14,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
This straight-talking guide will help you develop your essay-writing skills and achieve higher marks Do ever wish that you could write the perfect university essay? Are you left baffled about where to start? This easy-to-use guide walks you through the nuts and bolts of academic writing, helping you develop your essay-writing skills and achieve higher marks. From identifying the essay type and planning a structure, to honing your research skills, managing your time, finding an essay voice, and referencing correctly, Writing Essays For Dummies shows you how to stay on top of each stage of the essay-writing process, to help you produce a well-crafted and confident final document. Writing Essays For Dummies covers: Part I: Navigating a World of Information Chapter 1: Mapping Your Way: Starting to Write Essays Chapter 2: Identifying the essay type Part II: Researching, Recording and Reformulating Chapter 3: Eyes Down: Academic reading Chapter 4: Researching Online Chapter 5: Note-taking and Organising your Material Chapter 6: Avoiding Plagiarism Part III: Putting Pen to Paper Chapter 7: Writing as a process Chapter 8: Getting Going and Keeping Going Part IV: Mastering Language and Style Chapter 9: Writing with Confidence Chapter 10: Penning the Perfect Paragraph Chapter 11: Finding Your Voice Part V: Tightening Your Structure and Organisation Chapter 12: Preparing the Aperitif: The Introduction Chapter 13: Serving the Main Course: The Essay's Body Chapter 14: Dishing up Dessert: The Conclusion Chapter 15: Acknowledging Sources of Information Part VI: Finishing with a Flourish: The Final Touches Chapter 16: It's all in the detail Chapter 17: Perfecting Your Presentation Chapter 18: The afterglow Part VII: Part of Tens Chapter 19: Ten Tips to Avoid Things Going Wrong Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Make Your Essay Stand Out
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 499
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010
Ähnliche
Writing Essays For Dummies®
Visit www.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-essays-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html to view this book's cheat sheet.
Table of Contents
Writing Essays For Dummies®
by Mary Page and Dr Carrie Winstanley
Writing Essays For Dummies®
Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichesterWest SussexPO19 8SQEngland
E-mail (for orders and customer service enquires): [email protected]
Visit our Home Page on www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to [email protected], or faxed to (44) 1243 770620.
Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher, the author, AND ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED IN PREPARING THIS WORK make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.
For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-470-74290-7
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, UK.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Authors
Mary Page has a lifetime of experience teaching international students of all ages (her youngest pupil ever was 8 and the oldest 92!) and from very many cultures, countries and backgrounds. Her career started as a lectrice at the Université de Strasbourg in France, then continued at Eurocentres, Bournemouth. Since 2002 she has been teaching English for Academic Purposes at the University of Southampton whilst also managing the IELTS Test Centre there. During the academic year she teaches Advanced Level English Language to international students, as well as on courses for undergraduate students in teaching English as a Foreign Language. Through the summer months she directs a Pre-sessional course for international students wishing to undertake a degree course at the university. She has a busy life and would like a holiday sometime! Her interests include (unsurprisingly!) teaching academic writing, teacher training, and English as a Lingua Franca. Though she’s been teaching for many years she still gets a kick out of helping students to learn and seeing them succeed in their ambitions.Mary’s first degree is in French (BA Hons, University of Manchester) and she also holds an MSc from Bournemouth University in Managing Business Information Technology, as well as the RSA Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and the RSA Certificate in Counselling Skills in the Development of Learning.
Dr Carrie Winstanley currently works with undergraduate and postgraduate students teaching different aspects of education, including psychology, philosophy and history. She also teaches and researches with highly able children and is especially interested in those who also have learning difficulties, sensory impairments and/or disabilities. She regularly runs workshops with children and adults in museums, galleries and schools, and is fascinated by learning and teaching in formal and non-formal contexts.
Carrie has taught in Higher Education for a decade, following ten years of teaching in schools (maintained, independent and international sectors). She is also an educational consultant and writer. Carrie holds higher degrees in social justice and education (PhD, London), psychology of education (MPhil, Cambridge), as well as the philosophy and history of education (MA, Surrey), plus an undergraduate degree in education (BHEd, Kingston, CNAA). She was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy in 2008.
Dedication
From Mary: To my goddaughters, Kitty, Jemima and Cordelia, in the hope that this book will be of use to you in the future.
From Carrie:This book is dedicated to all the students whose essays I have ever read and all the tutors and colleagues who have ever read mine.
Authors' Acknowledgments
From Mary: Infinite thanks go to the innumerable students and colleagues over the years from whom by osmosis I have learnt, and continue to learn, so very much about teaching, learning and, in particular, academic writing. I would also like to include all the team at Wiley in this, especially Wejdan Ismail and Simon Bell, who supported me when the going got tough! I’m grateful, too, to Julie Watson at Southampton who first put me in touch with them.
