A GUIDE TO WRITING ESSAYS

1. Reading the question
2. Answer the question
3. Making the ideas flow
4. Achieving Verbal Clarity
5. Use of paragraphs
6. Grouping Points
7. Mode of Address
8. Referencing your Sources
9. Using Quotations
10. Use the Tools of the Trade
11. Getting started
12. Redrafting Material
13. Learning the tricks of the trade
14. Word-processing and Presentation

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ESSAY WRITING

Our traditional view of academic work is often very misleading. The process of study is frequently thought of as being primarily about reading. We speak of someone 'reading' for a degree: "She read Classics at Cambridge;" or "He's reading for a degree in Political Science." The popular image of the diligent student is of someone pouring over large tomes late into the night, surrounded by stacks of even more books, as yet unread. When this process of reading has been accomplished, it is assumed that the student will have completed his or her studies. They will have read their way through their discipline.

It isn't like this. Being a student is a job like any other. Ultimately, it's not about consumption but production. Of course, reading plays a very large part in this; but it's not an end in itself. The purpose of reading is to gather materials in order to write. This implies two things:

Firstly, research must be purposeful. Good students know what to read, and make their reading serve the specific ends of writing. Of course, it's desirable to have time available for more leisured reading, for 'reading around' your subject. The joy and inspiration would be lacking in studies which were entirely instrumental. But given a crowded work schedule, especially if you're a part-time student with professional or domestic responsibilities, you often have to be very ruthless. By all means try to make time for background and related reading; but finish the main job first.

Secondly, you must examine carefully the proportion of your time devoted to writing or its active preparation. Odds are, it isn't enough. Learning takes place in the activity of writing notes and essays not in passive reading. It's here, too, that revision is located; and this ought to be an all-the-year-round activity, not something confined to the last two or three weeks before the exams. Something like 25% of your study time ought to be devoted to written work.

But of course we all find it difficult to write, especially when we're not used to it. That's why our unconscious works so hard to get us out of the task. Faced with a blank sheet of paper, we all discover a million other more pressing jobs: another article to read ("I don't know enough"); the cat to feed ("She'll only disturb me later on"); shopping to do; windows to clean; coffee to perk ("I think better after the first half-gallon"); and so on, ad infinitum. There's no cure for this. In this respect, human nature is eternally perverse. All you can do is fight it and get on with the job. For most of us, almost every writing task is painful to begin. Once begun it gets easier; but the longer you prevaricate, the harder it gets.

It helps, though to know what you're doing; to know what is expected of a good essay, and how to master some tricks of the trade.

Let's begin with the most important requirement of all:
An essay has to be structured and coherent. It should pursue a line of argument from start to finish. This means that the traditional school-essay dictum still holds good:

"Essays have a clear beginning, a middle and an end."

Put another way, your essay should firstly have an introductory paragraph, in which you state the argument you are going to pursue (and briefly indicating how you are going to set about the task). After that, the bulk of the following paragraphs should pursue the argument in orderly fashion. Finally, your conclusion should review the argument and offer a summary of your judgements on the matter. You will achieve all this more successfully, if you remember some basic rules:

1. READING THE QUESTION

Read the question carefully and do what is asked of you. If the question asks you to 'critically discuss' MacCabe's theory of "the classic realist text", then it's not enough just to define for us what he means by the classic realist text . You must, in the middle paragraphs of your essay, offer some criticisms (culled from the work of other theorists in the field), and in your closing paragraphs you must assess the extent to which these criticisms are justified.

On the Media degree routes incidentally, there are no 'correct answers'. You get good marks for a 'good' argument - one that is well researched and well-presented; not one that arrives at the 'right' conclusion. And the term 'Critically discuss/assess' does not mean 'disagree'. You can present the arguments against MacCabe and still, in your conclusion, maintain that his theory remains unscathed.

Here is a brief checklist (taken from Sociology Update 1984) of some 'command words' that you may find in essay titles and exam questions:

ARGUE: The use of evidence and concepts to make a case and to draw conclusions. Arguments must be defended with facts.

ANALYSE: To break down complex issue, ideas and processes into component parts and to recognise how the various parts are related.

COMPARE:To point out similarities or likenesses between things. In practice,this may also involve pointing out the contrasts or differences between things.

