstruct your essay into elements — i.e., introduction, body, conclusion — and understand how linking sentences between paragraphs count towards the overall word count, it will become less tedious for you to think, plan and write.

About the length of your essay, I assume you've been told previously that your essays can be +/- 10% of the overall word count.

In that case, we'll assume the introduction and conclusion for your topic to at least account 20–25% of the length for your essay. Considering now the length of your body (75%), which collectively is around 2000 words — which you break further into different topics — you would probably be looking at around 500 – 750 words for each one. The task in completing your essay becomes manageable as you work on smaller sections. And because each of your paragraphs won't need to be the same length, you can explore some of your selected topics in depth to create insight for your reader.

Returning to your question — if you can complete three separate essays in three days and perform outstandingly. It's possible.

Using your notes, you can create quick and effective drafts. These drafts can also be revised (quickly) to address areas not well-developed. Through this process, you'd gradually treat your essay as a submission that you would be ready to turn in as your best written work.

Don't worry if you cannot manage to complete your essays in three days. It's much better to think instead of working towards the goal of eventually finishing it. (And this is true even if your work is not properly submitted by the correct deadline.)

If you can fit time into your (busy) schedule, I suggest you spend time to revisit your written work to revise it carefully before submission. Taking this step requires patience and diligence, but it's a fundamental process in knowing how you can transform your work for your intended audience. Only then would you able to notice how your expectations might align with how your writing can be reviewed by others. It's a time-consuming process but that shouldn't deter you from pursuing your interest, which would be to perform well.