10 Step Guide to Clearer Thinking Through Essay Writing

by Jordan B. Peterson

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Self Help, Education, Essays, Philosophy, Science

24 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Jordan B. Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, self-help writer, cultural critic and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. His main areas of study are in abnormal, social, and personality psychology, with a particular interest in the psychology of religious and ideological belief, and the assessment and improvement of personality and performance.

Peterson grew up in Fairview, Alberta. He earned a B.A. degree in political science in 1982 and a degree in psychology in 1984, both from the University of Alberta, and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University in 1991. He remained at McGill as a post-doctoral fellow for two years before moving to Massachusetts, where he worked as an assistant and an associate professor in the psychology department at Harvard University. In 1998, he moved to the University of Toronto as a full professor. He authored Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief in 1999, a work in which examined several academic fields to describe the structure of systems of beliefs and myths, their role in the regulation of emotion, creation of meaning, and motivation for genocide.

In 2016, Peterson released a series of videos on his YouTube channel in which he criticized the Canadian government's Bill C-16. He subsequently became involved in several public debates about the bill that received significant media coverage.

Reviews

[Scumbag Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good advice. I agree with Peterson that if you write your essay according to this plan, and you complete every step, you will produce an essay that is at least very good. I also liked the part where he said that writing is essential to thinking and becoming a better conversationalist, because it helps you refine your own ideas and throw away the substandard ones.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book was his occasionally unnecessarily pointed comment towards SJWs, which seemed out of place for an essay writing guide. Especially an essay writing guide that emphasises throwing away thoughts that aren’t relevant to what you’re trying to write...

But overall a very good guide, can’t complain.

[Remo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ensayo corto pero muy interesante e instructivo. Cómo iterar (porque ahí está la clave) para conseguir un ensayo destilado y pulido.

The primary reason to write an essay is so that the writer can formulate and organize an
informed, coherent and sophisticated set of ideas about something important

Primero, el contexto. Para que un trabajo, un ensayo, un informe... resulte, tiene que cumplir coherencia e interés a siete niveles (arbitrario pero útil):

An essay, like any piece of writing, exists at multiple levels of resolution, simultaneously. First is
the selection of the word. Second is the crafting of the sentence. Each word should be precisely
the right word, in the right location in each sentence. The sentence itself should present a
thought, part of the idea expressed in the paragraph, in a grammatically correct manner. Each
sentence should be properly arranged and sequenced inside a paragraph, the third level of
resolution. As a rule of thumb, a paragraph should be made up of at least 10 sentences or 100
words. This might be regarded as a stupid rule, because it is arbitrary. However, you should let it
guide you, until you know better. You have very little right to break the rules, until you have
mastered them.
All of the paragraphs have to be arranged in a logical progression, from the beginning of the
essay to the end. This is the fourth level of resolution. Perhaps the most important step in writing
an essay is getting the paragraphs in proper order. Each of them is a stepping stone to your
essay’s final destination.
The fifth level of resolution is the essay, as a whole. Every element of an essay can be correct,
each word, sentence, and paragraph – even the paragraph order – and the essay can still fail,
because it is just not interesting or important. It is very hard for competent but uninspired writers
to understand this kind of failure, because a critic cannot merely point it out. There is no answer
to their question, “exactly where did I make a mistake?” Such an essay is just not good. An essay
without originality or creativity might fall into this category. Sometimes a creative person, who is
not technically proficient as a writer, can make the opposite mistake: their word choice is poor,
their sentences badly constructed and poorly organized within their paragraphs, their paragraphs
in no intelligible relationship to one another – and yet the essay as a whole can succeed, because
there are valuable thoughts trapped within it, wishing desperately to find expression.
Additional levels
You might think that there could not possibly be anything more to an essay than these five levels
of resolution or analysis, but you would be wrong. This is something that was first noticed,
perhaps, by those otherwise entirely reprehensible and destructive scholars known as postmodernists. An essay necessarily exists within a context of interpretation, made up of the reader
(level six), and the culture that the reader is embedded in (level seven), which is made up in part
of the assumptions that he or she will bring to the essay. Levels six and seven have deep roots in
biology and culture. You might think, “Why do I need to know this?” but if you don’t you are not
considering your audience, and that’s a mistake. Part of the purpose of the essay is to set your
mind straight, but the other part, equally important, is to communicate with an audience.
For the essay to succeed, brilliantly, it has to work at all of these levels of resolution
simultaneously. That is very difficult, but it is in that difficulty that the value of the act of writing
exists.