DESCRIBE: Recall facts, events, processes etc., in an accurate and detailed way. Give an account of what something looked like, or what happened.

DIFFERENTIATE / DISTINGUISH: To discuss points which enable you to tell things apart. Generally questions which ask candidates to differentiate between things which are similar in some ways.

DISCUSS: To present or explain clearly several side of a point, or to examine a topic in detail.

EVALUATE: Give a judgement or opinion as to the worth of something, whenever possible it should be supported by arguments from books, articles or newspapers.

EXPLAIN: To make something clear or to state the reasons for something.

ILLUSTRATE: Provide examples to explain a statement.

INTERPRET: To explain the meaning of facts.

2. ANSWER THE QUESTION

But just as you must do what the question asks of you, so you must not do more than that, or - worse still - do something other than that. If the question is aimed at MacCabe's critique of realism and the bulk of your essay goes on to discuss his defence of public service programming on television, then obviously you'll lose marks for not answering the question.

3. MAKING THE IDEAS FLOW

Remember, too, that the demand for 'coherence' and 'structure' means that your statement must have a logical sequence. A good essay should have 'flow'.

The points that you make should connect with each other. If you just put down a series of isolated, disconnected bits of information, your tutor will complain that the essay is 'bitty'. Often, you can achieve a good flow just through a careful use of linking phrases, such as:

"Further support for this argument has come from.."
"Additionally, we might consider the evidence presented by...."
"This position could be further strengthened by..."
"Therefore, we might suggest that...."

But links don't always have to be cast in terms of positive support - especially when the question asks you to 'critically discuss' or 'compare and contrast'. Here, you can establish 'flow' and 'coherence' through the use of antithesis and contradiction:

"On the other hand, Williams maintains that...."
"Bordwell asserts, to the contrary, that...."
"It has, however, been suggested that...."

Your finished essay should have links of this kind between each of the points that you make. Each point should lead on smoothly to the next.

4. ACHIEVING VERBAL CLARITY

Make your points fully, but as concisely as possibly. Don't use extravagant or 'purple' language. If you are to explain complex ideas successfully, you need to use plain English.

Jargon has its place in academia; it establishes specialist understandings of key analytical concepts. But each time you introduce such a specialist concept ('public sphere', 'eye-line match' 'ideology' etc.) you should try to offer a clear definition of how it is being used - otherwise your tutor will remind you to 'define your terms'. In some kinds of essay ('Critically elucidate Roland Barthes' concept of mythology . . .') This task of conceptual definition is a central one to answering the question here, and should be undertaken fully and carefully. Your central job here is to demonstrate that you have understood the nuances associated with Barthes' usage.

5. USE OF PARAGRAPHS

The attainment of 'clarity' and 'structure' are both served by careful paragraphing. Each paragraph should deal with a single topic and no more. You should be able to put a (mental) headline on each paragraph which summarises the subject-matter dealt with there. If you can't identify one clear subject for each single paragraph, then your essay is muddled, and needs re-structuring.

6. GROUPING POINTS

Also, you should group together all things you have to say on a particular topic. Don't introduce a particular issue and then leave it for something else, before coming back to it again. This produces a disconnected feel to your essay, and it is often repetitive, and thus wastes space (and tries your reader's patience).

7. MODE OF ADDRESS

Remember that essays are formal exercises. Don't use slang or colloquial expressions. And present your arguments impersonally, ("It might be argued...", "One could maintain...", rather than "I think..."). This requirement for impersonal argument is not just an attempt to perpetuate an archaic form of discourse. Arguments presented impersonally require evidence; a statement of personal belief requires no such support.

8. REFERENCING YOUR SOURCES

Use the formal apparatus of citation and reference. (Use the Harvard system detailed in the referencing style sheet). This is for your benefit as well as the tutor's. Remember, you may wish, for exam revision or even in years to come, to return to a work from which you have quoted here, and you will need to know the bibliographic details of that work. When taking notes from a book, always write down the author, full title, publisher and date of publication. And if you take a quotation, then note the page number.

