Essays: How to Structure Your Essay

There are as many ways to write a good essay as there are people in the world - there is no one, right answer. Good essays do have some things in common, though. You might have been told at school that every good story needs a beginning, a middle and an end. Really, the same can be said for essays, too: they need an introduction, an argument and a conclusion. And, much like a story, it’s a good idea to know what your ending, your conclusion, will be before you start. 

How to Plan Your Essay

If you’ve followed my previous advice, you’ll know what your conclusion will be from your thesis statement.

The introduction:

Outline the question, show why it’s interesting and how it fits into wider ideas, and show how you will answer it.

The argument: 

Build your argument by putting your ideas into a logical order to persuade the reader. You should generally aim for one main point, with references, per paragraph. If you’re writing a longer essay, it can be a good idea to group similar paragraphs under sub-headings.

The conclusion:

Summarise what you have said, showing how it answers your original question. Sometimes, such as in a scientific research essay, it can be a good place to mention different things that could be investigated in the future.

The main paragraphs of the essay, the argument, is usually the area which requires the most planning. Like we’ve seen so many times before, different people find different ways that work best for them, but it’s so important to plan. 

There are two main ways I’m going to outline here:

• a spider diagram

This often works well for people who prefer to visualise things. You put your main point in the middle of the page, and then write key words, phrases and ideas around it. You can also then cross off the smaller ideas as you include them, which can be fun!

• bullet points

These can sometimes be a quick outline of your essay, or other people prefer to make a detailed plan with sub-points and reference information (authors and book page numbers) included, too.

At this stage, I would often go back through my reading notes to see where the ideas I’d found could fit into each paragraph. The most important thing to remember is that when you mention something that someone else has said, you need to fit it into why you think it’s important. You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) say “I think this is important because” after every sentence, but you should comment on it, highlighting how it fits into your argument. 

Don’t worry too much about it being perfect the first time around, though. The next couple of posts will focus on how to tweak your writing to really improve your style and presentation.

Remember:

Reading this and understanding it, and putting it into practice are entirely different things. It can make a huge difference to work with an essay writing mentor to discuss your feedback and the different strategies that you can use. Click to find out about our writing essay mentoring.

COMING NEXT WEEK: 

Essays: Two Ways to Cut the Waffle and Make Your Essay Clearer

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Essays: How to Read (For an Essay)

People often don’t realise that the kind of reading you need to do for an essay is different from just, well, reading a book. It’s a lot more intensive and requires you to analyse the information that you’re reading to understand how it fits into your question, rather than just understanding what the writer is trying to say.

Before you pick up a book, it can often be helpful to write down everything you know about your topic - in a diagram, maybe - and all the things you need to find out. This can help you to understand where you should start.

Collecting information well is a skill that’s extremely important to get right, because it shows up in the final product. It’s a bit like making a meal and the ingredients not being cooked properly: your essay might look like lots of words on the outside, but if you haven’t read properly then it’s not going to be any use. This stage of the essay can seem daunting, especially at the start of university, or if you’re not working in your first language but, like everything else, there’s lots of things you can do to make the process easier. 

Why The Library Is Really Useful

Many universities have a similar library system, but it’s definitely worth going when you’ve got a bit of free time to understand how everything works. 

● Some departments include a library orientation as part of their program for new students, too, which is definitely worth using - everyone’s a bit confused in the beginning. Most universities have a library catalogue where you can search by author, title and keyword (which is really useful if you don’t quite know what you’re looking for), and once you’ve found the book, it will also give you its Dewey Decimal Classification - the long way of saying the code that will help you find the book on the shelf. 

● A lot of universities also give you the option of logging in from home and reserving the book before you get to the library. Lots of universities also have online access to journals though JStor and Athens, which is much easier than sitting in the library with huge journal volumes.

If your library often doesn’t have the books you need, it’s worth signing up for a SCONUL pass. It’s a free card that allows you to borrow books from other libraries - they have an online catalogue where you can check which libraries stock the book you need. I’ve also found this really useful when I’ve got home for the Christmas holidays and realised I forgot to pick up a vital book.

