* Start early to give yourself plenty of time for your ideas to develop. The longer you think about a topic, the more thorough and in-depth your analysis will be. * Follow the process of planning (with an outline), writing a rough draft, and then re-writing. Planning and organizing your writing before you start, and then rewriting several drafts, will help you end up with a polished piece of writing that you’ll be proud of. * Choose a very specific topic. If your teacher has only given you 3 pages of room, for instance, don’t try to analyze too much material. It’s best to give give in-depth analysis of a single topic. Topics for English essays can and should be quite focused, such as the role of letter-writing in Jane Eyre, or images of the moon in Taming of the Shrew. * Devote plenty of time to your thesis statement. Since your thesis statement is the main point of your essay, you’ll use it to organize all your other ideas. It’s an extremely important part of your essay, so don’t be afraid to spend a good deal of time brainstorming an effective thesis statement. * The best way to learn to write is to read! Read other essays, paying attention to how their authors set up arguments. In your own writing, you could try to mimic the tone and structure of essays you admire.