A Guide to Exam Essay Writing

The heavy emphasis on essays as a means of examination in most colleges is easy to understand when you consider the demands that good essay writing places on a student.

The intent of most lectures courses is that you come away with more than just a collection of facts, but rather a store of information that you can draw upon to tackle real world issues and situations. Essay writing tests this by asking you to apply this general knowledge to specific problems. Secondly, it is often true that we can store information without really examining or understanding it properly. It is only when we are forced to externalise our thinking, by having to fit those same facts meaningfully into an essay, that we really know whether or not we understand them. Lastly, the ability to communicate effectively in writing is as skill that will be essential no matter what course we take after college. Essay writing requires us to master writing conventions, ensuring that we have those skills when we graduate.

So as you can see, writing essays is integral to the academic process, but is a skill that is difficult to pick up without some serious effort. These are some guidelines for the writing of an academic essay which you should try to follow in your writing in general . If you keep to these guidelines, your writing will be more readable and more in tune with the academic style, getting across information in an accurate and concise manner.

Your essay writing will not improve without effort, you may have to consciously try to follow these guidelines to begin with, until you get into good habits. This is probably not something you are used to, but it is a very valuable skill to learn and will become nearly second nature with enough practice.

Naturally, the greatest concern that most students have is not about their future careers but about the exams that they have to take today and tomorrow. Many students make the mistake of thinking that remembering the facts is the only thing that matters and that how you write those facts down is just the icing on the cake. In reality how you write is almost as important that what you write. Think of it like trying to send a message by radio or telegram. Poor communication means bits of the message are garbled and can't be understood by the person at the other end . If 50% of the info in your essay doesn't make sense or seems to be irrelevant, then the examiner is left with marking you out the remaining 50% instead of 100%. Improve your communication and less is lost, which can only improve your mark. As such, we would hope that the advice contained in this handout will be just as valuable in the short term as it should be in the long term

So let us now consider in turn the three sections should be found in every essay, the introduction, the main body and the conclusion.

The Introduction

There are two important steps you must take before you write your answer to an exam question. The first is preparing your answer correctly and the second is writing the introduction to your answer.

Preparing your Answer

NB : DO NOT BEGIN WRITING YOUR ESSAY UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SAY!!

This may seem to be so obvious it's almost pointless to say it. And yet huge numbers of students forget this basic rule. They look around and see that everyone else has started and the pressure to start with something, anything and not get left behind is tremendous. As a result, they end up dumping information rather randomly onto the page and hoping for the best. This is never a good idea.

Think about the zoo, or a museum, or a textbook. The animals, exhibitions or information are not just thrown in at random, but are grouped together according to some kind of overall structure. If they weren't, people would quickly get lost or bored and this is what will happen to your examiner. Imagine you're giving a guided tour of what's out there, plan out your route first and then make sure your reader can stay with you all of the way. Do not introduce material suddenly, and be absolutely ruthless in excluding irrelevant material from the essay .

Before you can plan your route, you would have to know what the people you are guiding have come to see. The answer to that is presented in the question that is being asked. This means that before anything else can happen you need to interpret the question.

Take some time at the start to read the question carefully. I'd even go so far as to say read it out to yourself under your breath. It's amazing how the mind can play tricks on you when you're flustered, so take your time about it. Better to waste a few minutes here then get half way through your answer and realised you've made a mistake.

It may sound like a tough job to interpret a question, but most questions are written in a very similar fashion. You could almost say that there's a formula to it. Firstly, the question will be linked to a specific area of the course being examined. You can usually spot this pretty easily as the name of the area will be mentioned or some of the major terms or individuals connected to the area will point the way. But you need more than that, because an area can be huge, covering enough information to fill an entire library shelf-load of books. You need to narrow it down, and to there are clues in the question to help you do this too. Usually the question is phrased in such a way as to highlight some sub-section of the area, allowing you to focus on that and cutting down the amount of information you need to bring in.

There are some traditional ways to phrase essay questions that are used in many different courses. We've included a small example of the most common ones with a rough outline of what the phrasing is looking for.

Question & Possible approach to answering it :

×Some statement & quote. Discuss

×Discuss the idea that ……

×Assess the truthfulness of the statement & quote by presenting info from the area that either supports the opinion in the statement & quote or contradicts it.

×Evaluate the theory…..

×Critically evaluate the theory…..

×What are the strengths and weaknesses of ….

×Present the positive aspects of the topic & theory and also the negative aspects of the topic & theory

×Compare and contrast Topic A and Topic B

×Offer a very brief overview of both topics. Then for the majority of your answer take the two topics or theories and looks for common features and ways in which they are different

Once you think you understand the question, write a one or two line interpretation in your rough work along the lines of “I think this question is asking……” This is for your benefit, not the examiners. This interpretation is something you can check bank on later on while you're writing your essay. Sometimes people get half way through an answer and forget what it is they are trying to do with the answer. This interpretation can help remind you what it is you're trying to do.

Another useful thing to do at this point is to write out in bullet points an outline of your answer in your rough work. You should include any relevant names and dates while you can still remember them. It makes a big difference to do your figuring out of which-point goes-where at this stage before you've written anything.

The end result of all this preparation is a much more impressive way of structuring your essay, giving it a definite direction, an argument. Rather than an aimless meandering around the subject, an essay that picks a target and moves in a straight line will keep the reader on board and make them think about the issues. Introduce the issues and what your argument will be, give evidence for your argument based on research in the area, draw a solid conclusion. This kind of argumentative essay requires clear thinking, preparation, and a concise writing style. It is not very difficult to cultivate these things, it just takes some time and effort.