Most of all, thanks go to Lauren, the best of friends, who has kept me laughing with her whacky phone calls.
Not forgetting, of course, for their constant love and companionship, thanks (in the form of an extra can of tuna) to the most wonderful cats in the world, Florence and Theo.
From Carrie: I am particularly grateful to a group of friends from Kingston Polytechnic – Kate, Hannah, Veena, Jo and Hilary – we were the best study group I ever had and I learnt a great deal from working with you all back in the distant 1980s. Thanks are also due to the many students and colleagues with whom I have discussed essay writing and study skills over the years.
This project was made possible by Wejdan Ismail and Simon Bell at Wiley; sincere gratitude to them and to my copyeditor Charlie Wilson. I appreciate all the support and the perceptive comments that have kept me on track, juggling this book with ‘Dissertations’ and with real life too. Thanks also to my co-author Mary Page.
I would not have agreed to undertake this project without the encouraging words of Jack and Danny. I’d also like to thank Ma, Pa, Suzi and Missy for their steadfast support, and Andy for helping me to keep going on difficult days.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development
Acquisitions Editor: Wejdan Ismail
Development Editor: Simon Bell
Content Editor: Jo Theedom
Publishing Assistant: Jennifer Prytherch
Copy Editor: Sally Lansdell
Technical Editor: Abbie Langridge
Publisher: Jason Dunne
Assistant Production Manager: Daniel Mersey
Cover Photos: © altrendo images/ Getty Images (front); © Erik Dreyer/ Getty Images (back)
Cartoons: Ed McLachlan
Composition Services
Project Coordinator: Lynsey Stanford
Layout and Graphics: Reuben W. Davis, Melissa K. Jester
Proofreader: Susan Moritz
Indexer: Cheryl Duksta
Introduction
The first thing we’d like to do is offer you our warmest congratulations on having made it to university. The biggest hurdle is over. How many people do you know who don’t make it through uni? There are, admittedly, a few who fall by the wayside, but this can be for health or financial reasons, amongst others. The student who fails to complete the course for academic reasons is a rarity. The vast majority of students will get through, and you will surely be one of them! The thing is, though, that we don’t want you simply to scrape through with a third, but graduate with the best possible degree – an upper second or even a first. You’ve made a positive step towards that goal by picking up this book.
At first it might seem a bit scary to have to write a serious ‘grown-up’ essay and then hand it in to a real Professor, someone who’s spent a lifetime researching his area. Fear not. We’ll guide you through the stages of writing an essay and warn you of pitfalls along the way. Remember that professors and lecturers were once, years ago, students just like you – we all started somewhere and had to take those first hesitating steps. Years ago, though, there wasn’t a For Dummies book like this to help people, so you’ve already got a head start.
Brows furrow and heads droop when the subject of writing an essay is mentioned. Though essays are serious stuff, they don’t have to be painful experiences. They do have to be challenging and demanding. After all, you wouldn’t like to think that you would come through your degree course on the back of essays that were easy and didn’t stretch you, would you? But with the help of this book you’ll be able to meet the challenges of essay writing and respond to the demands made of you. We help you in a holistic way with all the aspects of writing, not just the words on the page but the where, when, and how of the writing experience, so that you can not only be successful in your writing at university, but even – dare I say it? – actually enjoy it.
This is the book for you, then, when you need help with the words, and also when the words won’t come. When you don’t know where to start, and when you start you can’t finish. When you’ve got too many words, or too few. We look at typical difficulties you might face, and help you through them. And we hope we even make you smile from time to time, because you’re at uni and you should be having the time of your life!
About This book
You may well have used a For Dummies book before and be familiar with our easy-to-use format and our chatty style. If, however, you are a newcomer to For Dummies books you might be surprised that such a weighty subject as writing essays can be made so accessible. How do we do it? We break down the subject into meaningful, manageable chunks, and then sub-chunks. What you need to do is think what it is you need to know about writing an essay, and then find the appropriate chunk or sub-chunk from our index. What you don’t have to do is read from cover to cover. Home in on the bits that apply to you and take our advice. We try to write as if we were talking to you face-to-face, hence our relaxed and informal style. Our book is here for you to dip into when you need us. Think of it as your support and your friend.
Conventions Used in This Book
Each chapter of this book covers the basics you’ll need and also provides further details and examples that you can skim over if you’re pushed for time. We also flag up points in the book where you can cross-reference to different chapters, so that you can read the book thematically if you need to.
For ease of navigation, we use the following conventions:
Italic is used for emphasis, to highlight new words, and terms which the text defines.
