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I get it. You want crisp, clean, interesting writing that says, Look how smart I am!
But - you want to know the funny thing about crisp, clean, interesting writing? It starts with messy thinking.
Insightful, well-written essays don't look like the ones you read in books and journal articles. That's what they become. They start with messy thinking.
Messy thinking is all the stuff that happens before the coherent arguments, stylized sentences, polished paragraphs and even the conviction and certainty of the ideas themselves.
Messy thinking is about:
the decisions you make before you read a single text
the things you notice as you read
the questions you ask to arrive at an argument
the way you shape your ideas after you've worked them out
developing and trusting your own writerly sensibility
And, it's the part most students are never explicitly taught.
HOVER TO SEE THE MESSY THINKING
[ enter Essay Thinking ]
WHAT IF I TOLD YOU
Most writing problems are thinking problems in disguise.
Let's skip the long list of examples and look at one common "writing problem."
I never have anything to say. I suck at writing.
student:
Yeah, not knowing what to say sounds like a writing problem because that's when you notice it. But it's actually a decision-making problem.
It's about not having decided what question your essay will answer. The problem shows up when you write, but it started much earlier - in the planning phase.
The fix?
Make better decisions before you begin your research.
And that's what essay thinking does. It gives you a behind-the-scenes pass to see the thinking that makes academic writing less stressful and your process more efficient.
Want to make Essay Thinking your thing?
HERE'S WHAT CHANGES
when you make Essay Thinking your thing
LESS GUESSING. MORE CLARITY. BETTER RESULTS.
Students come back to this years later - she purchased it in 2022!
Your guide has been great. I love the preparation portions...I'm still using it side by side with my essays and as I'm doing my reading..."
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- College graduate, wants to keep learning!
Essay Relief was a total game-changer for my MBA thesis. I was stuck on a complex topic...but this book helped me reroute my research and find a clear path forward.
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- MBA student (post-graduate student)
Loved the tutorial, clear direction, not too wordy, prompts are really useful, and the visual samples are of great help to me.
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- Master of Counselling student (post-graduate student)
Immediately, I felt a difference. The essay felt less over-whelming. I had a structure in minutes."
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- Lifelong learner looking to become a better writer
I'm Jenn, btw. Struggling student turned grad school scholar turned academic writing teacher.
Essays weren't really my thing in university. An unfortunate occurrence - made more unfortunate by the fact that I not only majored in English literature but specialized in it.
For all four years of my undergrad, I was convinced everyone else had attended some secret writing class that I had somehow missed. Trips to the writing centre, meetings with profs, late-nights spent reading "more" and plenty of hard work didn't change the numbers on my transcripts.
Then, I took a two year hiatus from university and I figured a few things out like...
1. Sounding smart isn't the same as being smart.
2. Saying what you think profs want to hear isn't the same as saying what you think.
3. An essay is only as strong as the thinking underneath it.
Those revelations, along with a few smaller ones, turned my academic trajectory around, earned me a graduate scholarship, and eventually shaped the way I teach academic writing.
So how did I end up creating Writing Heads? I'll save that story for the About page.
Ready to make thinking your thing?
You don't have to spend two years figuring it all out like I did. And, you definitely don't have to learn it all at once.
Each of my tutorials is designed to tackle a specific student problem, so you can start with what you need and set your own study schedule.
A weekend, a week, or even an afternoon can make a real difference.
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