Index Cards are a fabulous resource to help chunk an assessment into smaller elements and to provide structure for your final piece of writing. This is so simple that I am sure you will have success with this process!
Let’s pretend my professor told the class they had to select a health problem and turn in an assignment describing the ways in which that illness can be treated:
I am very interested in depression since I have heard a great deal about that mental health problem in the media recently. Therefore I set out to the library and read about depression and the ways in which it can be treated. I find some good books and also discover some information on the world wide web. While I am researching, I scrawl down some of the major notes on Index Cards like this:
Now that I have the major dot points for this question noted down on index cards, I am able to order them logically so that my assignment will have an organized flow. You probably know that a well-written essay has an introduction (defining the topic and summarizing the main points), a body (with each paragraph dealing with a main point) and a conclusion (the final paragraph that reminds the reader about the main points and reaches a succinct answer on the topic). Considering this I may order my index cards in this way:
Now that my cards are sorted into an appropriate structure, I can draft my essay. The initial card will form the basis of my introduction. It will define depression as a mental health condition and I will most likely add a sentence about the two major treatment approaches. Each of the other cards then becomes another paragraph in my essay: I simply extend on the points I have written on the cards and write the content in my own words as full sentences. Then, I draft out a conclusion that summarizes the main points from my essay. I might add a final sentence along these lines: “Depression is extremely treatable with medication and psychotherapy so patients do not need to suffer in silence.” This would draw my assignment to a nice conclusion.
I hope this helps you to write some top scoring essays!
Using index cards is just one way to organize your writing. I find a lot of success with a technique called Mind Mapping for note-taking and organizing essays. You can obtain more details about Mind Mapping at Buzan’s Mind Mapping site.