So, basically, it’s well worth looking at those kind of things before you start searching for books because they can speed up the process of finding the things you need.

The Difference Between Primary and Secondary Sources

When you’re looking for books, you need to keep the difference between primary and secondary sources in mind. You need a mixture of both to write a good essay.

A primary source is the work that the question is based upon. So if, for example, you’re writing an essay about the work of Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice might be one of your primary sources. It’s really important to read all of your primary sources, and to have an opinion on them, before you start your essay. You can’t write a good answer based off a Wikipedia plot summary! If English isn’t your first language - and even if it is, sometimes - it’s well worth taking the extra time to really understand everything. I did an Italian degree and spent a lot more time reading Italian primary sources, but it was worth it to produce a good essay.

Secondary (or critical) material is everything that other people have to say about something. So you might find something that talks about narrative structure in Pride and Prejudice, or the historical and political background to the French Revolution, or a feminist approach to translation. Obviously all these things can be invaluable to your essay, but you can’t - and aren’t expected to - read it all. Concentrate on the area closest to your essay, and ask your tutor if you feel there’s too much material - you may need to think about your question again.

“How Many Sources Do I Need?”

If I had a pound for every time I heard that question at university, I’d be very rich indeed! Unfortunately, there’s no magic number. It’s not really a bad thing, though, because it gives you the freedom to choose what you think is the most important information. Like many things, it becomes easier with practice to know how much information you need for a 2,000, 5,000 or 10,000 word essay. My biggest piece of advice to leave plenty of time to research your first few essays and then you won’t feel so much pressure. Also, remember that you don’t have to use every single piece of information that you find in your essay so it doesn’t matter if you find a few books with interesting titles that end up being useless.

How to Take Notes

Like I’ve mentioned, Wikipedia can’t replace reading critics’ opinions on your topic. But, of course, not every single thing that every single critic says about your topic is going to be relevant - or even correct. The markers are judging your ability to make your own points, that are backed up by the relevant theories and critics. So it’s important that you don’t just string other people’s ideas together without any of your own analysis. Note-taking is useful, though, and it can really speed up the essay writing process. 

Notes are important because they:

• are a summary of information that will shape your essay
   
• tell you where you’ve found information. This is especially important in giving others the appropriate credit for their ideas, otherwise your university may accuse you of plagiarism - passing other people’s ideas off as your own, even by accident. It’s important that any direct quotes or theories are referenced correctly. Different departments have different rules on how to create your references - most have a page on Blackboard or their homepage. 

There’s no right way to take notes, as long as you’ve got the necessary information for a reference: book, author, page number and quotation marks around passages directly from the book. Some people use index cards, or A4 paper - I tended to keep a Word document on my computer with everything in one place, so that I could slot ideas into my essay plan later.

Having well-organised notes will make planning your essay much easier, which is what we’ll be moving on to next time. As always, I hope you’ve found this useful and feel free to say hello in the comments. 

COMING NEXT WEEK: 

Essays: How to Structure Your Essay

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Essays: How to Make Sure That Your Essay Answers the Question

In the last post, I mentioned that a thesis statement can be a really useful way of making sure that you understand the essay question you’ve been set. 

People sometimes say that "the best way of making sure that you understand a topic, such as when you’re revising for an exam, is to explain it to someone else". 

This is exactly what a thesis statement does.

What is a Thesis Statement and Why Should I Write One?

A thesis statement is a short summary of the argument you want to make in your essay. 

Let’s take an example question:

“How should crime be dealt with in our society?”

Your thesis statement needs to be:

• debatable: in the example I give above, you can’t just say “Crime is bad and needs to be stopped”, because most people agree on this already (and you also wouldn’t be answering the question!). Instead, you could say, “The government should spend 30% more on crime prevention.” Here, you have an idea that you can argue all the way through your essay with several related ideas:

                    - why should it be the government’s responsibility to prevent crime?

                    - why should they spend 30% of their budget?

