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Writing Essays

Top 10 tips for writing your essay

There is no doubt that in order to succeed in academic life you need to be able to write a good academic essay. Few of us are born with the natural ability for writing essays, however, so this is a skill you need to acquire. The following tips may help you to begin to learn some inventive and practical ways of writing essays:

  1. Look carefully at the essay question and ensure that you understand exactly what it is asking you to do – there is more chance of you failing to obtain a good grade by misreading the question when writing essays than for any other reason so take care that you are responding in precisely the way that is asked to exactly the question that is being asked.

  2. Look for ‘key’ words in the essay title when writing essays as these will provide you with invaluable help with both forming your ‘thesis statement’ (more on this later) and deciding on the methodology that you are going to apply when writing essays. Some key words to look out for when writing essays would be: compare, contrast, analyse, assess and evaluate. Of course, there are many more than this and you need to acquaint yourself with as many as possible when writing essays. You can see from these few, though, how helpful they are in deciding how to approach the writing of your essay (i.e. the methodology) because clearly an essay asking to compare is quite different from an essay asking you to assess or evaluate. Hence you can see that the method is in the title.

  3. Before you begin to write, you should research your topic thoroughly. This means looking first at the primary texts on the topic and then moving on to less well known texts. A good tip is to look at the bibliographies of the critical works that you consult and follow up the texts used by those critics. This is not cheating, in fact if you look at several of these critical works you will see that there is a considerable overlap amongst the texts and that certain authors are referred to frequently by several authors. It is perfectly acceptable, indeed advisable, for you to tap into this body of knowledge when you are researching your essay.

  4. Begin to compile your bibliography when you begin to research you essay, rather than going back over your work at the end and trying to locate books you consulted. If you note down the details of every book you consult, not just those from which you quote, as you are consulting them, you will find it much easier later. You should also ensure that when you note down your sources you do so in the referencing style that is required by your school, college or university. Acquaint yourself with this style early on in the writing of your essays because then it will come naturally to you to cite in that style.

  5. The basic structure of an academic essay is: the introduction, the main body, the conclusion and the bibliography. The usual academic structure as given here is the ‘five paragraph essay’ but the main body, of three paragraphs, may be adapted if the essay is a longer piece of work. Making a plan based around this structure before you begin to write can be a great help in structuring your argument.

  6. The main part of the introduction, which opens the academic essay, is the thesis statement. This is basically your response to the essay question stated as simply and as briefly as possible. The thesis statement should tell the reader the position that you intend to adopt in relation to the question. In addition to the thesis statement, an introduction should always include your basic methodology (see above) and your primary texts. Nevertheless, an introduction should be kept short and should not usually include quotations. These should be saved for the main body of the essay. Finish your introduction with a linking sentence which connects smoothly into the main body of the essay as this will establish the flow of your argument.

  7. The main body of the essay should be where the writing of your essay builds the cohesive argument which is the central thesis. Each paragraph should be seen as a separate aspect of the topic but each should also be connected both to the preceding and succeeding paragraphs and to the underlying argument. The main body should also be supported throughout by evidence from critical texts which both adhere to and challenge the thesis you are presenting in the essay. It is also a good idea to analyse the evidence you use so that particular words and phrases of importance are commented upon.

  8. The conclusion should provide a summation and synthesis of your thinking throughout the essay and identify any possible problems that can be foreseen or omissions that need to be acknowledged. It is a good idea to see if you can give some idea of future work which might be undertaken on the topic here.

  9. The bibliography must contain every book that you have consulted when writing your essay in the style that is required by your school, college or university. It is a good idea to subdivide your bibliography into primary and secondary texts, for example, but you may adopt some other organisational principle such as critical texts and biographies etc. for example. As was stated earlier, you will find the final compilation of your bibliography much easier if you compile it as the writing of your essay progresses rather than leaving it to the last minute.

  10. The final, yet crucial, tip here is to proof-read your essay carefully so that you do not throw marks away by making careless errors in spelling, grammar and/or punctuation. A useful tip is either to ask a friend to proof-read your essay for you or read your essay aloud. This is because you will be more likely to detect errors if you adopt one of these methods.