Alright here's the situation, on November 4, I have a college essay due. Normally this would be something I'd just laugh at and handle myself; however the catch is that this is not an assignment, but rather a test. The rule of the game is that on 11/4, we will be given 50 minutes to write an 1100 word essay; the facts that this is the first time I've done something like this, plus my professor is a real ball-buster, I have extremely restricted internet access, and I'm up to my neck in projects, are all starting to make me a bit disconcerted. English professionals, my question to you is how should I go about preparing, and what are some of the best ways to make a good essay; and political experts, the topic is "How Does the Supreme Court Decide Cases", how do I drag the information of this to 1100 words? None of you are obligated to help me, I thought I'd try to exhaust what few rescources I have. Thank you.
Go to your local library. Find books on the supreme court, jurisprudence, and maybe some famous cases (and the reasoning behind them). Read those books, and memorize some useful points. Libraries have internet. I imagine your classwork also will cover this. What you have here is basically an essay question on an exam, with the bonus of knowing the question beforehand. Know walking in what you want your thesis to be, and then lay out support for that thesis using concrete examples. 1100 words is like a page and a half. You can do that in an hour.
Outlines are good. This exam is a lot like what they did with comps when I was in grad school. I'd take some notes (outline form is great) and just really focus on internalizing that. The details will flow from that if you know the material, which you will have done in creating the outline. You'll probably surprise yourself with how much you know anyway.
Just study up on the material. I find that if you really know the subject well, writing a paper on it is quite easy and doesn't take as much time as you would think.
Thanks for the responses everyone! I'm going to see if I can't get started on gathering information tonight.
