Unless your brain is ridiculously organized, you've probably started writing a paper for school only to find yourself rambling with no thesis for 15 pages. For academic writing projects, it’s helpful to make a map of your ideas and central thesis before you begin your paper. Write your thesis statement in the center of a piece of paper. Connect your supporting facts and thoughts to the thesis by drawing a line from the thesis to each supporting statement. From the supporting statements, add sources with page numbers where you will find your quotations and evidence to back up these statements. You’ll end up with a web-like map that completely outlines your entire paper, and writing it will be much easier once you have all these thoughts collected.