Bold text is used to indicate keywords in bulleted lists.
Monofont is used for Internet addresses.
Sidebars, the shaded grey boxes you see from time to time, point out information which might come in handy, but doesn’t qualify as essential reading.
How This Book Is Organised
We’ve divided our book into six parts. Each of the first five parts corresponds to a step in the process of writing an essay, followed by a sixth section, the Part of Tens. In order to help you familiarise yourself with the content of our book and find what you’re looking for, we summarise each section here.
Part I: Navigating a World of Information
These first three chapters help you to get a feel for what it is you are expected to produce. We look at the difference between writing an essay at secondary school and writing one at university. Essays often break down into one of several basic types, so we show you what you should be aiming towards and – above all – help you to get going. This can be the hardest step of all. It’s downhill all the way now!
Part II: Researching, Recording and Reformulating
You’ve got to have something to write about, so these next four chapters help you with the content of your essay. We give you plenty of tips on how best to find your way round your background reading, whether it’s from books or online. In addition, we help you to make notes, both from your sources and for your essay. One of the big issues at university, given the ease of the ‘copy and paste’ function, is lifting, stealing, or plagiarism, whatever you want to call it. Chapter 7 says ‘Don’t!’ in no uncertain terms, but as well as that provides you with the skills so that you aren’t tempted to copy someone else’s writing in the first place.
Part III: Mastering Language and Style
One of the worries we can have about writing an academic essay is whether our language is up to scratch. These three chapters provide a quick brush-up in the building blocks of your essay, the sentence and the paragraph, making sure that you can structure them correctly and then punctuate them accurately, so that your meaning is clear. We also give you advice on how your ‘voice’ comes across so that you sound appropriately formal and academic.
Part IV: Tightening Your Structure and Organisation
Now you’ve got to put it all together. These four chapters divide your essay into a beginning, a middle and an end. Each has its own special features and here we explain what these are and show you what your tutor is expecting to find. In addition you will probably want to use quotations in your essay. Chapter 14 shows you how to do this, and then finish off the whole product with a nice list of references at the end. You’re nearly there!
Part V: Finishing with a Flourish: The Final Touches
Two of these chapters give you tips with the last stage of writing - the one which tends to be rushed. You can gain extra marks by attention to detail in the polishing and perfecting process and we show you how! We then take a positive attitude with the fall-out of the essay, understanding where you went wrong, learning from your mistakes and seeing how you can do better next time if the feedback wasn’t quite as good as you’d hoped for. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn!
Part VI: The Part of Tens
The Part of Tens provides you with two chapters listing helpful pointers to keep your essay-writing on track. Ten Troubleshooting Tips advises you on common problems and what to do if you find yourself in difficulties – for instance, when you’ve written too much or too little, when you’ve left it too late, or you have technical difficulties. Ten Tips for Writing Essays in Exams does what it says on the tin.
Icons Used in This Book
Icons are a handy For Dummies way of catching your attention as you run through a page. Icons come in several flavours, each with its own symbol and terms of reference.
This icon does exactly what it says, highlighting helpful hints to ease your essay writing.
Wherever you see this icon there’s a point that you should make into a mental or physical note – something for you to bear in mind.
This icon flags up the Don’ts. Things you should avoid doing like the plague. Ignore this icon at your peril.
Where to Go from Here
You can go pretty much where you like from here. For Dummies books are not intended to be cover-to-cover reads, but resources you can dip into as and when you need to. Each chapter is designed to stand alone, delivering the goods on a particular topic. If you really want the lowdown on the whole process, and some ideas on where to go next, you could do a lot worse than read Chapter 1, but never feel that you then have to plod through 2–19 in strict order.
If you want to know more about researching online, check out Chapter 5, for instance. If you’re confident that you know what you want to write on, but need to find out how to put the nuts and bolts of your essay together, Chapters 11 to 13 are for you. Chapter 16 shows you how to polish the final item. And so on.
Wherever you go in this book, use it to make writing your essays the most enjoyable experience it can be. Essay-writing should always be a challenge: this book helps it not to be a chore.
Part I
Navigating a World of Information
In this part . . .
Getting a handle on what an essay title requires of you is often the toughest step of all, so we cover it thoroughly in this part. We also give you practical tips on how to get stuck in to your essay, and take an in-depth look at the different sorts of essay you might be asked to write. Essays often break down into one of several basic types, so we show you what you should be aiming towards and – above all – help you to get going and keep plugging away.