9. USING QUOTATIONS

Essays should be in your own words. You may quote sparingly to support your argument. Always put your quotations in quotation marks with a clear attribution of their source:

Richard Hoggart maintains that in the working-class households of his boyhood, the diet was often more filling than nourishing: " we bought bicarbonate of soda as regularly as firewood"(Hoggart, 1957, p.36)

And the full details of Richard Hoggart's book should appear in the bibliography at the end of your essay, viz.:

Hoggart, R. (1957) The Uses of Literacy , Chatto & Windus, London.

A fuller quotation than this example should be indented from the rest of your text, as follows:

Where the magazines of Gernsback's era had offered tales of individual inventor-geniuses, Astounding revealed instead that science was a collective enterprise: that the way to the Moon lay through a door marked R&D;'. In short, says Aldiss: "There were times when Astounding smelt so much of the research lab that it should have been printed on filter paper". (Aldiss, 1973, p. 234)

providing again a full reference in your bibliography:

Aldiss, B. (1973) Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.

**Notice that when you type or word-process an essay the main text should be double-spaced and the indented quotations single-spaced.

10. USE THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

A good dictionary is an expensive but indispensable item; and it will last you for many years. We especially recommend:

(a) Collins English Dictionary
(b) Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary
(c) Oxford Concise Dictionary

You can add richness and variety to your writing by the judicious use of a Thesaurus - a dictionary of synonyms. Why keep using the work 'constraint' when you could vary it by using: 'coercion', 'compulsion', 'force', 'necessity', 'pressure', 'restraint' etc.?

The classic Thesaurus is:

Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, Longman

The New Collins Thesaurus is not so full, but is easier to use.

If your schooldays are well behind you, or of you were 'never good at English' you ought to revise your understanding of basic grammar. Look around for some help in this area. You could try:

The Letts study aid: Revise English

Or, if you can still obtain them from bookshop or library:

Eric Partridge: Usage & Abusage
Sir Ernest Gowers: The Complete Plain Word

Nowadays with the sophistication that accompanies many word processing and desk-top publishing programmes it is, of course, possible on a PC or Mac to achieve a number of the above checks simply by pulling down a menu page. And if you are using I/T software don't forget to use the spell-check to improve the accuracy of your essay.

11. GETTING STARTED

Techniques vary, and you'll find one that suits you. One way is to go through all your notes and list all the key points that you want to cover. Then to scatter these, in no particular order, over a large sheet of paper; decide the two points which should come first and last, and then try to link all the other items in a chain of connections between these two points. This provides a clear structure to follow in writing the first draft.

12. REDRAFTING MATERIAL

But a first draft is not a finished draft. You must leave yourself time to produce more than one draft of an essay before copying up the finished form. Everyone makes mistakes in the first draft. Arguments need re-structuring; different emphases are required; perhaps new evidence needs to be brought in that wasn't mentioned first time around. Remember too, that although essays are read in a certain order. It often makes sense to write the introduction last of all:

"The last thing one discovers in writing a book is what to put first". (Pascal)

So leave yourself plenty of time for such tinkering, but rather as the essence of writing. Word-processing documents, of course makes the whole process of re-drafting and revision much easier.

13. LEARNING THE TRICKS OF THE TRADE

One can only do this by critical reading. Spend some of your study-time reading essays by professional writers. Don't read these for their content, but for their style. Learn how a good essay is constructed; how writing is made interesting, but clear; how the links are established from one part of the argument to another. Note the words that are used in presenting an initial argument, or in citing contrary evidence, or in introducing the summary and conclusions. Notice too, how good writers keep their writing lively, and avoid 'obvious' beginnings. A professional writer does not begin an essay on 'Electricity' with the words: "There are many uses of electricity around the home". And if you want to bore your tutor silly, you have only to start your essay with the words: "Before examining McLuhan's distinction between 'hot' and 'cool' media (or whatever), it is necessary first to establish..."

You can use any good writing for these exercises; but the 'quality' Sundays and weeklies carry essays closer in length to what is required of a student.

14. WORD-PROCESSING AND PRESENTATION

It makes sound sense today for students to word process most of their essays and assignments. I/T skills are an important transferable skill that you can use to market yourself to a future employer. Word processing makes the business of re-drafting and revision of essays so much easier, so its use can actively contribute to your academic performance.

In examinations it is, of course, still necessary to hand write your work. Do ensure always that you write legibly. Examiners are human too! It makes good sense to make their job as easy as possible.