How to Overcome the Anxiety and Fear of Essay Writing so you can Get Started
How to overcome writing anxiety
Conquer your fear and anxiety about writing!
Essay Writing & Proofreading Checklist
This checklist will guide you through the process of:
Choosing a subject
Creating your draft
Revising your essay
Proofreading step-by-step
Getting it ready to submit
This easy-to-follow guide will lead you through the entire process quickly and efficiently.
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Essay anxiety is not something that is spoken about often. You may even find that when you mention it to your peers, they might seem confused and question why you would feel that way. The truth is, it is more common than you think.
Many college and university students suffer from essay anxiety. Even though it is not discussed, there are many others just like you. Students who want to get the best grades they can but fear of failure hold them back.
Maybe you are afraid of judgment. Or even in your ability to write and submit a paper that can compare to your peers.
Perhaps your fear of writing essays takes on a physical form. Your palms might get sweaty, and your heart races just at the thought of putting pen to paper. These kinds of symptoms are also common. You’re not alone.
We are going to discuss several methods of conquering writing anxiety. By experimenting with different solutions, I hope you can find coping strategies that will suit you.
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We also have an example of planning a writing assignment to reduce the anxiety surrounding the process. This plan will help with not only your essays but other writing assignments as well. With a solid blueprint, they will be less intimidating and more manageable. It will allow you to tackle each step independently and write a great essay.
Then, you can think of essays in a way that is just not so frightening. Something exciting or enjoyable. This way, you won’t have the same anxiety walking in. Choosing a subject you are interested in and creating a transparent plan to research and write your essay can do just that.
There’s no reason to look at it like this massive, terrifying composition. While essays are usually a reasonably labour-intensive project, there are ways to break down the workload to make it more manageable.
Having smaller tasks that you can take care of quickly and with little effort is only one way to help to reduce your writing anxiety. Let’s start by examining what precisely academic writing anxiety is, so we can learn how to overcome it.
What is Essay Anxiety?
Essay anxiety is the manifestation of worried symptoms that students encounter when they are tasked with an essay writing assignment. The symptoms can include nervousness, lack of motivation, preoccupation, and procrastination.
Anxiety in essay writing can stem from many sources. Often students will feel that they are just incapable of creating a worthwhile piece of writing. But the truth is much more complicated.
With the rise of social media, we find ourselves writing every day. You may be writing essays and not even realize it. When writing a blog post or one of your latest social media captions, you may actually be writing a mini-essay.
Little, tiny essays that are broken down and easy to digest can often accompany Instagram and Facebook posts. Just because I use the word essay to describe it doesn’t mean that it has to be incredibly formal. Essays come in all shapes and sizes. Really, at the end of the day, it’s all about the structure.
If you can write a paragraph and you can have an opinion, you can write an essay. So let’s figure out where this fear of writing essays comes from.
Why is Essay Anxiety Important?
Essay anxiety is important to identify and address because there is a strong correlation between high writing anxiety and low GPA. In saying this, it is also important to note that it is unclear what the definite cause is.
Students may have essay anxiety because they have a low GPA and are insecure about their ability to score a good grade. Or, they may have a low grade because their anxiety cripples them to the point that they underperform.
This relationship causes a cycle that is not easily broken. The higher the anxiety, the worse the symptoms are. Students can become utterly disabled by writing anxiety to the point where they will avoid classes with writing assignments and may drop out of school altogether.
Essay anxiety does not only manifest when writing essay assignments. Students with higher essay anxiety often score lower on written exams and standardized writing tests as well. These are unfortunately unavoidable regardless of what types of classes you are taking. If you tend to score lower due to your crippling anxiety, test-taking and test anxiety may also be a real struggle for you.
Women report writing anxiety at nearly twice the rate of men. This could be due to several factors, including cultural and social expectations from others. It may also be due to the heightened and unrealistic expectations that women often place on themselves.
What causes writing anxiety?
Essay anxiety is likely rooted in early experiences. These fears probably grew over time from slight insecurity to a full phobia. Many factors could have contributed to this evolution, from the difficulty expressing yourself in words to a critical review from a judgemental teacher.
Likely the initial worries and insecurities may have changed into negative thoughts, which worsened over time. Negative self-talk might play a part as the attitude about writing tasks worsened.
