Englishbiz - Write a better essay

It's true - these guidelines will help you write your best essay ever Whatever your essay, there's a sure-fire way to tackle it that ticks all the right boxes for your teacher and exam board and makes life easier for you. How does that sound? The trick is to create an argument based on the essay question. That's all! This kind of 'argument essay' is the easiest to plan, the most fulfilling to write and, for your teacher and examiner, the most satisfying to mark.

How do you feel when you're given an essay to write?

Do you fill with f-f-fear? W-w-wobble with worry? P-p-pour with perspiration? Well, here's a way that will help you enjoy just a little... excitement!

excited_student

Okay, he's off his rocker (but then he's not real, so don't worry!). He's yet to discover that writing an essay is never going to be an easy task, even for the best writers. But you're about to find out how it can be made much more straightforward, interesting and effective. Oh, and likely to gain you a significantly higher grade, too! So that's something to feel, well... just a little bit excited about!

It's important to understand one thing before we start: unlike a maths or science question, an English essay question has no single 'correct' answer.

You can breathe easy on that one. It's just not like that. In an English essay there is no one 'answer' and nothing to 'prove'. All there can be - and this is what your teacher wants - is an informed, explained and well-supported argument for your viewpoint. In a nutshell, that's it.

So an essay requires only this from you:

a very brief initial statement that gives your overall 'super-condensed' response (your 'answer') to the essay question or title
a very brief explanation of what in the text brought you to this view
an even briefer explanation of how, in very general terms, you will use the text(s) to show how this view arose
a series of paragraphs that, point by point, argues your case for what you have just stated. Each point needs its own paragraph and support from the text with an explanation of how the text brought you to such a view, the effects it created, the methods the author used to create the effects and, finally, its relevance to the text.

That's it. Done and dusted! More detail below...

What if your essay title isn't in the form of a question?

If you think about it, all essays titles are a kind of question. They have to be because they are asking for your opinion about something. However, if your essay title doesn't easily lend itself to you seeing it as a type of question, your teacher will almost certainly be willing to alter it into one if you ask. For example, if you were given the title, 'Discuss Shakespeare's presentation of ambition in Macbeth', you could mentally consider this as, 'How and why does Shakespeare present the theme of ambition in Macbeth?'. If you think about it, you'll see that both of these essay titles are all-but identical and could lead to the same final essay.

Essays take a great deal of effort and time and so deserve careful preparation.
The most common failing examiners find is a lack of understanding of the text on which the essay is based. This is to take the road signposted 'Failure'. But you're heading elsewhere....

So... get to know your text well. You won't succeed if you don't!
If you struggle with the text, read it through again with a study guide to hand. Also, talk the text over with friends or your teacher. There is more help with specific texts here.

Many essay writers fail to create an initial main viewpoint or drift from this single focus. This loses marks as it leads to waffle, vagueness and generalisation.
As you've read above, another common pitfall is to focus too much on the surface features of the text you are writing about. This happens when you write at length about the meaning of the text, i.e. by telling what happens in it.
- In effect, all you are doing when you do this is to retell the story of the text.
- Instead, you should focus on answering the essay question by interpreting the text's layers of meaning.
- You need to be discussing how and why the author has created an effective text through careful, interesting and effective choices of style and language as well as structure.
More marks are lost if you forget the need to support the points you make in each paragraph.
- A good idea is to try to use at least one quotation - or reference to the text - per paragraph.
Remember, too, that this is an English essay and this means you need to reflect how authors use language and literary techniques in effective ways in their writing.
- Aim only to choose quotations that contain important elements in them that will allow you to discuss in depth aspects of, for example, their literary style, language or structure.
- Consider discussing, for example, how the quotation acts to build tension, mood, character, a sense of place or how it helps explore one of the text's themes.
- Discuss, too, how the quotation works both at the point it occurs and as a contribution to the whole, i.e. the way it helps the writer achieve his or her purpose.
- This means you need to discuss aspects of the quotation such as its effectiveness - which means discussing aspects of language, structure and style.

FREE STUDY GUIDES (1)

FREE STUDY GUIDES (2)

STEP-BY-STEP IN DETAIL...

1. DEVELOP A STRONG INITIAL FOCUS FOR YOUR ESSAY

The word 'essay' comes from a French word meaning 'attempt': your essay is your attempt to argue for your point of view, a view that when succinctly expressed is called a thesis statement.

