How on earth do you write an essay? Well, what does it need to achieve? By that, I mean, what is the purpose of the essay? The purpose of this essay is to explore the techniques behind writing a good essay, and to do it an a relatively amusing and enjoyable fashion. There we go. You may have ... Read review
Advantages: Challenges your mind to come to a conclusion Disadvantages: We don't like being challenged
How on earth do you write an essay? Well, what does it need to achieve? By that, I mean, what is the purpose of the essay? The purpose of this essay is to explore the techniques behind writing a good essay, and to do it an a relatively amusing and enjoyable fashion. There we go. You may have been given a question by some authority figure - a teacher, lecturer, essay competition, online review website, etc.
The question given is not ... ...I had to answer recently.
"Are we good because God tells us to do so, or does God tell us to do things that are good?"
If my purpose in writing an essay is to answer the question, I would simply say something like "Neither position is correct, chumps. There is no such thing as God, and all morals are relative. Suck my Nietzsche."
But the purpose of the essay is more than just this. ... more
How on earth do you write an essay? Well, what does it need to achieve? By that, I mean, what is the purpose of the essay? The purpose of this essay is to explore the techniques behind writing a good essay, and to do it an a relatively amusing and enjoyable fashion. There we go. You may have been given a question by some authority figure - a teacher, lecturer, essay competition, online review website, etc.
The question given is not the purpose. It is a question. Here is a question I had to answer recently.
"Are we good because God tells us to do so, or does God tell us to do things that are good?"
If my purpose in writing an essay is to answer the question, I would simply say something like "Neither position is correct, chumps. There is no such thing as God, and all morals are relative. Suck my Nietzsche."
But the purpose of the essay is more than just this. There are other components. First of all, because this essay is done for a course on the history of philosophy, we must note that the question is not so much asking what we think (although it will probably cause no harm stating, briefly, what we do think), but also on the history of the question and it's various answers. The question is brought about in a Platonic dialogue called the Euthyphro. To answer it, I would have to determine what the knock on effects of it are - the problems with philosophical circularity, for instance. And I also have to find out what scholars have thought about the Euthyphro.
In this essay, which I received pretty damn good marks for, I also included information about the history of thought from philosophers and theologians that was inspired by the dilemma. The question was only a kicking off point in to the subject.
Once you have understood what the essay is about, you then have to go about building up the argument. Now, don't, just don't, listen to those people who whine about making a plan say. I have passed GCSE's, A-levels and a number of degree essays without needing to specifically write a plan.
Why don't I like plans? Simply because best laid plans go to pot. You will always end up writing more than what your plan allows for. If you need to explore your ideas, make a plan or diagram of your ideas on the topic, but don't try and plan an essay.
Start writing. This is the most important thing. It doesn't matter that your word processor is sitting there feeding back what you type and glowering at you for it. If you start writing, it becomes less difficult to stop. It doesn't matter if what you say sounds stupid.
What you need to do next is take away everything that sucks. If it's crap, remove it. That's all there is to it. The difference between average writing and great writing is simply that the great writing has had all the crap taken out. Of course, having a functioning vocabulary and some swish stylistic bits helps a lot. Where do you get these? Well, it's not something that I can help you find in five minutes. It is just something that you develop by reading widely, and always writing. Don't stop reading. Whether it's Hardy or Hello!, read constantly. Even the people who write for 'trash' (tabloid newspapers, celebrity magazines and so on) are good writers. They know their target market. And they get rid of the crap when they write.
Of course, knowing the style of Hello! is not going to be much use when you've got to write an essay about the influence of Germaine Greer on modern feminist thought.
Compile your bibliography before or during the writing. Putting bibliographies together afterwards is not a pleasant task. I've been there and done that - only I've done it for a 30,000 word work. It's not fun with 2,000 words, and it's bloody tedious beyond that. If your college or school (not that schools really demand bibliographies, but, hey, pigs might fly) demand a certain style of bibliography, follow it. Personally, I'm a massive fan of the Harvard system using inline referencing like this (Smith, 1992, p. 36). See below for the bibliography entry. For writing such references, I would highly recommend a small pamphlet available at Blackwells on the matter. It costs not more than a pound at it introduces both the (beautiful) Harvard and (not nearly as beautiful) MLA/numeric style, and provides advice on how to cite a whole range of strange things. You know, if you want to cite the DVD version of "The Godfather" in your essay about the modern metaphysical themes present in the works of Homer, this little book will tell you exactly how to go about it.
Try to back up as much as possible with evidence (unless you are on one of these trendy university courses that demand you ignore evidence). Of course, you don't have to cite papers to assert that pi is 3.141, but if you are asserting that "many critics have said x about y", it doesn't harm to add "such as Smith, Jones, Roberts and Town" with the normal references.
Don't be afraid to bring in your own ideas, as long as they are relevant. By your own ideas, I don't mean your well-thought out theory that Tony Blair is an idiot or that George Bush is evil. I don't mean your conspiracy theory that the world is run by disguised Masonic leopards or whatever. I mean, if you have read something relevant and it's not on the reading list, you can sneak it in as long as it is relevant. Relevant. Relevant, damn it.
As for style? Try to remain at least moderately sober throughout. Academic essays are not the venue for testing out strange styles. Unless you have been set an essay in free verse format, try to stick to the usual style. The best benchmark I've found is: "Would the lecturer (or whoever) submit this work for publication in the relevant journal?". As boring and professional as it sounds, this rule makes a lot of sense. The reason why academic writing is a distinct style is because it works. It has evolved to the state it is in through many years of trial and error. Following the "is this the sort of thing I see in journal x?" procedure is useful simply because journal x represents, I hope, the pinnacle of whatever discipline you are studying in. If you are studying in that discipline, one would hope that you have aspirations either to continue in that discipline, or shift sideways to a relevant career or profession. In which case, developing a style that is not 'conformist', but achieves the aims of the discipline is a very useful skill to have.