Chapter 1
Mapping Your Way: Starting to Write Essays
In This Chapter
Moving from school- to university-level writing
Getting a feel for writing academically
Breaking the writing process down into stages
Achieving success in your essay writing
You’ve probably picked up this book because you’re unsure exactly what’s expected of you when you write an essay at university. Did your teachers at secondary school explain to you what an academic essay is? Do you know how it differs from other things you’ve written? You may be someone who writes happily in many situations – for instance you send letters and emails with no hesitation, you have no difficulty keeping a diary or you can write a story from your own imagination. But an academic essay? That’s scary!
This first chapter should go a long way to settling any fears you may have about your writing. We make clear how an academic essay differs from the writing you did at school and from other types of writing you may be familiar with. We break the daunting task of writing your essay into manageable chunks and take you through each stage. And we give you some tips on how to gain confidence and write successfully.
Transitioning to University-level Writing
You write in many different ways when you’re at university. You take notes during lectures and seminars, make notes from books and web pages, take part in online discussions and course blogs, and draft essays and reports – as well as writing your shopping list and texting!
Of all your writing activities, the course assignment’s the most important. For your assignment, you’re set a writing task to do, normally over a period of a few weeks, and the marks count towards your final grade for that unit. Note-taking and blogging are important in that, done well and thoughtfully, they lay the foundations for success in essay writing both in coursework and in exams. But you’re assessed on the final product, so that’s what you have to give most attention to. You may throw away your notes, and blogs may disappear into the ether, but an essay you’re proud of may end up at the bottom of a drawer for you to discover years later and reread, we hope with pleasure.
So, given that essays at university count for so much, why do so many students feel ill-prepared for this type of writing? Basically, writing at each main stage of the education process – primary school, secondary school and university – has a different function. Realising this is the first step to helping you tune in to what’s required of you at university. By looking at the big picture, you see how what you write and how you write it changes from phase to phase.
Writing at school
Primary school teaches you the rudiments of writing. You develop basic literacy in letters of the alphabet and sentences so that you can read and start to write stories and short compositions.
Secondary school assumes that you can use writing to express your ideas and your imagination on paper. You write about the subjects you’re exploring in your lessons, and you show the teacher what you’ve discovered. You have opportunities at secondary school to develop creative writing skills and to begin to analyse topics from your courses in an extended way under the teacher’s guidance.
Writing at undergraduate level
As at secondary school, at university you also have to write essays to show what you know. But now you can’t regurgitate what your tutors have fed you. The depth you go into with a subject is reflected in the enormous, seemingly limitless, amount of reading you have to do.
Managing your reading list demands a skill that you may not have developed before university study: critical analysis. With a heightened sense of criticality, you apply frameworks and ideas that experts in the field have developed in order to deepen and extend your knowledge. Many universities give students in their first year support in critical thinking, because this, together with the reading list, is what makes the writing process lengthier and more complex than you’ve probably known before.
The result of the writing process and your background reading is an essay. As such, your essay relies on a solid bibliography. Your writing at university is based on the research that’s gone before. You stand on the shoulders of giants, as Sir Isaac Newton said. You have to acknowledge all quotations from authors and references to their work according to strict guidelines. See Chapter 14 for details on how to reference correctly.
Writing at postgraduate level
To get your head around why you write the way you do at university, thinking about what undergraduate study can lead to may help: postgraduate study such as a master’s or a PhD. At master’s level you research your subject to an even greater level of detail. Your tutors push you to analyse to the furthest points until you begin to identify gaps in the body of knowledge. This is the basis of the dissertation you write.
If you then go on to a PhD, you make a contribution to the body of knowledge by undertaking a piece of original research, filling in the gaps you identified at master’s degree level, if you like, and thus making yourself an expert in this field. People look to you for original thought and comment on your specialist subject. You become an authority. As such, you’re expected to have a thorough knowledge of practically everything written on your subject. You read just about every book or paper ever published on it.
From undergraduate level onwards, you can lay the foundation for a career in research. The undergraduate phase you’ve embarked on is the first step along the road. Most people go no further than a bachelor’s degree. A certain number go on to a master’s. Very few become doctors in their subject. But if you just think for a moment where the undergraduate degree leads, you can see why universities are keen for you to develop your essay-writing skills.
Smoothing the transition from school to uni
The transition to university is a difficult one socially and emotionally, in all probability geographically, and for most people, academically as well. You’ve probably thought long and hard about leaving friends and family behind, and are counting down to freshers’ week. But you probably haven’t given a great deal of thought to how to manage the academic transition from secondary school to university.
From being top of your class in English, French or history, you’re now just ordinary in a cohort of students who seem much more confident and knowledgeable and just downright smarter than you are. And then, when your course starts, you realise you have to write essays and try to convince everyone that you know what you’re talking about. How long can it be before they find you out and realise you’re a fraud? Isn’t stacking shelves in the supermarket a better option?
