2. Structuring

There are many ways to structure an essay. Assuming you’re writing a 4,000-word assignment, I think it makes sense roughly to aim for these proportions: 

Introductory Material: 10%-15% of your word count (400-600 words)
Main body of the Essay: 70-75% of your word count (2,800-3,000 words)
Conclusion: 15%-20% of your word count (600-800 words)

Which percentages and word counts you choose will depend on the kind of writer you are, the topic you’re addressing, the nature and purpose of the essay, and the qualification for which you’re doing the essay in the first place. But these proportions apply reasonably well to most essays of any size, whatever the circumstances. I tend to think of paragraphs as about 200 to 250 words in length, which means that for an essay of 4,000 words you have, approximately, between 16 and 20 paragraphs at your disposal. Assuming a paragraph length of 200 words, here’s what this would look like in practice for an essay with a 10%-75%-15% split: 

Introductory material (10%, 400 words): 2 paragraphs
Main Body of the Essay (75%, 3,000 words): 15 paragraphs
Conclusion (15%, 600 words): 3 paragraphs

Introductory Material
This is where you set up and contextualise your ideas, outline your argument, establish the main claims you’re going to make, and draw the reader’s interest. By definition, introductions are very difficult to write first. They’re much easier to write last, once the rest of the essay has been drafted and you know what it is, exactly, you’re introducing. So, as you’re drafting the main body of the essay by all means jot down ideas about what your introduction will contain, but leave the writing of the introduction itself until the end of the process.

Main Body of the Essay
Your argument proper. The meat of the thing. For a 15-paragraph section with paragraphs of 200 words apiece you could offer an argument with three main claims, each of them introduced, evidenced, and explained across 3-4 paragraphs; each of these sub-sections of argument amounting, in their way, to a mini-essay of sorts within the broader structure of your essay as a whole. It’s much better to write about fewer points and to really clarify your thinking than to try to pack in too many points which are treated superficially.

Conclusion
You may be surprised that I’ve suggested devoting up to as much 20% of your word count to your conclusion. The reason for this is that conclusions are really, really important, and often not assembled as carefully or as persuasively as they should be. One reason for this is that they’re hard to write, and often because we’re tired from having written the rest of the essay and can’t quite face that final heave of explanatory effort. But the effort is worth making. A good conclusion can transform an essay’s impact. Conclusions are where you briefly account for what you’ve discussed, outline its implications, and reflect on why what you’ve written about matters. Why have you done what you’ve done? What were you hoping to show? Have you shown it? And has how you’ve shown it achieved anything? What’s the payoff, the reward, the insight? Conclusions are also the final thing a marker reads. Remember this: you want to leave your marker with the justified impression that you’ve controlled your argument from start to finish, and that you’ve taken the time, in closing matters, to reflect on the significance of what you’ve said. It’s where the ‘why’ of the argument shines.