When to Stop Writing

There are some people who wrap up their assignments and hand them in without any trouble. If you are one of those people, then you don’t need to read this. Some people cannot stop tinkering, and don’t know when to let it go. If you are one of these people, then please read on.

The sensible version

An assignment is like a painting. There comes a point when adding touches here and there does more harm than good.

The advice in Chapters 3 and 12 is based around writing a first and second draft. After that comes some topping and tailing (spellcheck, completing references and editing). After that comes the final draft and sometimes a section of reflection on your essay and your experience when writing it.

We recommend putting the assignment aside and then rereading and editing it for the final draft, particularly to check for things like the flow of your writing (which will become more obvious if you read your work out loud, having left it for a day or so), and for inadvertent plagiarism. Hopefully, the final edit will entail no more than minor tweaks. (But, in case it does entail a more serious rewrite, ensure that you have left yourself a bit of time.)

As a very rough rule of thumb, however, if the time you spend tweaking at the end gets to be more than a tenth of the time you’ve spent on actually writing the two main drafts, then it’s time to stop. It won’t be perfect. It never will be. But you’ve reached the best you can do for now, and there’s plenty more to move on to.

Other versions

When you run out of chocolate biscuits.

When you’ve been staring at the page without the words making any more sense than they did half an hour ago.

When you realize that you’ve spent more time writing it than reading the material you used in it.

When doing the washing-up/cleaning the windows/visiting the dentist suddenly seem like attractive prospects.

When you start worrying more about the word count than the content. (For one tutor’s view of word count, see ‘The Tao of Word Count’.)

When the body count is getting too high.

When you recognize the symptoms of analysis paralysis.

When your last creative thought was over 24 hours ago.

When you start to feel sorry for your tutor.

When you’ve made your point.

When it’s done. (You’ll get to know that better with experience.)

Now.