Relax – everyone’s in the same boat and everyone doubts their own ability sometimes. Tell yourself that you’ve made it, you got the grades, you were accepted, and now you’re here to learn. One of the most important things to grasp is the rules of the game you play at university, and a big part of the game is writing essays.
Getting the Genre Right
If you’re unfamiliar with the word genre, it’s just a way of describing the type of text you’re writing. Genres of writing encompass everything from a greeting on a birthday card to an academic essay; in other words, anything you write, by hand or on a keyboard, in any kind of social situation and to anybody under the sun.
The best way to understand the academic essay genre is to compare this type of writing against others you’re probably familiar with: creative writing, articles and reports.
The academic genre carries a particular writing style that sets it apart from other genres. Turn to Chapter 10 to find out more about how you can adopt this style in your writing.
Writing an essay, not creative prose
When you’re writing an academic essay, you don’t let your imagination run wild and compose stories (unless your course is actually called Creative Writing!). Control’s the name of the game. You write to a strict structure and don’t deviate. A kind of formula exists for the way you do the introduction, and similarly for the conclusion. What goes in between (the body of the essay) can follow several different overall patterns, and is composed of paragraphs that, once again, fit a particular shape. (Flick to Chapters 12, 13 and 14 for more on how to write each part of your essay.)
You should refer constantly to the work of experts rather than going off on a fantasy of your own. Creativity lies not in flights of imagination but in deep understanding of previous research, and interpreting this in your own way. Though you may not think so, you do have room to express your own opinions, but only in the context of what you’ve read.
You may think of this genre as being like a straitjacket, and in a way it is. But it’s actually a pretty easy genre to write within. Once you’ve got your head around the genre and know what you can and can’t do, a lot of decisions are already made for you and you just fit in with everything. You play by the rules.
Just as it doesn’t belong in the content of your essay, creativity isn’t welcome in how you present it either. An essay printed in a flowery font on petal-pink paper and held together with a daisy chain doesn’t impress your tutor. In Chapter 16 we take you through the correct way to present your essay.
Writing an essay, not a newspaper article
Another type of writing you may have had a try at is journalism. But unless your tutor specifically asks you to write in the style of a tabloid or a quality newspaper for some reason, you need to avoid using features of this genre. A newspaper article isn’t an academic essay, and you need to separate the two clearly in your mind.
The first area in which these two genres differ is their structure. Unlike an academic essay, a newspaper article packs as much key information into the headline and the first paragraph as possible, because the writer wants to attract the reader’s attention. A reader with very little time skims through the headlines and first paragraphs in order to get the gist of the day’s news. To grab the reader’s attention and get him or her to continue reading the article, the first paragraph has to contain the essentials and pack a punch. Less important information can be in paragraphs further down, because not everybody reads this far, and often the article ends without any kind of summing up or conclusion.
Not so the academic essay. You don’t have to work to grab your tutor’s attention, because he or she is going to read your essay anyway. And all of it, too. The introduction to the essay sets the scene and analyses the question you’re going to answer. You don’t give away the key information in the first paragraph, but divulge that information in a controlled fashion. You make sure that every bit of your essay, every paragraph, contains relevant and meaningful comment, thus building up your argument in a logical and structured way. When you reach the conclusion, you provide some sort of answer to the issue raised in the introduction, and you should to a greater or lesser extent generate a feeling of resolution. You don’t think about entertaining the reader (although if your work’s interesting, that’s a bonus!), but rather focus on answering the question fully with as much relevant detail as space permits.
Style’s another factor. With a newspaper article, given the brief amount of time a journalist has to write it, sentences are often short and uncomplicated in structure, paragraphs are short, and language is pretty straightforward because the readership’s so wide. In academic style, on the other hand, you have time to deliberate over sentence structure, often resulting in longer and more complex sentences. Paragraphs consist of several sentences that clearly link together. And the writer may also use specialised terminology, because the readership’s restricted to a smaller number of people with specialist interests and knowledge.
You can also find in journalism that the language describing an event or a person sometimes appeals to the emotions, because the reporter may be trying to provoke an emotional response in the reader. The writing may have a subjective slant or be attempting to influence the reader in some way. After all, newspapers do have owners, and these owners do have political leanings. Academic writing, in contrast, attempts always to be objective and has what some may consider a cold and distant tone, because to a large extent it avoids subjectivity. This is reflected in the restricted use of the first person pronouns, ‘I’ or ‘we’, and a greater use of passive forms such as ‘it can be seen that . . .’. (Although academia’s been changing of late in this respect, and in some quarters has loosened up a little.)