One important point to remember, all this preparation will take time. This gives you less time to spend actually answering the question so you don't want the preparation to take so long it doesn't leave you enough time to actually write the answer. Two things will help keep your preparation time down to an acceptable level , these are knowing your topic and practice. Knowing your topic is all about study, the better you know it the quicker you can remember the relevant facts about it. On the other hand practice is just about taking old exam papers and practicing writing an outline of an answer to each of the questions asked. Since interpreting a question and writing an outline only take a few minutes this sort of practice doesn't take very long and you don't have to write that much since it's only an outline. Both of these methods will help reduce your preparation time in the exam itself and will translate into valuable extra answering time and extra marks.

Writing your Introduction

Once you have prepared your answer, writing the introduction itself is very simple. The first thing your introduction should have is an interpretation of what the question is asking and a short explanation of how you are going to answer it. This is just a slightly padded out version of what you've already written in your rough work.

Following this there should be a brief overview of the main points you are going to use in your answer. You don’t have to list every single point your going to make or explain them, just naming the main areas and maybe offering an example or two is enough. This will be a big help to your reader in avoiding getting confused or lost later. This is kind of consideration for your reader is about more than being polite. Since your reader is also your examiner anything that helps them do their job, helps your mark.
The Main Body

Having written your introduction it's now time to move on and look at the main body of your answer. There are two issues which will be equally important when it comes to assessing the main body of your answer, namely how your answer is structured and the quality of the content.

Structure

Any answer will involve a number of points or topics which you will discuss. While the points you use will vary depending on the subject and your memory, the way you structure them is fairly universal.

×give each point & topic it’s own paragraph

×each point/topic will have one key idea it’s trying to communicate

×you can present that key idea either at the start or the end of paragraph

×the rest of the paragraph is intended to help explain the idea or to present any evidence there might be to support it

Transition Phrases

To avoid your essay becoming a string of unrelated points, you have to use transition phrases. These help to link paragraphs and highlight the structure of your essay, providing the elusive ‘flow’ that lecturers are always talking about.

Transition phrases are little expressions put at the start of a new paragraph which explain how the topic in the new paragraph you're starting is related to the topic in the paragraph just before it. For example, starting a paragraph with Nevertheless it should be noted… says that this next point is likely to take the opposite view to the one in the paragraph before. This helps your reader anticipate what is coming and keeps them on board.

Here are some examples of common transition phrases and what they mean.

Phrase & What is means :

×further, furthermore, in addition, also, moreover, next

The next point is going to be an expansion on the last point

×likewise, equally, as well, similarly, on a similar theme

The next point is similar to the last one, but not exactly the same

×but, nevertheless, in contrast, on the other hand, conversely

The next point is taking the opposite view to the last one.

×however, to take a different approach, on a slightly different note

The next point has nothing to do with the last one

Content

For content in an essay remember your 3 R's. Relevance, Referencing & Relating back to the question asked.

Relevance

Every point made in the essay should be relevant to the essay question as asked. You need to be wary of writing a generic answer that just talks about the topic in general terms but doesn't focus in any way on those points that are most relevant to the question asked. While there will be some general information that you will have to include in your answer , the overview should never take up more than a third of your answer.

You should be careful about including examples from everyday life to illustrate a point. While there is a place for anecdotal evidence in an academic essay, but it should be illustrative only, the argument of the essay should not depend on it. Also, it should be integrated properly into the essay, used in some way to make a point. Don't just tell it because it's a nice story. Lastly use short examples, don't try and pad out an essay with longwinded tales.

Relating back to the question asked

It's not enough that the points you make are relevant to the topic that the question is about, you need to show how they are relevant by relating those points back to the question asked.

If you don't relate the points you are making back to the question it's very possible that one of the following might happen,

A.The examiner might not get your point. Without you there to explain it, it's possible they might not see why you included that point no matter how obvious it seems to you.

B.The examiner might not believe that you understand the relevance of your point. It is possible that you are just including lots of points at random hoping that at least some are relevant . This is not the sort of impression you want to make, so make it clear you know what you are doing.

As well as these two major issues, there are some minor stylistic habits you should try to avoid is possible.

×using clichés

×using rhetorical questions

×run on sentences

×using the same word repeatedly

×using more than two commas in one sentence

×your entire answer being one long paragraph

The Conclusion

The conclusion of an essay is where you sum up and offer some kind of overall evaluation. Here, you show your ability not only to repeat the facts, but to use them. Like the introduction the conclusion should be short, preferably one paragraph.

You should summarise your argument concisely - it should follow from the information you have introduced throughout the essay. This is linked to the approach to the answer you mentioned in your intro. At this stage you need to evaluate the results of your approach. Again this depends on the type of question asked.

Question & Possible evaluation :

×Some statement & quote. Discuss

×Discuss the idea that ……

×Ultimately, is the opinion put forward in the statement or quote a valid one? Does the evidence support it?

×Evaluate the theory…..

×Critically evaluate the theory…..

×What are the strengths and weaknesses of ….

×When you weigh up what’s good and bad about the theory, which has more weight to it? Ultimately, is the theory sound or flawed?

×Compare and contrast Topic A and Topic B

×Do they compliment or contradict each-other? Could you use them both together or must you choose one or the other, but not both?

… and finally

Students should remember that this guide is not intended to be the 'be-all and end-all' for essay writing from now on. No one guide could hope to describe exactly what you should do in every essay. As such, student should remain flexible in their approach to writing and not try to apply the guidelines suggested here too rigidly. With experience it is hoped that you will know in future situations when it's appropriate to follow the rules and when it is appropriate to bend them.

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