Devising a Writing Project Plan and Schedule

One of the most important things writers can do is to plan their writing and develop schedules for completing it. After you have an outline, you are ready to schedule work on your writing project. To do this, you need a plan.

Devising a writing project schedule may be worthwhile for your longer assignments, especially research projects, but a variation of this planning can be useful even for shorter projects.

To devise a schedule, you need a clear plan for all the activities, start to finish, associated with your writing project. A writing plan helps you stay in control of your writing assignment and complete it on time.

We offer such a tool here for you to consider. You can use this planning tool for any formal or informal longer writing assignment, and you can also use it to get feedback from your instructor on your assignment.

	Writing Project Plan
Date assigned:
Date due:
Title:
Working thesis:
Audience:	Who is the primary audience? Who is the secondary audience? Do I need to make any special accommodations for these audiences?
Scope of assignment:	How long is this assignment expected to be? Is it expected to cover a time period or a range of ideas?
Purpose of writing:	What do I want to accomplish with this project—show my instructor what I know, earn a high grade, satisfy a course requirement, develop in my field of study?
Goals of the information:	How will the audience use the information?
Methodology:	How will I write this assignment? What writing strategy will I use? How will I develop this assignment? Will I subject my paper to any kind of review by the instructor or a peer? How many drafts will I have time to write? Will I have to create any graphics for this assignment? How much research will I have to do? What kind of research is required for this assignment? Should I develop an annotated bibliography? What style standard will I use?
Content outline:	Include an outline of the assignment and a brief description of what you plan to include in each section. Include how much library research you think you will have to do and whether you can use other sources of information, such as interviews, personal experience, case studies, and data you collected yourself.
Research:	List the titles of your preliminary resources and the subject areas you will have to research.
Schedule for this project:	Your schedule should include a week-by-week plan for researching, writing, revising, and submitting your writing project. If your project is due within a week, use a day-by-day schedule to plan it.

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Online Guide to Writing and Research Writing Plan and Project Schedule

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