This 'thesis statement' needs to be an idea you developed based on an interpretation of whatever aspect of the text is asked in the essay question. Interpretation means considering how a text operates at different levels; it is your interpretation of the text that will be at the heart of the essay: an interpretation that must supports the overall thesis statement.

2. FIND SOLID SUPPORT FOR YOUR VIEWPOINT

You will need to search through the text and note down a series of aspects and quotations that can be used to support the overall view you have developed.

Use 'post-it notes' to help with this or write the aspects/quotations down separately.
Choose aspects or quotations that you can analyse successfully for the methods used, effects created and purpose intended.

3. WRITE AN EFFECTIVE OPENING PARAGRAPH
Use your introductory paragraph to state your point of view, i.e. your thesis statement.

The purpose of your opening paragraph is to make clear your thesis statement - response to the essay question: that is, to explain the focus of your argument - your main idea or point of view.
- Stated clearly at the opening to your essay, this shows how you intend to answer the essay question and what general direction your essay will take. Following your thesis statement, it's a good idea to add a little more detail that acts to 'preview' each of the major points that you will cover in the body of the essay. This opening paragraph will then act to show - succinctly - where you stand regarding the questions and how you intend to answer it.
Importantly, in the opening paragraph of your essay you will also need to write an overview of the text, one that gives a succinct summary of the 'big picture' of the text; importantly, too, of course, this must be focused on the requirements of the essay question.
- Giving a succinct account of the big picture of the text in the opening paragraph will show that you have engaged with and digested the detail of three key aspects of the essay: the essay question, the text and its author - perhaps also, a brief account of the author's context.
- Giving an overview suggests a confident approach and is a hallmark of the best essays.
- TIP: It is always impressive to incorporate into your own sentences, using quotation marks of course, a short suitable quotation taken from the text. Some teachers call this using embedded quotations.
Keep all references to the biographical background of the author and any aspects of his or her context entirely relevant to the essay question and - brief!
- Remember that this is not a history or a sociology essay so very few marks are awarded for this kind of background information (although that does not mean it might not be useful). The majority of marks in an English essay are awarded for the quality of analysis and interpretation you show - that is, an awareness of the author's uses of the English language and literary uses of this.
- If your essay title does concern aspects of context try hard to discuss context by deriving your comments from quotations rather than by merely discussing aspects of context; in other words allow the text to introduce the context.
- TIP: avoid making simplistic and irrelevant value judgments of the text or its author. Saying that Shakespeare is 'a wonderful author' or that you think 'Of Mice and Men' is 'really good' will gain no marks whatsoever - this is no more than a kind of waffle that fills space with empty words that add nothing useful to your essay.

4. USE THE REMAINING PARAGRAPHS EFFECTIVELY

POINT > EXAMPLE > EXPLAIN

Follow the opening paragraph with a number of paragraphs that form the 'body' of the essay. Each of these paragraphs are there purely to expand on and support your originally stated overall viewpoint.

Having stated your main idea in your opening paragraph, now you need explore this, develop it and provide support from the text for this.

In the essay's body paragraphs your aim is to:

follow the analysis system called P.E.E. or P.Q.C. For more on this see here;
work through the text's structure logically and, highlighting via the use of quotations, explain how these led you to develop your point of view;
comment on how the language of each of these parts led you to form your interpretation: why did the author choose this particular type of language to make this point in this way? How does it help a) the audience and b) the writer's purpose or theme?
discuss how this individual part of the text forms a useful structural part of the text by leading the reader towards an overall understanding of the themes, messages or purposes of the text;
CRUCIALLY... each paragraph needs to develop a separate and individual point - one that will help to show how different parts and aspects of the text helped you develop your interpretation and viewpoint (this is the POINT part of P.E.E.);
A useful tip is to open each paragraph with a topic sentence. This is a sentence that clearly makes a point that is developing your argument - your answer to the essay question - and, because it is, therefore, clearly focused on the essay question, it will keep your writing on track;
Always aim to provide support for each of the points you make by referring directly to the text (this is the EXAMPLE part of P.E.E.).
- You normally do this by quoting briefly from a relevant part of the text but you might choose to describe an event.
  - It's very important NOT to write a long description of WHAT happens. If you do you are merely 'retelling the story' - this loses many marks.
  - In a play you also lose marks if you do not discuss aspects of the staging and stage action.
- You will need to follow each quotation with an explanation of and a discussion on aspects of the language the author used in the quotation; this means discussing, for example, how aspects of the quotations literary, poetic or dramatic language works, including mentioning the method the writer used, the effect the language creates and the reasons this might have been done (this is the EXPLAIN part of P.E.E).
- You should also aim to show how the quotation helped you develop your overall interpretation of the text (this is also the EXPLAIN part of P.E.E).