Y por último, el método de iteración. Que trae mucha información más de la que cito y me ha aportado cosas que desconocía:

When you write your first draft, it should be longer than the final version.
This is so that you have some extra writing to throw away. You want to have something to throw
away after the first draft so that you only have to keep what is good. It is NOT faster to try to
write exactly as many words as you need when you first sit down to write. Trying to do so
merely makes you too aware of what you are writing. This concern will slow you down. Aim at
producing a first draft that is 25% longer than the final draft is supposed to be.

A thousand-word essay requires a ten-sentence outline. However, the fundamental outline of an essay should not get much longer than fifteen sentences, even if the essay is several thousand words or more in length. This is because it is difficult to keep an argument of more than that length in mind at one time so that you can assess the quality of its structure. So, write a ten to
fifteen sentence outline of your essay, and if it is longer than a thousand words, then make suboutlines for each primary outline sentence.

Here is an example of a good longer outline (for a three thousand word essay):
• Topic: What is capitalism?
• How has capitalism been defined?
o Author 1
o Author 2
o Author 3
• Where and when did capitalism develop?
o Country 1
o Country 2
• How did capitalism develop in the first 50 years after its origin?
o How did capitalism develop in the second 50 years after its origin?
o (Repeat as necessary)
• Historical precursors?
o (choose as many centuries as necessary)
• Advantages of capitalism?
o Wealth generation
o Technological advancement
o Personal freedom
• Disadvantages of capitalism?
o Unequal distributiono Pollution and other externalized costs
• Alternatives to capitalism?
o Fascism
o Communism
• Consequences of these alternatives?
• Potential future developments?
• Conclusion

So, now you have your outline.

Now, write ten to fifteen sentences per outline heading to complete your paragraph. You may
find it helpful to add additional subdivisions to your outline, and to work back and forth between
the outline and the sentences, editing both. Use your notes, as well. Use single spacing at this
point, so that you can see more writing on the paper at once. You will format your essay properly
later.
Don’t worry too much about how well you are writing at this point. It is also best at this point not
to worry too much about the niceties of sentence structure and grammar. That is all best left for
the second major step, which is editing.

EDITING:

Copy the first paragraph of your first draft,

Now, place each sentence on its own line.

Now, write another version of each sentence, under each sentence. Read each sentence aloud, and listen to how it sounds. If it’s awkward, see if you can say it a
different, better way. Listen to what you said, and then write it down. Rewrite each sentence.
Once you have done this with all the sentences, read the old versions and the new versions, and
replace the old with the new if the new is better. Then copy the new paragraph.

So now you should have produced a pretty decent second draft. You have identified the
appropriate sources, written the proper notes, outlined your argument, roughed in a first draft
(paragraph by paragraph), rewritten your sentences to make them more elegant, and re-ordered
those sentences, as well as the paragraphs themselves. This is much farther than most writers
ever get. You may even think you’re finished – but you’re not.
The next step will take you from a “B” essay to an “A” essay. It may even help you write
something that is better than you have ever produced (better meaning richer in information,
precise, coherent, elegant and beautiful). Copy what you have written so far here:

Read it. Then go to the next page.
This part of the process will probably strike you as unnecessary, or annoying, or both, but what
do you know? This is the step that separates the men from the boys, or the women from the boys,
or the men from the girls, or whatever version of this saying is acceptably non-sexist and
politically correct.You have just finished reading your essay. Try now to write a new outline of ten to fifteen sentences. Don’t look back at your essay while you are doing this. If you have to, go back and re-read the whole thing, and then return to this page, but don’t look at your essay while you are rewriting the outline. If you force yourself to reconstruct your argument from memory, you will
likely improve it. Generally, when you remember something, you simplify it, while retaining
most of what is important. Thus, your memory can serve as a filter, removing what is useless and
preserving and organizing what is vital. What you are doing now is distilling what you have
written to its essence.