• narrow: your essay is always going to have a word count and it’s important to stay within it. Your mark will often be reduced if you write too many (or too few) words so you need to make sure that your topic area is small enough. In the example I gave above, you could say: “The government should increase its crime prevention budget by 30% to employ more police officers.” By focusing on one very specific area - police officers - you can talk about:

                     - why police officers are the best solution for fighting crime, rather than more                            cameras or longer prison sentences, for example.

Hopefully you’re beginning to notice a pattern here: why?. This is probably the most important thing you need to remember when writing an essay:

                      -why is this important?
                      -why is this relevant?

A thesis statement helps you to think about “why?” and to get the reasons into your essay.

When I write essays, I write my thesis statement on a sticky note and stick it to the side of my laptop screen. This helps me to make sure that what I’m writing is answering the question in a relevant way and is adding to my argument. 

If you’re struggling to make your essay question into a thesis statement, it could mean that you don’t understand the question well enough and need to go back to your lecture notes, or your tutor for advice.

COMING NEXT WEEK: 

Essays: How to Read (For an Essay)

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Essays: Things You Really Need to Know Before You Start Your Essay

I have known lots of people who are fantastic in discussions at university, contributing some really great thoughts and insights, but who then struggle when it comes to putting those thoughts on paper… 

especially when the page is blank and you don’t know where to start. 

Essay writing is much more important in Britain than it is in other European countries (the Italians, for example, prefer oral exams) so it’s a skill that’s important to get right if you want a good grade. Starting with an empty Word document can seem scary, though, and it can be tempting to just start writing straight away. 

The great news is that the process can easily be broken down into more manageable steps to get you away from a blank page towards the finished essay. The key to a good piece of work is definitely to plan well, so don’t forget to plan your time, too - don’t leave everything until the night before the deadline! 

But before you can do any essay planning, you need to understand the question.

How to Understand the Question Effectively

Put simply, essays are just a way to test your understanding of a subject. So to write a good essay you need to make sure that you:

• understand what the question is asking: you can’t include everything you know about the topic in a 2,000 word essay, so you need to make sure your answer answers the question. One really good way of helping yourself to do this is to turn your question into a thesis statement.

• understand what your marker wants: read your department’s assessment criteria to see the kind of critical analysis and comment that will get you the top marks. Think to yourself, “How can I show the marker that I know how to do this in my essay?”  At undergraduate level, no one is expecting that you make exciting new discoveries about an idea or a text: the most important thing is that you make links between critics’ material to back up your argument. 

Where Do I Start?

Once you know what the question is asking, don’t be afraid to use your lecture notes as a starting point for the essay. Of course, not all of your material will come from them, but in the UK an essay is often a closer look at something you’ve already studied in class. This means that they can be a good place to start when thinking about how you’re going to answer the question and the points you’re going to make. Often lecture notes also have reading lists, too, so if your essay topic was mentioned in a lecture this can be a good place to look before you go to the library.

Hopefully this has given you some useful advice on where to start once you’ve got your essay question. The next post will concentrate on how to get the most out of your research and reading. Let me know if you have any questions - or just want to say hi! - in the comments. Or you can tweet us @CLivingUK.

Jess is a modern foreign languages graduate from the University of Warwick, where she won the Giving to Warwick non-finalist prize and achieved a first in her dissertation. She also has an MA in Translation Studies. 

Having spent time studying and working abroad, she has first-hand experience of the challenges that living in a new country can bring. She is excited to bring her knowledge of academic English to help others to achieve their potential. 

COMING NEXT WEEK: 

Essays: How to Make Sure That Your Essay Answers the Question

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Can Anyone Write a High Class Essay? Two Graduates' Perspectives

Hi, my name’s Kirsty. 
I graduated from Warwick Uni with a 2.2 degree in French and Italian. I’ll let you into a secret… I really wasn’t good at essay writing when I was at uni. 

Even though I “knew” HOW to write an essay in theory, I just couldn’t seem to figure out that magic formula that translated my ideas, theory and blood sweat and tears into a really good essay. Consequently, despite a lot of hard work and what my tutors would call “all the potential”, I graduated with an average mark for my essays at a mid 2.2. Naturally, my goal was a 2.1 at least. Not knowing what the seemingly “magic formula” for essay writing was frustrated me so much. Add the pressure and stress that I put on myself, times were difficult.

