Some tips for the process of essay writing
- Decide on your choice of topic as early as possible so that you will have adequate time for reflection and to do the necessary reading.
- Read the question carefully.
- Draw up an essay outline. This is a list of headings and subheadings in the order that you intend to address them. It might help to formulate these as questions.
- Start writing as soon as possible. Try to do your draft in one session. The key to a good essay is revision. Once your draft is written, go through it and edit it. Every time you do this, you will improve your essay.
- Relate your draft back to your outline and read the question again. Have you answered all aspects of the question?
- Remember to do a spell-check before you submit your essay. There is no excuse for bad spelling in a coursework assignment. Also check grammar and punctuation.
- Check that you have cited all sources and referenced them correctly.
- Know when to stop.
Undertaking a critical analysis
A good essay involves critical analysis. This means that you should build up an argument in response to the question, drawing on, and evaluating, appropriate forms of evidence.
You should take care not to be overly descriptive at the expense of analysis (i.e., do not spend a lot of time and space describing elements of the topic). Instead, use specific examples to illustrate the points you make. Do not try to cover too many points in your essay. Instead choose those points that are most important and relevant to the question.
Being ‘critical’ in this context is not the same as ‘criticising’. Rather than simply stating your opinion on the subject matter you should show how it is supported by evidence. In making your argument you should draw on the theory or theories covered on the module and on relevant literature.
Students who read beyond the module material are likely to have their efforts rewarded by a higher grade. However, it is easy to get bogged down in trying to analyse too many readings. Do not rely exclusively on the views of others – your lecturer will want to see that you can construct your own arguments, or reconstructing the arguments of others, in an eliminating way, and not just that you have synthesised a stack of readings.
Structure
An essay has an introduction, a disposition (main body) and a conclusion. Your introduction should clearly state what you are setting out to achieve with your essay. What is its purpose? Your introduction should also summarise the order in which you are going to present your ideas (i.e., preview your essay strategy).
In your disposition, you develop your arguments. Use paragraphs properly: each should present and develop a single argument. As well as referring to the literature as a means of supporting an argument, you can also refer to case studies or examples in support of your point. Make sure you are explicit about why your examples are relevant.
Your conclusion should be a summing up. Have you answered the questions you said you were going to address in your introduction? The conclusion should have a clear ‘take-home message’ and should not introduce new material that hasn’t been fully discussed in your essay.
Writing style
The style of your writing is crucial to how successful your essay will be. Try to use language creatively without gushing or overwriting. Avoid using jargon when plain English will do but do use terminology associated with the field accurately. Avoid clichés. Keep sentences short. Your tutor will want to see that you have moved beyond a superficial understanding of the topic.
Essays are, by their nature, formal pieces of writing written in mainly the passive voice. Where it is important for you to distinguish your own view from that of an author you may be discussing, feel free to use personal pronouns, ‘I am convinced that ...’, etc. Please avoid exclamation marks. They are inappropriate in formal writing: your sentences should not need help from flourishes of punctuation to make an impact.
Format
Your essay should have 1.5 or double line spacing and margins of at least 2.5 cm. Use a font that is easy to read. For creative modules (e.g. sound/music technology, art and creative writing) students are expected to follow the formatting conventions specified by the lecturer.
Referencing
Your essay must have a comprehensive reference list. If you have drawn on the ideas of others, you must attribute them. Please use to see how your references should be laid out – especially web references where you are required to give the date of access as well. It is important to get referencing style right; sloppy, incomplete, and inconsistent style of referencing will lose you marks unnecessarily and may land you in trouble regarding plagiarism. . Please note that if you merely change a word here and there, you are too closely paraphrasing the source, and this will constitute plagiarism. If you feel the original author formulated an argument using the best possible words, it is permissible to quote them, by putting quotation marks around the reproduced text and citing the source and the page number from which you obtained the quote. An essay made up mainly of quotes, however, is likely to come across as disjointed and insufficiently substantial to earn a good mark. Writing a good essay consists of making your own argument using the work of others to support it.
Make sure that you have read and understood what you are citing. Merely citing works that others have referred to as if you have read them yourself is unacceptable. If you cannot obtain the primary source and you want to use a quote or cite from another author, you must cite it as a secondary source, giving the primary source (the one from which you are working) as the reference, e.g. (Turney, 2006, quoted in Holliman, 2009).
Ensure that the way you reference sources makes it clear where authors’ arguments are distinct from your own. If you put a reference at the end of a sentence, it implies that the entire sentence is attributable to that author. Referring to the author as part of the sentence makes the distinction clear, e.g., ‘Turney (2006) argued that …, but this overlooks the argument that …’.
Is it your own work?
Whilst it is acceptable to discuss your ideas with others and to ask for assistance with the English, any assignment for which you are receiving an individual mark must be entirely your own work. If you encounter difficulties, please ask your module lecturer for help in good time. If you have, for example, asked someone to proofread your work or they have performed on your music track (for sound technology or music technology), you should name them under the Acknowledgements section at the end of your written work.