As the anxious thoughts got harsher, you may have started to manifest physical symptoms. Some common examples are:
Nervousness,
Tension,
Unpleasant feelings,
Preoccupation,
Avoidance,
Withdrawal,
Procrastination,
Other symptoms related to situational anxiety.
The fear of writing essays is so much more complicated than just an unwillingness to do the work. Students have genuine symptoms that can plague them from the moment they find out they have to complete this assignment, even if it is weeks or months away.
What triggers essay-writing phobia?
Many triggers can contribute to essay anxiety. Many of them fall into the category of negative self-talk. As the pressure mounts, you may feel like you have limited control over these limiting beliefs, and they might flood your head.
But these beliefs are not real, and they can be addressed and conquered:
Worries others will judge their writing – This fear is fundamentally linked to the possibility of a failing grade. Your work will be evaluated and critiqued by the professor. That is how you get your mark. The fear of judgement is often so much deeper than that. Often students worry they will be singled out and ridiculed, possibly in public. This fear touches on some of the deepest places of your soul. Try writing out these fears and keeping a journal. If you have a support system of access to a counsellor through student services, try their ear.
Fear of the unknown – If you could time travel to the future and take a peek at your grade, this entire process would be so much simpler, regardless of how you perform. Because you do not know what the future holds, this fear can cripple you before you start. What if you get writer’s block? What if you can’t find anything to write about? What if you fail? So many what-ifs run through your mind, and you are powerless to stop it. Try writing all these fears down on a scrap of paper and describe why you are afraid. Sometimes this simple trick can help prevent these thoughts from monopolizing your brain space.
History of poor academic performance – if you have not been able to get the grades you want in the past, how can you break that cycle. No one wants to fail, but no matter what you try, you just can’t seem to get the hang of the material. Maybe you constantly feel like you are drowning in the workload and just can’t keep up with the rest of the class. In a case like this, it is best to break up the assignment into manageable tasks. Work on the list over time and try your best not to procrastinate.
Learn how to break up a big assignment here.
Learn how to get the best grade possible here.
Teachers’ negative expectations – If you have had an incredibly critical teacher in the past, you know how anxiety-inducing it could be to hand an assignment in. For some students, this fear continues and transfers on to other teachers, warranted or not. This is extremely similar to the fear of judgement and can run really deep. Try to establish relationships with your professors. Even if it is just a passing “Hello.” This can humanize your professor ad help you realize that they might not be as harsh as you expect. Keeping a journal and writing out your worries can also be very therapeutic. Check with student services if your anxiety is crippling. Schools often have resources for students to alleviate some of this suffering.
Fear of Failure – This is a common fear for many students. Post-Secondary can be ultra-competitive. Many positions, rewards, and scholarships are determined by your GPA. Furthermore, many of the applications require a significant amount of writing, and an essay is often required. It may be challenging to build the strength to apply for many programs, positions, or even classes if you have writing anxiety. Just try to start. Put your pen to paper and write down anything. No matter how horrible that first draft is, it can always be edited until it meets your expectations. Unfortunately, it can not meet any expectations until it is written.
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5 Tips and for Conquering Writing Anxiety
In many schools, there are services to help students cope with their struggles. Symptoms of anxiety can be treated. If you are battling any anxieties or writing phobia, please check your local resources to discover your options.
You can also try these strategies that may help you to cope with some of the symptoms:
Use positive self-talk strategies to increase confidence in your abilities.
Create a list of negative thoughts and write positive ideas to counteract
Reading can help to increase writing proficiency.
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I hope that you were able to take away some understanding about the root of your writing anxiety. I believe that understanding the root cause of many of these fears can help to overcome them. Pulling back the curtain and understanding where your insecurities originate can help you find strategies to get past them.
I also believe in asking for help when it is needed. So often, we think that we are coping and that many of these fears can be handled by white-knuckling through them. The truth is, when we address and conquer our fears, we can create a better quality of life.
Need help creating an essay? Let me help!
Download this easy-to-use FREE Essay Writing Checklist to help with your next essay. This printable checklist will guide you through the entire essay writing process, from choosing a topic to editing. It is free and can help you with any writing assignment you might have.
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