It was only after graduating, when I had some breathing space and was under a lot less pressure, when I put my mind to working out the process of writing great essays. I couldn’t believe in the idea that some people just aren’t cut out for essay writing. I’ve become a writer since graduation, and I’ve built a community to help students learn how to write amazing, high-class essays. The good news is that it can be done.

What Makes a Good Essay Writer?

I kept in touch with one of my former student friends, Jess Stubbs, who studied Italian with me at Warwick. I remembered Jess doing really well in almost every essay we did as part of our degree. She also won the Giving To Warwick non-finalist academic award and got a first in her dissertation.

Jess got in touch with me when she found out I was starting Confident Living Uni and wanted to help people to write essays. 

We started to work together as we helped many students to improve their essays and writing style, and then to jump up the grade ladder. 

As soon as Jess and I started to see many of our students jump whole grades... 
from 2.2s to 2.1s, from 2.1.s to 1sts, we knew that we were creating something that could really help students to improve their essays!

Together, we’ve created a kick-ass blog series to help students. From freshers to finalists, from home students to international students, we're helping students to drastically improve their essay writing skills.

Before we started the series, I was really keen to ask Jess a few questions about what we thought goes into writing great essays…

Can Anyone Write Great Essays?

Jess: I definitely believe that everyone is capable of improving their marks. No matter how good or bad you are at writing essays, more often than not there are simple tricks you can use to take your writing to the next level. This was really what I wanted to achieve with the blog posts: maybe you're already excellent at reading primary and secondary material, but need help to build your argument; or maybe you love writing too much and struggle to stay within the word limit - whatever the problem is, there's a solution.

What Are the Most Common Mistakes People Make When Essay Writing?

Jess: I think one of the biggest traps that people fall into is thinking that everything can be done the night before. This just means that everything's rushed: your research is full of gaps, your critical thinking skills are almost non-existent and your writing is shoddy. All these things come through really clearly in an essay. Markers want to see that you've taken pride in your work, and the best way you can do this is to give yourself enough time to finish it.

When Should Someone Get Help From a Tutor or Confident Living Mentor?

Jess: AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Honestly, I cannot emphasise this one enough. What might have been a small question at the beginning of the essay writing period can mean the difference between a pass or a fail if you discover just before the deadline that you haven't interpreted the question correctly, or have missed out a key area. Tutors are there to make sure that you understand the assignment, not to give you one-on-one draft feedback... so get your questions in early.

Kirsty: it can also just help to discuss your worries with a mentor! Sometimes just a brief Skype chat can help take the edge of the stress (which trust me, I know all about!) 

What Should Students Do Right Now to Prepare for the Essay Writing Season?

Jess: First of all, subscribe to the blog. We'll be sharing practical tips each week in the build up to essay deadlines. 

Then, make sure your lecture notes are up-to-date: they can help massively with essay writing.

Also, make sure you've done all the required reading for lectures, and also start to look to see if there's any titles that might help with your question if you have it already.

Invest in a new USB stick and make sure you've got printer credits: there's nothing worse than a hard drive crash the night before the deadline.

What Will We Cover in the Blog Series?
We'll be covering many of the different pitfalls and challenges that students have to overcome to write well. From practical tips in planning, time management and proofreading, to how to not let stress affect your essay and cutting the waffle, we've got lots covered.

Make sure that you like us on Facebook (click here) 

Or subscribe to the blog series (right here) RIGHT now!

Don't procrastinate ;) Why not do it right now...? Done? :)

Have you got any specific questions or worries ahead of writing your first or next summative essay?

Send us any questions or worries you have about essay writing or uni by writing a comment below, or send us a message on Facebook. We may write a blog post for you, to answer your questions.

DON'T MISS OUT on our "Essay Writing" series! Don't delay: LIKE us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, and we'll make sure you get all of our free support and advice (hey, it's not even classed as procrastination). :) 

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