En resumen, una introducción interesante dirigida más a gente que tiene que presentar ensayos o informes con cierta frecuencia (universitarios, I presume) pero que tiene bastantes aplicaciones fuera de ese entorno. Muy interesante.

[Chau Nguyen]

A really comprehensive guide to writing essay, although I feel like what is presented in this document actually is regarding the art of writing in general, and of writing long form research paper in particular. Some steps feel a bit over the top for an essay, but I guess it also depends on how you define “essay” in your own terms and what you think constitutes a good essay. For Jordan Peterson, an essay requires solid writing and repeated review and correction, so a lot of dedication. Pretty sure I’m not going to follow the advice if I need to write an essay that’s due the next day lol. Nonetheless, this guide will definitely come in handy when I need to write essays that require longer preparation time and carry more stake (ones that students use for scholarship applications, for example).

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short: Straightforward and succinct.

As I already find writing an essay difficult, I think having to read a 200-page guide is overkill. So I appreciate that this is a quick read. But although it is brief, it took me a while to finish it. I had to have a writing project to compel me!

Favorite quotes:
"So when you are writing an essay, you are harnessing the full might of culture to your life. That is why you write an essay (even if it has been assigned). Forget that, and you are doing something stupid, trivial and dull. Remember it, and you are conquering the unknown."

"There is nothing more vital to becoming educated, and there is nothing more vital than education to your future, and the future of those around you."

[Cameron Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure why this has such a low rating. Its absolutely fantastic guide. To educating oneself. Jp gives guidance around structuring questions, finding resources material, psychology with regard to reading and most importantly how structure and edit an essay

[Ninh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The guide is extremely informative, helpful, and deep.

[Evan Micheals · Rating 3 out of 5]

In two weeks I will be a University Student again as I complete the Masters level Subjects in Psychotherapy, and I will again be writing essays. Given the esteem I have for Professor Peterson, I thought this might be worth an hour of my time to prepare myself again for academic writing.

I found a good structure for writing a good essay and how to write well (but it seems a lot of extra work compared to how I used to write). I know what it is now, and can use prn.

[Frog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jordan Peterson cracks me up.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very short manual on writing essays that every college student (or any other writer) should be equipped with!

[Kellie Monibidor (Hermansen) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is the link to the essay. When you click, it will download the 25 page document to your computer: https://jordanbpeterson.com/wp-conten...

"Those who can think and communicate are simply more powerful than those who cannot, and powerful in the good way, the way that means “able to do a wide range of things competently and efficiently.”

"Finally, it is useful to note that your mind is organized verbally, at the highest and most abstract levels. Thus, if you learn to think, through writing, then you will develop a well-organized, efficient mind – and one that is well-founded and certain. This also means that you will be healthier, mentally and physically, as lack of clarity and ignorance means unnecessary stress. Unnecessary stress makes your body react more to what could otherwise be treated as trivial affairs. This makes for excess energy expenditure, and more rapid aging (along with all the negative health-related consequences of aging)."

"If you learn to write and to edit, you will also be able to tell the difference between good ideas, intelligently presented, and bad ideas put forth by murky and unskilled thinkers."

"Realize that when you first sit down to write, your mind will rebel. It is full of other ideas, all of which will fight to dominate."

"If you do this day after day, you will find that the power of such temptations do not reduce, but the duration of their attempts to distract you will decrease. You will also find that even on a day where concentration is very difficult, you will still be able to do some productive writing if you stick it out."

"Rules are there for a reason. You are only allowed to break them if you are a master. If you’re not a master, don’t confuse your ignorance with creativity or style."

"This is not all that has to be properly managed when you write an essay. You should also strive for brevity, which is concise and efficient expression, as well as beauty, which is the melodic or poetic aspect of your language (at all the requisite levels of analysis). Finally, you should not be bored, or boring. If you are bored while writing, then, most importantly, you are doing it wrong, and you will also bore your reader. Think of it this way: you get bored for a reason, and sometimes for a good reason. You may be bored while writing your essay because you are actually lying to yourself in a very deep way about what you are doing and why you are doing it. Your mind, independent of your ego, cannot be hoodwinked into attending to something that you think is uninteresting or useless. It will automatically regard such a thing as unworthy of attention, and make you bored by it."

