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Goal Setting for Academic Writing: Three Keys to Effective Writing Goals

Refine your approach to time and project management when writing by learning how to set effective mini-goals. Reduce procrastination, stay on track, and write more efficiently.

The three keys to effective writing goals

Mini-goals when working on writing and research are generally quantity-based, time-based, or content-based. Read the subsections that follow to learn how to use these elements in combination.

Length/quantity-based goals

With this approach, you tie your goal to a certain number of words, lines/sentences, paragraphs, or pages per writing session or per day. If a 1,500-word essay is due in a few weeks, for example, you could research during the first week, then rough draft 300 words per day (Monday to Friday) in the second week. This would give you a 1,500-word rough draft, with one more week remaining to re-draft and edit. Your rewriting and proofreading goals could be tied to quantities as well (i.e., 'Edit three paragraphs,' 'Proofread four pages').

If typing your rough draft, you can use 'word count' features to track your progress. If writing by hand, a paragraph or page target will be easier to follow.

  • PROS – Quantity goals compel you to actually write rather than sitting there overthinking. Breaking a big project like a 10,000-word dissertation into little 'chunks' (draft two paragraphs today; draft 150 words tomorrow; etc.) keeps you on track and makes the work feel more manageable.
  • CAUTION – Shift gears if too many writing sessions lead only to 'fluff' or filler material while using quantity-based goals. This might signal the need to try a different goal method; it could also mean you need to engage in more invention activities or research before rough drafting.

Time-based goals

With this approach, you aim to work on your writing and research for specific amounts of time. Plan your week in advance, setting realistic goals for each day by considering your other obligations, where you will be, anticipated energy levels, etc.

If you will be working for an hour or more, use a Pomodoro timer to break the time goal into shorter chunks with breaks between. For example, 'two hours of drafting' could be reframed as 'four 25-minute Pomodoro cycles.'

  • PROS – Time-based goals help you integrate writing practices into your daily and weekly routine, which can gradually transform writing from 'random, stress-spiking intrusion' to 'normal habit.' Scheduling the decided goal into your calendar ups the odds that you will sit down to write during the blocked-out time. 
  • CAUTION – Shift gears if you are leaving too many so-called 'writing sessions' without having written (i.e., you supposedly 'wrote for two hours' yesterday and 'wrote for three hours' today, yet you have only four sentences to show for it). Try combining a quantity-based or content-based goal with your time goal to remind yourself of what you actually need to be doing.

Content-based goals

Students can use content-based goals for any assignment, but this method becomes crucial with extended writing projects such as dissertations or theses. Why? Simply put, the bigger a writing project is, the more likely you are to stare at the blank page and say, 'I have no idea what to write or read today.'

It's important to develop a solid outline or mind map for this method because you build your mini-goals around achieving specific 'moves' or tackling specific content/ideas. That word 'specific' is key, as you can see in the examples below:

BAD content-based goal: In today's writing session, I will work on my literature review.

GOOD content-based goal: In today's writing session, I will synthesize three different scholars' definitions of the term 'viral marketing.'

Just reading the first goal feels overwhelming: 'work on' is vague, and 'literature review' is far too broad to provide meaningful direction. The revised goal specifies the move the writer will make: synthesis (i.e., critically weaving together multiple sources). Additionally, it specifies the content/idea the writer will cover: the definition of 'viral marketing.'

To reiterate, content-based goals won't work unless you have some idea where the writing is headed, so invest time in invention and organisation activities.
  • PROS – Building your mini-goals around writing moves and content/ideas helps keep your research and drafting relevant, making this a good choice for writers who tend to stray from the assessment brief. You enter each session with a clear idea of what you need to accomplish.
  • CAUTION – An overly rigid approach to content-based goals can prevent exploration of important insights that arise when you are rough drafting, so take time to reflect between each goal in case your plan needs to evolve.

On the next page, we'll have a closer look at content-based goals and how these work in the 'Move + Idea' approach to writing goals.

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