In keeping with this traditional objectivity, an academic essay takes as its basis the work of researchers and experts who’ve added to the body of knowledge over the years. You refer continually to authors through referencing and acknowledging sources. You’re respectful of your sources, and you aren’t arrogant in your argument. Your tutor looks at the extent to which you use your sources, how many you use and the accuracy with which you use your references. He or she assesses you on how skilfully you weave your quotations and references into your argument. In a newspaper report, in contrast, you may notice that direct quotations are often introduced with a simple ‘Mr Black said’ followed by his exact words, or indirect quotations with a straightforward ‘Mrs White told reporters that . . .’.
This is no criticism of journalism, by the way, but a simple statement of fact that the circumstances are different and the features of the genre different as a result. Though we hope that a newspaper article doesn’t contain untruthful or libellous information, readers understand that they’re reading something written very quickly and that it may contain some bias as a result. Journalists, we hope, don’t knowingly write anything false, but circumstances require them to give their own versions of events pretty rapidly. In your situation, however, you have the time to weigh your words so that you produce an academic essay for which you’ve checked all the facts, and in which you’ve fully developed the ideas, acknowledged sources and drawn conclusions.
To help you visualise the main differences between essays and journalism, Table 1-1 summarises points of comparison.
Table 1-1 Comparing Essays and Articles
Academic essay
Newspaper article
Has a beginning, middle and end of equal importance
Is structured like an inverted triangle: supplies information in decreasing order of importance
Is written in a formal style
Can be written in a more informalstyle
Tries to be objective
Can be emotive and subjective
Includes references to expert research
Uses quotations that the reader can’t verify
Writing an essay, not a report
The other genre you may have to use at undergraduate level, especially if you’re writing up an investigation, is a report. So where do report writing and essay writing differ?
Essays and reports have some similarities:
Both are written in the same style: objective and very focused. Both contain an argument that’s clear to follow: sentences and paragraphs flow logically into the next.
Both refer to the previous work of other researchers and present comment and findings in the light of that body of knowledge. Therefore, you give the same attention to the list of references at the end of a report as at the end of an essay.
Where a report differs from an essay is in the inclusion of some extra features. Visually, a report’s immediately different from an essay. A report is the product of a piece of research and the different sections of your report correspond to the various stages of that research. It should be easy to spot the sections. Though your tutor may give you instructions that differ in minor details, the usual layout of a report is as follows:
Title page: This is pretty self-explanatory!
Abstract: You provide an overview of the purpose of the report, summarise how you went about your research and why, and what main conclusions you’ve come to. You give your reader at-a-glance information that conveys the main gist of your report.
Table of contents: You provide an overview, with page numbers, of the different sections.
Introduction: You introduce the question you’re addressing (as for an academic essay).
Literature review: You summarise what you’ve read from the experts on the topic you’re about to research.
Methodology: You describe how you went about collecting your data.
Findings: You present the results of your data collection.
Discussion: You interpret your findings in the light of previous research as described in the literature review.
Conclusion: You attempt to answer the question raised in the introduction (as for an academic essay).
List of references: You include all your references (as for an academic essay).
Appendices (if any): If you’ve collected more data than you can comfortably contain in the body of your report, you make this into appendices.
The report divides numerically into these sections, and each section begins on a fresh page. Depending on the nature of the report, you can subdivide the different sections into smaller sections, each with its own subheading. The overall effect’s thus quite different from an academic essay, where you don’t normally use headings or subheadings.
Crafting Your Essay: Stages in the Writing Process
Now you’ve got a good feel for academic essays, you need to know how the essay-writing process works. You don’t just sit down at the keyboard and produce the finished product in one sitting – or let’s say that’s unusual or inadvisable. You spread the writing of an essay over a period. You break the process up into manageable chunks, and this helps you to excel at each stage and plan your time so that you don’t miss the deadline.
In this section, we divide the process into seven distinct stages. As you become more and more comfortable and experienced with the writing process, you develop and gain confidence in your own individual way of working. You may then modify the process to suit your own preferences. Here we provide a framework for you to begin with.
Stage 1: Analysing the title
A common criticism of student essays is that the person didn’t answer the question. No matter how many times tutors warn students, someone always falls into the trap of not answering the question that they’ve been set. While you do have an excuse (but only a little one!) for not answering the question in the heat and frenzy of an exam, you don’t when you’re writing an essay, when you have plenty of time to think about and discuss what the essay title requires.
To give a proper answer, you have to understand fully what the question’s asking for. To work that out, you unpick:
Keywords: These explain the topic, for example Shakespeare, sonnets, As You Like It, women, and so on.
Function words: These tell you how you have to treat the subject matter, for example ‘compare’, ‘analyse’ or ‘discuss’.