"You must choose a topic that is important to you. This should be formulated as a question that you want to answer. This is arguably the hardest part of writing an essay: choosing the proper question."


NOTES
Levels of Resolution:
1. Word (each well-chosen and in the precise location of the sentence)
2. Sentence
3. Paragraph
4. Paragraphs Arranged in Logical Procession
5. The Essay Itself (MUST be interesting and/or important)
6. The Reader (Consider his/her interpretation)
7. The Culture in Which the Reader is Embedded (What assumptions will your reader bring to the essay?)

"For the essay to succeed, brilliantly, it has to work at all of these levels of resolution
simultaneously. That is very difficult, but it is in that difficulty that the value of the act of
writing exists."

For beginners, let paragraphs be 10 sentences
Paragraph should convey a single idea
"Assume you need 5-10 books or articles per thousand words of essay"

[Rafael Vargas Cesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nunca hubiera pensado que terminaría leyendo un libro de Jordan Peterson. Peor que lo hubiera considerado útil. Pero, en defensa de mi pensamiento e integridad, lo he leído por intereses puramente prácticos: Aprender una metodología de escritura de ensayos.

Considero que Jordan Peterson es un tipo muy persuasivo. Aún cuando no compartes sus reflexiones, sientes que sus argumentos tienen un cierto nivel de validez por la lógica con que están construidos. Por esto, pensé que el libro podía contener mucho valor. Al terminarlo, pienso que es incuestionable que lo tiene.

No solo explica de manera muy simple los procesos de construcción y escritura de ensayos, sino que te proporciona una plantilla modificable y reciclable. Es una excelente base para construir la habilidad, y también una excelente herramienta para todos los futuros ensayos que quieras escribir.

Le quito una estrella porque de vez en cuando se toma la libertad de introducir reflexiones de su filosofía personal, que no comparto y que se desvían de lo que propone en el argumento del libro.

[Ritvij Tiwari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing that I didn't knew prior to reading it, but a very enjoyable read nonetheless. Peterson is very articulate and economical in his writing and its self evident that he knows what he's talking about when it comes to composing essays.

I wish I had read it a few years ago.

[Grace Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlock clarity through writing! Our 10-step guide to essay writing will sharpen your thinking, organize your ideas, and elevate your writing skills, leading to clearer and more effective communication. book ghostwriter

[Frederick Hammill · Rating 1 out of 5]

Avoid at all costs. Awful author

[Hamza Chera · Rating 5 out of 5]

So helpful!

[Frank Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best guide on writing I have ever come across.

[John Fields · Rating 5 out of 5]

Use it every time, to make sure I'm doing it right.

[Dr Nirav Mungalpara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impeccable guide for all age group. It guides about how can we make a writing "a thinking tool" is very well put.

[Moiz Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant guide to writing.

[Ahmed Almaamri]

great guide, helped me in school and will use it in the future

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was awesome throughout! The best essay writing guide in my opinion. Short, sweet, to the point guide and being REALLY engaging at the same time!

[Amann Sharda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though he is becoming an increasingly contentious character, this essay writing guide is pragmatic, clear, and succinct.

- ‘you will find that your thinking will become richer and clearer, and so will your conversation. There is nothing more vital to becoming educated, and there is nothing more vital than education to your future, and the future of those around you’

- When formulating a question: ‘the fact of your interest is evidence of the importance of the topic. You, or some part of you, needs the answer’

- ‘don’t pride yourself on writer’s block, read something. If that doesn’t work, read something else - maybe something better. Repeat until the problem is solved’

[Niek Wierenga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant paper that has aided my essay writing. The app essay is made with the philosophy of this paper

[Santosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a very short 24 page guideline on writing essays.

Short, sweet, and nice.

A good advice particularly about note-taking...

[Ujjwal Srivastava · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief guide!

[Przemyslaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

It should be tough in highschool.