If you are studying a certain discipline, it is well worth checking your library to see if there is a study guide or something similar that provides specific advice for that subject. In my discipline (philosophy), there are a number of such guides. I think there is an internal University of London one kicking around in our library. But I picked up one called "Philosophical Writing" for about £4 in Borders. Like most books, I haven't managed to find time to actually read it, though it sits on my bookshelf awaiting emergency use.
Essay writing is not a difficult task. I'm not asking you to enjoy it, though it is quite possible that you could end up enjoying it (as some strange person who spends lots of time wearing my clothes and listening to my records seems to do - I'm not quite sure that he is me, but he's relatively pleasant about the whole thing, so I never really get too bothered). Once you get the hang of doing the fluffy bits - referencing, funny block quotes and so on - and you sort out your style, and maybe change the line spacing (no, not because you want to 'pad it out', simply because having the text leaded properly looks nice), you can get your writing sorted and grab those high marks.
I have avoided talking about the actual research for essay writing. This is a skill in itself, and a prerequisite for writing a good essay. Also, it's well worth setting up a document template in your word processor once you have formatted a good essay. That way you can actually get on and write your essay rather than fluff about with all the font controls. I can't tell you how to do this, since I now use Open Office, but once you figure out a good way of formatting your essay, keep it up. It's worth it - it costs nothing but a few minutes of thinking.
Bibliography Smith, John. (1992) Some Such Textbook, London: Whatsitcalled Publications.
Advantages: Better essays = better marks Disadvantages: Primarily intended for a certain audience (but much of this should be generally applicable)
I wrote this advice for my students, who are undergraduates doing philosophy/politics. I think most of it would be useful for any humanity/essay-based subject, particularly in the first half, while the latter suggests argumentative techniques - though I guess some of them could be employed in history, some literature studies, etc.
1. Writing Essays (the basics)
Philosophy essays generally require you to develop a line of argument. It isn't enough ... ...need to take a stance on the question (though it needn't be an extreme one, sometimes fence sitting is ok).
Think carefully about what the question is asking. Does it refer specifically to anything you've read? Is there any assumption in the question you'd like to challenge? Make sure you answer it.
Do you have your own answer to the question - either before or after doing some reading? If so, write it down in one or two sentences.
Now think how ...
a-true-ben 15.09.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Member Advice on Writing an essay
This review is on something that is oathed by all people everywhere, which is of course THE true art form of essay writing. Essays are of course written by all people, whether it be an essay for a GCSE course; a university course, or any other work related courses. But of course, GCSE and university courses can all be taken at various stages throughout life now. Essays may come in various forms, as I found during my nurse training. I had an assignment ... ...support systems for respiratory patients. But a week laterI had an exam style question, where I had an hour and a half in which to write about what care I would give to a stroke victim whilst being in my care in hospital. There are however various things to understand when writing an essay, as follows: Just make sure that you understand what is being asked of y ou, as certain people like things to be done in certain ways. Essay questions can be written ...
dynamicnurse 04.02.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Member Advice on Writing an essay
I write a lot of essays. Possibly even stranger I enjoy writing them. I am currently doing my AS levels, one of which is History involves writing a lot of them and so I get a lot of practice. I hated English when I was doing it at GCSE, though I always found it easier to write essays and long answer questions in other subjects. Also a bit strange now that I really enjoy writing for ciao. Well I am still here writing, and should get a good enough ... ...not necessarily make me the world’s expert on writing, but here are some of the things that I have learnt through people telling me or learning the hard way. So here we go, in no particular order my top tips on writing a good essay:
1. Looks at the title. As obvious as this may sound, it is really vital and surprising how many people do not do this. The title of the essay tells you what you have to do in the essay with key words. They may ...
Chris_Padden 15.02.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Member Advice on Writing an essay
One rainy lunch time, me and my friends decided, that we should get together and write up a template on how to write an essay, I was always really bad at writing essays and usually got bad marks for them, mainly C’s and the odd B. After following this template I started seeing my marks slowly go up, from B- to A- and now I get A’s and A+. Trust me if you use this template and follow it to the tee, you will see your marks go up. This template ... ...used for uni students as well. My friends brother (a uni student) uses this and gets very good marks.
Introduction
- One Paragraph.
- Answers the question.
- Outlines topics to be discussed (only a summary).
Body
- Divided into separate paragraphs (not too long but no to short either).
- Each paragraph on a topic.
- Each topics (or paragraph) arranged in logical order.
- Each paragraph to:
o Begin with a topic sentence (linking to the question).
...
Matty7 23.10.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Member Advice on Writing an essay
Advantages: Essays Are Fun! Disadvantages: Only joking, they aren't really.
Well, I was cruising around the Education/Careers section, hoping to write an opinion on A level Politics, or History, or Geography, but I spotted this category and decided I was probably qualified to write an opinion on this. I'm in my Upper Sixth year, my second year of constant lessons on how to write an essay in History and Politics. On a big-headed note, I got an A at AS level so I can't be too bad!
The first thing I should mention is how much ... ...contradict each other on cetain aspects, notably what to write in your Introduction and Conclusion, so if you disagree with what I say, don't do it!
Before I launch into how to write a good paragraph, and essay plans and all that, you need to be able to recognise the structure of the essay you will be writing. Different questions require different structures and different emphasis on aspects of the essay. I'll try to keep it simple. You can write ...
Dawson 05.03.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Member Advice on Writing an essay
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