ACADEMIC RESEARCHING 2 structuring your essay The

ACADEMIC RESEARCHING 2 structuring your essay

The purpose of writing (external) • Meeting assessment requirements • Demonstrate your understanding of a subject to your tutors • Check that your writing standard is of an appropriate standard

The purpose of writing (internal) • Provides an opportunity to explore different perspectives on a subject • Helps a better personal understanding of important theories, concepts and practices • Improves ability to analyse ideas and practices • Enables useful feedback from tutors and others • Helps ‘pull together’ what has been learnt from the course

Keeping to your essay topic • Write your title large, and keep referring back to it! • Reflect on how essay sections and paragraphs relate to your essay topic • Remember that interesting but irrelevant sections will not earn you any marks

Essay style • Connect to your audience (an interested, generally informed readers, who wants to learn something from what you have written) • Academic style ( ‘it could be argued’, not ‘I think that…’) • Format (academic layout, with illustrations) • Organise word allocation between sections • Use relevant, reliable, high-quality references

Outline structure • • • Title Page Essay introduction Essay ‘body’ Essay conclusion List of illustrations (if required) Bibliography

Introducing your subject • Essay introduction This essay explores…. . It does this by … It will first… and then…. Finally, it will….

Main content 1. Background or context 2. Analysis of key theories and approaches and/or Analysis of case study examples 3. Findings (e. g. compare/contrast, review of different perspectives, explaining historical changes)

Conclusion • Conclusion – Clearly summarizes the content of the body of your essay – Does not include anything new, but may suggest what needs to be considered in the future

Key questions to ask yourself • Is my argument logical and worth making? • Have I made the argument as clearly as possible? • Have I been side-tracked by interesting but irrelevant issues • Have I explained too much about some things and not enough about others? • Do my points follow on in a logical sequence, to build and strengthen the overall argument? • Have I provided evidence for what I say?