Learning to organize an essay is a skill that comes only with practice, but it will make an enormous difference in all of your writing assignments. Especially in political science, many of your writing assignments will require you to have a convincing argument, even if the assignment itself is not actually argumentative. In other words, you will be asked to convince your reader to see your point of view.

Prof. Katz, for example, characterizes good essays as being "well-organized and strongly argued." He also emphasizes that when writing for an argumentative essay, you should keep in mind that a strong argument does not neglect to explain "why other arguments are wrong." Essential to any essay's persuasiveness is the organization of the argument, or topic, into well-structured paragraphs that flow smoothly from beginning to end. Though attention to organization should begin from the start of a first draft, a successful organization process will be the result of continuous and careful revision.

Organization is not only crucial in long essays, but also in short, in-class essays. Many students, according to Prof. Walters, seem to fear that they will lose time if they plan a structure for an essay, especially during timed exams. Actually, she points out that writers save more time when they know what they will say and how they will say it before they begin. Always consider the reader, who may not be able to follow your thoughts, which may be clear to you, but still unclear to the reader no matter how much he or she knows about the subject.