5. CREATE A LOGICAL STRUCTURE
Always work in a clear way through the text, from beginning to end.

Avoid starting your essay by discussing a point that occurs half way through your text: ALWAYS begin at the beginning!
- Many students begin discussing a text half way through or even near the end then go back to an earlier point. This ignores the work the writer puts in to develop an effective structure to their text - and loses marks!

6. CONCLUDE EFFECTIVELY

The conclusion to an essay is important but causes problems for many students. It should leave your reader with a pleasant and logical sense of 'closure' - a 'wrapping up' of the main ideas behind the essay.

1. Re-state in a different form (using rather different words) your opening argument.

2. Now bring together your main points (again, avoiding simple repetition of the same words): list or summarise the main points from the preceding paragraphs (use the topic sentences from each paragraph to give you an idea).

3. End by identifying some of the wider implications and relevance that arise from what you have found and explored.

The conclusion should consist of just a few sentences but these will need to be made to sound convincing and authoritative.
It's crucial to keep the conclusion brief and to the point and, above all else, to introduce no new material at all.

ALWAYS WRITE ANALYTICALLY, NEVER DESCRIPTIVELY

FORM

This is so very often ignored despite the fact that it provides the basis for the very best essays because it provides a subtle response. And subtlety always receives the highest marks!

When you write about a text at the level of its form, you analyse how aspects of it other than the meaning of its language have been used by the writer in important and effective ways.

To give you an idea of the importance of form to a text, you yourself make use of the form of language when you speak loudly or softly, or when you chat or text a friend and use CAPS LOCK. Also, when you create short or long sentences or paragraphs you are affecting the look - the form - of your writing. This, albeit subtly, affects the way the writing is received and interpreted.

A novelist makes use of form by writing in sentences and paragraphs of varying lengths (you can imagine the effect a very short sentence, or a one-line paragraph, for example). The use of dialogue (spoken words shown inside speech marks) is also an effective use of form, as is the use of underlining, bold or italics - or, in non-fiction texts, the inclusion of bullet points or sections.
Poets are acutely aware of and very creative with the use of form. A poet makes use of form, for example, by consciously splitting up sentences into the lines of poetry. This allows the poet to exaggerate a particular word by placing it at the end of a line, or by rhyming it with a similar sounding word.
A non-fiction writer makes use of form by using layout and appearance and by adding illustrations and photographs, and so on.
All writers use form by using patterns of sound, such as by using alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, onomatopoeia, assonance and so on.
A playwright, of course, uses form very differently. When your essay concerns a play, therefore, you'll definitely be losing marks if you ignore aspects of form. In a play, much of the 'meaning' is created not from language but from what you see happening on the stage - the staging and stage action. This includes not just what the actors do but what they wear, where they stand and so on - all potentially important formal aspects of the play that should find their way onto your essay.

Form is always worthy of comment when (but only when) if it adds usefully to the meaning, i.e. the content of a text.

CONTENT
Words have both form and content. Content is the meaning they contain. These two aspects are like two sides of the same coin. There are several ways that writers are able to make use of the content of language that are creative, interesting to readers and effective in engaging their attention:

Literal Meaning
Every word and phrase has a literal meaning. This is its basic dictionary meaning. It's sometimes called a word's denotation.

E.g. 'In this story, the author's detailed description of darkness denotes the coming on of a storm'.

Figurative Meaning
This is a way of 'playing' around with a word's meaning that makes writing more vivid, emotional and interesting. Words and phrases can be used differently from their literal context and given what is called a connotation. Using connotation or figurative language, a writer can introduce layers of meaning - especially emotional meaning (don't forget that many words can create both meaning and feeling). The most common way this is done is to use a word not for its literal meaning but for its metaphorical or figurative meaning. Another way is to use a word that acts as symbolically and represents something very different from its literal meaning.

