The online world is awash with not-so-helpful essay writing advice, making it tricky for students to get the advice they want when writing essays. So our experts that are academic written the following suggestions so that you could utilise before and whilst crafting your essay, to make certain your writing hits the mark.
Understand the question
This could, during the face of it, appear to be somewhat advice that is banal but fact of the matter is that failing woefully to properly understand the question set is regarded as, if you don’t the most common reason behind a disappointing grade with regards to essay writing. Are you currently being asked to critically evaluate something? Compare and contrast? Analyse a particular circumstance? Evaluate the usefulness of a particular concept?
They are a few of the common phrases found in essay questions, and every indicates a different set of expectations. You have to gain an understanding not only of said theory, but also other common approaches if you are asked to critically evaluate a particular theoretical approach, for instance. They must all be weighed against each other, highlighting the relative strengths and weaknesses of each and every theory and, importantly, you must arrived at a well-justified and conclusion that is confident. May be the theory good? Exactly what are its flaws? How can it is improved?
You don’t necessarily need to go into as much critical depth if you are asked to evaluate the usefulness of something, however. Yes, you need to still acknowledge alternative approaches, and yes, you ought to still note some strengths and weaknesses – nevertheless the bulk of the task must emphasise the concepts practical usefulness. Probably the approach that is best is to locate one, or a couple of, case studies in which the theory has been used – that which was the results of this? Does the application of the theory reveal any particular shortcomings, or strengths?
“Compare and that is contrast, meanwhile, are essentially a hybrid associated with above – you will need to take a crucial approach and assess the literature, however your focus has got to remain solidly from the theories which you have now been asked to compare and contrast. You should show which you understand both (or all) core theories in great depth, both on a theoretical and applied level.
In essence, the wording for the essay question shall let you know the way the essay must be written. It will probably indicate where in fact the focus of the essay should lie while you research and write.
Plan and schedule
Comprehending the real question is step one, but it is equally important that you make efficient utilization of the available time. Students often underestimate the amount of work necessary to write a good essay, which leads to two things: (1) late nights at the library, and (2) a disappointing grade. You should start planning your essay the moment you receive the essay question if you want to achieve a good mark. The next table might be a useful aid:
Step | Deadline |
---|---|
Understand the question | (Insert date) |
Map the essay chapters | (Insert date) |
Collect articles | (Insert date) |
Read and take notes | (Insert date) |
Start writing | (Insert date) |
Finish first draft | (Insert date) |
Proofread | (Insert date) |
Hand in | (Insert date) |
By setting deadlines that you won’t be left with too much work right before your hand-in date for yourself and committing to stick to them, you are ensuring. It is also essential that you leave time, ideally a few days, between finishing your draft that is first and.
Be critical
Perfect theories and academic approaches are rare – the clear greater part of theories, arguments, and research reports have flaws. Being descriptive is okay if you should be seeking to scrape a pass, however for a greater grade you will need to show you are able to leverage critical reasoning in your coping with academic materials. What are the limitations of this theories you may be drawing on? How have these been dealt with in the literature? Just how can they impact the quality of arguments presented, also to what extent do they limit our comprehension of what you are studying? What alternate explanations might offer depth that is additional?
Critical thinking is really what is going to make your essay stand out. It shows the marker that you are not only repeating the arguments which were fed for your requirements throughout your studies, but actually engaging with theories in an academic manner. A good way to practice this might be to cover careful attention when reading literature reviews in published articles – you will find that authors don’t simply summarise previous studies, but offer a critique resulting in a gap with regards to their own research.
Structure, focus and flow
How you present your argument is nearly as important while the argument itself, which explains why it really is imperative that your essay follows a logical structure. A vintage piece of advice is to “tell them what you’re going to let them know, then inform them, and tell them what you told them” – this, in essence, summarises the core introduction, main body, and conclusion structure of one’s essay.
Having an obvious and logical structure will help make sure your essay stays focused, and doesn’t stray through the question being answered. Each section, paragraph, and sentence should add value into the argument you will be presenting. As you are writing, it’s advisable that you take one step back and ask yourself “what value performs this sentence/section add? How exactly does it url to my overarching argument?” If you learn that you can’t answer that question, there is a higher risk that you have strayed from your core argument, and you may would you like to reconsider the road you are taking.
It’s also advisable to ensure that all the various elements of your essay fit together as a cohesive and logical whole, and that the transition from 1 argument to another location is fluid. Students often treat essays as lists of arguments, presenting http://writtingessays.com one after the other with little consideration for how they fit together, which inevitably results in a lower life expectancy grade. Remember to inform your reader why you might be transitioning from a single argument to another location, why these are typically in this order that is particular and how each argument helps shed light on a particular element of what you are discussing.
Whether you should read the article as a whole if you are still not a hundred percent sure, it is usually a good idea to skip to the conclusion – this usually contains a detailed summary of the study, which will help determine. You don’t want to spend time reading through and number that is endless of in order to realize that they aren’t actually relevant. After you have identified a few solid articles, you ought to (a) proceed through their bibliographies and pay attention to who they are citing, as they articles is going to be of value for the own research; and (b) check into Google Scholar to see who may have cited them. For this, simply input the name of the article into the search bar and hit enter. When you look at the results, click “cited by” – this can return a listing of all of the articles that have cited the publication you searched for.
It’s important that you don’t rely too heavily on a single or a few texts, as this indicates to your marker which you haven’t engaged with the wider literature. You need to be particularly careful in using course books (for example. “introduction to management” and so on), since these are essentially summaries of other people’s work.
Quoting, paraphrasing and plagiarism
Academic writing requires a balance that is careful novel argument, and drawing on arguments presented by others. Writing a totally ‘novel’ essay, without drawing in one source, indicates that you haven’t produced a novel argument that you haven’t made yourself familiar with what has already been published; citing someone for every point made suggests. As a result, it is necessary that you provide evidence (a credible citation) if you’re making a statement of fact, or drawing on arguments, frameworks, and theories presented by other academics. These, in turn, should offer the novel that is overarching that you yourself are making.