Writing a great essay, step by step

Like many middle and high school students, Mya Dunlop’s son Myles dreaded writing term papers and reports — to the point where he would procrastinate for hours before getting anything onto the page.

“He had a lot of struggles with writing,” says Dunlop. While brainstorming how to make papers and reports more manageable, mother and son came up with the idea for MyloWrites. It’s an online program that guides students through the writing process and, hopefully, makes writing less intimidating.

Dunlop then teamed up with education specialist Stacy Rosenblum to create the program. Students can try it out free for a month at MyloWrites.com before signing up for the $25/month service.

While researching, Dunlop and Rosenblum realized that for many students, the act of getting started was often the hardest step. “What was hardest about writing for Myles was looking at a blank screen at the beginning,” recalls Dunlop. “Organizing essays can be hard. All essays have a prescribed structure, but many teachers don’t necessarily teach that structure.”

MyloWrites is designed to help students see that structure, so they go into the essay knowing how to organize it. “[The site] takes the student step by step through the writing process,” Rosenblum says. “What they would do is start with the idea for the paper and then do research and put in the quotations they want to use. It helps them with creating an outline and then all of that work — that they do themselves — gets pumped into the essay process.”

Follow Lakshmi Gandhi on Twitter @LakshmiGandhi.