E.g. 'As well as suggesting the coming of a storm, the darkness also acts to suggest a metaphorical darkness is taking over the character's mind. In this way the darkness seems to be symbolising a kind of evil'.

Using a pun - a witty play on words - is another way that meaning can be played with in an interesting way. Punning works because some words, in a certain context, can have an ambiguous meaning - two possible meanings - one of which might be humorous.

Irony
Irony is a key way that writers use to create layers of meaning. Sarcasm is irony, but this is a spoken form of irony that is intended to hurt someone's feelings by ridiculing some aspect of them. It's a crude, easy kind of irony not really subtle enough for writing. Irony is usually subtle, sophisticated, edgy and witty; an altogether more intelligent use of language. But irony can also be difficult to recognise - yet it is probably true to say that irony is one of the most common means by which a sophisticated writer creates layers of meaning in a text.

Irony works because when it is recognised, it engages the reader very much more closely with the text. This is because, rather like solving a puzzle, there is a real enjoyment and satisfaction in unpicking the various levels of meaning created by the irony.

Creating an 'ironic tone of voice' in writing is much harder than in speech because the original sound of voice and facial expression or body language of the speaker are absent. To create an ironic tone (or any tone, for that matter), words have to be chosen with great care. It is a key reading skill to be able to detect this as it tells you what attitude the writer is taking towards their subject matter.

An example of irony occurs in an old story by O. Henry called 'The Gift of the Magi'. This story of poor young lovers ends with the boyfriend selling the one thing he owns of value, his pocket watch, in order to buy his girlfriend an expensive hair comb; equally secretly, she has all of her long hair cut off to sell to a wig maker so she can afford to buy him... a chain for his watch.

STRUCTURE
The content of a text is never available immediately (except in a single word, maybe: STOP!). Meaning needs to be built up throughout a text in ways that are often important to the overall effect on the listener or reader. This is the structure of the text.

Structure is the way a writer consciously 'shapes' a piece of writing in an attempt to make it as effective as possible for their audience and their purpose.

It is important to comment on the structure of a text, e.g. 'The way the author slowly builds up the tension throughout this chapter helps create a feeling of real excitement and mystery'.

STYLE
Style is the way a writer or speaker consciously chooses language and language features to suit a particular audience to achieve a specific purpose. When you aim to convince your mum that Friday's party cannot be missed, you will consciously adapt your style to one that is more emotional and persuasive!

Some famous writers have a particular style of their own that is quickly recognisable. John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens and William Wordsworth are three such writers - here, a writer's individual style is sometimes referred to as the writer's 'voice'.

Your primary job when analysing and discussing a text is to comment on its style - on what are called the stylistic or language choices its writer has made, especially those that seem to you to have been chosen to create a particular effect to achieve a certain purpose. So... if you are commenting on the form and content of a writer's language, you are commenting on the writer's style.

MORE ON ESSAY WRITING SKILLS

COMPARING TWO OR MORE TEXTS

Even though it's a central part of the mark scheme, and always made clear in the essay question or title, each year many students still manage to write their comparison exam answer or coursework essay and forget to compare and contrast the texts...

Argh!

Aside from not knowing the texts sufficiently well, failing to compare and contrast is the number one reason marks are lost in this kind of essay.

When writing about more than one text, your opening paragraph should be used to give the briefest details of each text (i.e. your writing needs to be succinct!). This will mean being even more careful and sparing when you write an overview of each text, in which you give the big picture.

It's vital to keep everything relevant and tightly focused on the requirements of the essay question and your argument.

There are two methods you can consider using when comparing texts:

1) Write about the first text fully before moving on to the second - still using the techniques outlined above; but when you go on to write about the second text, you must compare and contrast it with the first.

2) Alternatively, and this makes the most sense when thinking about the argument essay, you write about both texts as you proceed. This allows you still, as shown above, to create a central argument, one in which examples to support the points are taken from one or both texts as relevant to the point.

This second method is the more complex and sophisticated of the two.
You will still need to open each paragraph with a point that helps answer the essay question, i.e. a point that supports your overall view stated in the opening paragraph.

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