Essay writing

Although a really good essay should read like it has flowed effortlessly and logically from the tip of your pen (first mistake – always write your essays on a computer!), most follow a formula that can be identified, learned and perfected. The points below constitute some of the best general advice about preparing for and structuring an essay.

What’s in a title?

If essay writing were a murder mystery, the title would be your most valuable clue, so keep it close to hand. Some writers copy the title on to every page of their draft. It doesn’t hurt, and may save you from straying into a digression or two. If you put the title in small print in the header of your document it will look perfectly neat, and will help you avoid misfiling the pages. Oh, and don’t forget to number them.

Analyse the title closely, and try re-framing it as a question (or a different question) to squeeze out its essence. For academic writing at undergraduate level and above, it’s unwise to rely on simply looking for keywords - instead try asking yourself ‘what do I need to know to answer this question?’ Note down these sub-questions. They should help you focus your research and structure your writing.

Don’t fade into the background

Background reading around your subject can be useful, but don’t get carried away. If your essay involves a well-known topic you might conceivably read around it for the rest of your time at university without making any progress on your actual assignment.

Try reading armed with the questions you formulated when you analysed the title. Ask yourself: ‘does this answer any of my questions?’ as you scan possible sources. This should help you spend your time wisely, and pursue only what you really need.

This stage should last until you can answer ‘yes’ to the following questions:

• Have you clarified your argument?
• Have you considered competing perspectives?
• Do you have enough evidence and/or examples?

It’s a good idea to note the bibliographic details of useful sources as you go – author, title, date/place of publication, publisher. If using web resources, remember to write down the date you accessed them.

And before you start writing your essay, a useful trick is to organise your notes with a set of different coloured highlighters. Assign a colour for each of the sub-questions you came up with, and colour the notes according to their relevance to each of these. This can save you a lot of time later.

Get writing

Always make sure the title is at the top of the first page. The essay marker will not thank you for having to work your title out for themselves.

As a whole, your introduction should set out how you have interpreted the title and how you plan to structure the rest of your essay. It should take up only 5-10% of your word count. Of course, the introduction is often written last, when the shape of essay is most fully developed. This is fine – just remember not to include any of your conclusions here.

There’s no one way to open your text. The safest is to précis how you plan to answer the question in one succinct paragraph. Opening with a quote or an anecdote can be a more stylish way to set the tone, so long as the content is relevant.

The body of your essay should be set out in paragraphs, each of which should tackle no more than one point. This is again where it’s useful to have formulated those sub-questions early on – answer each of your own questions in turn and the meat of your argument should start to develop naturally. To help establish the flow between paragraphs, try using link words such as ‘furthermore’, ‘however’ and ‘similarly’ where it makes sense to do so.

The proportion of material in this section that should fall under the banners of ‘description’ and ‘evaluation’ is up for debate – perhaps around 50% of the total word count for the former and 30% for the latter. The important thing to consider is that it’s the evaluation that is the most highly skilled (and therefore marked) aspect of an academic essays. It’s your chance to make your point and go a step further beyond simply demonstrating that you understand the material.

The conclusion should mirror your introduction in length, at around 5-10% It summarises the main themes and arguments you have employed, and states general conclusions from the body of your text. It’s not a place to introduce new material. Above all, don’t simply rehash what you’ve already written – think of the conclusion as a kind of grand finale, when all your carefully presented arguments are brought to a convincing close.

Institutions tend to demand different ‘house styles’ when it comes to presentation of your references and bibliography. Make sure you know what the rules are and follow them to the letter. Mistakes here are a truly annoying (and unnecessary) thing to be marked down for.

The final fence

Anyone who declares that they enjoy proofreading is not to be trusted. On the other hand, anyone who refuses to proofread because it’s boring could find themselves a grade below what their work is really worth, so don’t let yourself down.

Have a coffee, have a sleep, whatever it takes, but don’t submit your essay until you have taken out that embarrassing extra apostrophe or creative spelling of a key word that has crept in there. Remember, typos are for losers.