Chapter 3 takes you through understanding the title by looking at these important words.
What writing at university is not
Writing an essay at university isn’t ‘Write all you know about X’. This is what you did when you were much younger and school was more about being told and memorising facts. The more facts you assembled, the more successful you were. You showed that you had knowledge.
Although what you write at university is based on facts or evidence, what you do with this knowledge is what counts now. Your tutor asks you not simply to describe, but to compare, analyse, discuss and suggest. So you read the books, assemble the facts and then do something with them. And what you do with them is what’s assessed, not the gathering of the evidence in the first place. You’re marked on how well, deeply and accurately you compare, analyse, discuss and suggest.
You arrange an essay at university as an argument, with a question that you state in the introduction, and then develop, and then answer (in part if not wholly) in the conclusion. You don’t include anything that’s irrelevant to the argument.
This is far removed from ‘Write all you know about X’.
Stage 2: Making a timetable
Planning your time’s essential if you’re going to get through everything you have to do. You structure your time using a timetable. To draw up your timetable, you need to list all the things you have to do in order to be able to write your essay. Have you got all your course notes? Did you miss a session and do you need to borrow a friend’s notes? Which books do you need? (Chapter 4 offers advice on getting hold of the necessary texts.)
Next, fill in your diary or calendar with all the commitments you have between now and the deadline. As well as lectures and classes, put in any other work – paid work or study – that you have to do. This should leave you with a rough idea of how many gaps you have in your busy days in which you can slot in work for the essay.
No one can work flat out and not have some pleasure! So include your social life, sports and time for chilling out and relaxing, watching the television or simply getting your energy back.
You need to consider your essay within the bigger picture of all your university work. Make sure you get your priorities right, too, as not all essays, presentations and other tasks you have to do are worth the same. Of course, you want to do your very best in everything, but realistically you put the greatest effort into the assignments that count the most. That makes sense, doesn’t it?
You should now have a realistic idea of how much time’s available. Now you can start apportioning blocks of time to your essay. In Chapter 4 we outline a rough guide for dividing your time: 80 per cent on preparation (Stages 1–4) and 20 per cent on writing up and finishing (Stages 5–7). Bearing this in mind, go back to your timetable and calculate when Stage 4 should finish and Stage 5 begin. You have to know when to stop reading and when you have to start writing. This mini-deadline helps you reach the final deadline when you hand the essay in. Then, working backwards from your mini-deadline, you can see how much time you have for all the things you need to read, and you can work out a rough schedule of what to do when. You can amend the timetable as you go along, but do try to meet that mini-deadline so that you can start the actual writing on time.
When you’re drawing up your timetable, don’t stint the time you allow for Stages 6 and 7. You shouldn’t rush these, and you should always allow for the fact that you do your reviewing and checking better after a night’s sleep. Stages 6 and 7 shouldn’t take place on the day you hand your work in!
Print out your essay timetable and stick it on the wall so that you are continually reminded of where you are in the process and how quickly time’s going by.
Stage 3: Gathering data
What do you need to know and where are you going to get this information from? At home, you should have notes you’ve taken in lectures, handouts from tutors, maybe a course book and a reading list. In the university, you’ve got a library with lots of books in it, and also academic journals, many of which may be accessible online. You may not have realised this, but you also have a specialist librarian who knows your subject really well and can make recommendations to you about which books to read.
First, at home, go through all your notes, papers and books, highlighting key information for your essay and making a note of the books you need to find. Then go to the library and find some reading matter, asking for help if need be. Find a nice comfy corner, either at home or in the library, and get down to work.
Make notes as you go through the material, always bearing in mind the essay title. You can so easily get waylaid if you find something interesting to read on an aspect that’s only tangential to the essay title. The best thing to do is to make a note of where you found that interesting article, so you can come back to it later when you have more time. Most importantly, keep a detailed record of all the books that you’ve consulted and any websites you’ve visited. You have to include a full list of references or a bibliography (see Chapter 14), and suddenly finding that you don’t have the information to hand the night before your submission date is extremely annoying.
Chapter 4 helps you with your reading techniques, especially if you’re under pressure and time’s whooshing by, and Chapter 6 gives you practical tips on note taking.
Stage 4: Brainstorming and planning
With the mini-deadline looming (see Stage 2), you get to a point when you can’t read and research any longer – time to put the books and notes to one side and work with what’s inside your head. First you brainstorm (dump the contents of your mind onto paper or the screen), and then you try to make something out of the result by planning.
Brainstorming: Get those ideas out of your head in whatever way feels best. With practice and experience, you find the way of brainstorming that feels most comfortable and practical in your circumstances. Do you prefer working on paper or the PC (see the ‘PC vs Pencil’ sidebar later in the chapter on this)? Do you like to make linear notes or use spider diagrams? Do notes on index cards work well for you? How about using colours to organise your ideas?
