Now is the time to get together all your notes and organise them.
Mind maps and concept maps can help you organise your thoughts. Try to identify themes and categories that would be useful for grouping the notes together. These themes and categories could later become sections of your essay.
Your argument will be the thread that leads your reader through your writing. It will give the writing shape and purpose - having no direction makes the writing very difficult to do. You may need to do a 'discovery draft' or some preliminary writing to help you work out your ideas and argument.
It is very difficult to structure your material successfully without writing a plan. You need to remember to shape the writing so it has purpose and direction. Read this resource on structuring your material to help you arrange your notes to reflect a possible argument. When you have defined your possible sections you might find a synthesis matrix useful to help you organise source material to feed into your sections.