Planning your essay structure: Group your ideas together in a logical structure. Think of the plan as like your skeleton. The skeleton holds your body together and gives it shape. Without it you’d be a mess of blubber on the floor. You need your skeleton to stand up straight, and you need your plan to make your essay hang together.
You should already have your timetable pinned up on the wall in the place where you write and study most. Next to it should be your essay plan. Print the plan out and pin it up there. Glancing at both periodically reminds you how quickly time’s passing as well as of the shape of the final product.
Finally, when you think you’ve got all the main points in the right order, go back once again to your essay title and ask yourself whether the plan you have in front of you does actually answer the question you’ve been set. Look at the broad thrust of your argument and ask yourself whether your line of reasoning is logical, relevant and complete in terms of the question. If it is, move on to Stage 5. If it isn’t, you may have to do a little fine-tuning. Don’t move on to Stage 5 until you’re happy with your plan.
Chapter 6 helps you with brainstorming and organising your material, and Chapter 3 outlines the common structures you use for essays.
Stage 5: Writing the first draft
If you think of your plan as a skeleton, the next step’s to put the flesh on the bones. You have to pull together the little notes, the random jottings, the odd words scribbled here and there to produce the sentences and then the paragraphs that make up the bulk of your essay.
As you write, you make the transition from a private piece of work to a more public one that a number of people may read: your main tutor, other tutors who are moderating marks, or an external examiner. You create your draft by:
Writing for your reader, not for yourself: You know what you want to say but you can’t assume that your reader’s following you, so you have to deliver every point you make fully with appropriate development and give examples. Imagine that you’re talking to someone who doesn’t quite understand or have your background knowledge in the subject. This may help you to develop your point fully so that your meaning’s clear.
Guiding your reader: Don’t assume that your argument’s obvious. You have to guide your reader through the points you make by using linking words and expressions that point clearly to the line of reasoning you’re taking.
Assuming a more academic voice: Your public consists of academics, and they expect you to write in an appropriate style. This means making your vocabulary formal rather than informal and avoiding anything that sounds too chatty. See Chapter 10 for more on style.
When you come to writing the first draft of your essay, feel free to start with the part you feel most confident about. With a good framework that you’re happy with and which you stick to, you now have the luxury of being able to write sections of the essay in the order that seems easiest to you, knowing that, with your plan, you can bring all the bits together at the end to make a cohesive whole. Getting a few paragraphs under your belt as quickly as possible is a good idea, and this gives you confidence to build on for the later, more challenging parts.
When you’re doing the first draft of your essay, working with headings is often easiest. Each section and subsection should have a heading. You used them in the essay plan – keep them in when you’re writing up the first draft. This helps you to focus on your points, one after the other, and to keep on track. Before you hand your essay in, delete the headings.
Several chapters help you write your first draft. Chapters 8, 9 and 10 help you write well and in an academic style, and Chapters 11, 12 and 13 break the essay down and lead you through forming the introduction, middle and conclusion.
Stage 6: Revising your draft
Depending on how important it is to you and how much time you have at your disposal, you may make several drafts of your essay (or more likely sections of your essay) until you’re satisfied. When you read some chunks back to yourself they may sound really awful – too chatty, clumsy or unclear – so take those parts out and work on your essay until you feel it conveys what you want to say in a manner you’re happy with.
If you’ve been working on your computer for a long time, print out a copy of your essay, go and sit somewhere different and work through it on paper. Sometimes you see things differently when the script’s actually in your hands and not on a screen. Use arrows, colours, underlining and whatever signals you need to make to yourself that something’s not right. Go through the entire essay making annotations where you have to make changes, and only return to your computer to make those changes when you’ve got to the end.
Back at the computer, make a copy of your file and label it draft 2. If you have second thoughts about anything you change in the second draft and want to go back to what you said in the first, you can just delete what you don’t like in draft 2 and copy and paste over from draft 1. File every draft separately so that you don’t lose anything you’ve written in producing this essay.
When you do make changes, start at the beginning, working your way methodically down the printed page, ticking the alterations as you go along, so that if you’re interrupted you know where you are. Then put the essay away. All being well, you’re on schedule and can leave the final stage for the next day.
Stage 7: Checking and polishing
You think you’ve done the very best you can in the time you’ve had available to you. Funnily enough, you can always improve on something, and that something may just swing the balance and get you a better mark. If you’ve been sticking to the timetable you made in Stage 2, you have a day or an evening when you can give your essay that final spit and polish. The main areas to check are content and presentation:
Content:
