Flexible Education - Essay Writing

Introduction

The following is taken (with permission) from a user-friendly guide entitled Communication Skills and Study Skills written by Terry Ryan from Deakin University. The references cited here are from the original Ryan article.

Essay writing is one of the most important skills you will need as a student. As with other skills you can learn the techniques involved. There are many books that will give you detailed information on essay writing. A list of useful resources is given at the end of this section. Hopefully the following will stimulate you.

How to begin analysing the topic

Understanding the topic

Your essay or assignment should discuss exactly what is asked of you. It is not a chance to tell your reader absolutely everything ever written or said on the topic. Analysing a topic will enable you to understand what is required. It will also help you to understand the intention of the person who has set the topic.

Why have they set this topic?
What do they expect from your response?
What are they wanting you to understand or learn?
What approach do they want you to take?

Analysing the topic will also help you to begin to think about your ideas on the topic.

What do you think?
Why do you think this way?
What information is available to help you
What is your conclusion going to be?

An understanding of the topic will assist you in thinking and writing critically and in developing informed opinions. It is important to make a commitment to the direction of your writing. This means that you must decide what you are going to argue and what information you need.

Analysing a topic will also help you to work out what the parameters of your essay should be. This means that it will help you to work out what information you should include and just as importantly what information you should exclude.

For example, look at the topic:

'Write a 2000 word essay on the development of sport in Australia.

Obviously you can't write about every sport. What does sport mean? Which sports does the person who set the topic want you to write about? What about players, rules, venues? Do they want you to write about Aboriginal sport or only sport since white settlement? Your definition of sport will be your starting point as will your definition of Australia. But after that, it may be necessary to say that you are going to concentrate on certain areas of sport. After all, the essay is only 2000 words. (By the way, this is not a very good essay topic as it is much too broad.)

Words used in topics:

In order for you to be able to write fluently and clearly it is important that you are able to understand the words that are used in essays and assignments. Words such as discuss or analyse direct you to the type of essay or assignment that is required. Let's look at some commonly used words and their meanings.

Summarise give a short account of the main points, leaving out detail and example.

Enumerate list the main ideas.

Describe write the main points or characteristics in detail and in a logical sequence, without interpreting the information.

Outline summarise the main ideas supported by secondary evidence

Review survey or summarise, looking at important areas and criticising where necessary.

Explain make the meaning clear, looking in particular at reasons, causes and effects.

Examine investigate or research a topic.

Demonstrate demonstrate with the help of either specimens or experiments.

Justify requires you to show adequate grounds for decisions or conclusions, focusing on why it is so, given the evidence available.

Illustrate make the meaning clear by giving examples.

Discuss present a point of view using description and interpretation, with evidence to support your argument.

Contrast look at differences only.

Compare look at similarities and differences.

Analyse examine critically so as to highlight components, to show how they are important.

Evaluate study and assess the argument or proposition and make a judgement after looking at the advantages and disadvantages.

Critically evaluate make a judgement through a discussion of evidence.

Your essay writing can be improved if you have a clear idea of what is required. This can be achieved by looking closely at all the words used in the topic: the words that tell you what to do with the topic. Are you being asked to discuss, to analyse, to examine? Once you have decided what direction your writing should take, you can begin to look closely at the rest of the topic.

Essay structure

Essay writing

Essays are an opportunity for you to show your reader how completely you have understood and researched your topic, how clearly you can present that information and how well you can argue your point of view. Clanchy and Ballard (1979, p2) write that:

It is by writing, even more than by speech, that you actually master your material and extend your own understanding. Writing enables you to build ideas systematically one upon another, and to do so over an extended period with opportunities to pause and reflect along the way. Writing is nearly always a struggle; but it can be immensely satisfying.

Essays need to be researched and planned before being drafted, revised and rewritten. But before you begin planning and writing, it is important to know how an essay should be structured. A well-written essay begins with a clear introduction and develops the arguments through well-structured paragraphs before bringing it all together in a conclusion.

What is a paragraph?

The main body of your essay is made up of a number of paragraphs. According to Hopper, Gale and Foote (1961, p148) 'A paragraph. is a group of related sentences that expand a statement by explaining it, or illustrating it, or proving it. A paragraph gives a statement substance and weight, invests it with meaning, and charges it with conviction'.

A paragraph should be centred around a single idea. It should take that single idea, and within the paragraph, develop and expand upon it. The central idea is often contained in one sentence called the topic sentence. The topic sentence is usually stated near the beginning of the paragraph and the rest of the paragraph develops the idea contained in that sentence. Vivian and Jackson (1966, p 164) define a topic sentence as:

an emphatically placed, explicit statement of the central idea in a paragraph. Frequently the topic sentence is a generalisation at or near the beginning, preparing the reader for specific material within the paragraph. Sometimes it is a summarising statement which comes late in the paragraph and effects a climax. . . Always the topic sentence is the most general statement in the paragraph; it must be sufficiently broad in scope to include the substance of all the other statements in the unit.

You must be careful not to see paragraphs as too self contained. Although each paragraph is centred around one idea, these ideas must link to make a structured piece of writing with connections between the ideas. Hopper, Gale and Foote (1961, p149) say that:

just as a paragraph contains a group of related sentences, an essay or narrative contains a group of related paragraphs. Each paragraph develops a logical unit of thought. Each paragraph is logically related to the paragraph that precedes it and to the paragraph that follows. All the paragraphs combine to express the design and purpose of the whole. Therefore, paragraphs are . . . the structural units of composition.

When planning your essay you will have decided on the main arguments you wish to discuss. These arguments are then developed in the paragraphs of your essay. It is important that these paragraphs connect your ideas logically so that your argument flows from the introduction to the conclusion.

What is a conclusion?

A conclusion is not a repeat of your introduction. It is a paragraph that brings together the details of your essay, refers back to the topic and supports the main arguments. It should not introduce new material or arguments. Clanchy and Ballard (1979, p65) say that:

In the body of the essay you have been developing your argument in detail. The concluding paragraph must pull together all of those details into a general statement which sums up your argument. It should refer your reader back to the topic. This gives your essay a sense of unity.

When thinking about the structure of an essay, remember:

an introduction introduces the main arguments
a conclusion concludes or sums up the main arguments
in the middle are the paragraphs that develop each argument.

Once you understand the structure of essays, you then need to consider the topic, think about your arguments, research, take notes, plan and, finally, begin writing.

Referencing

There are various referencing options for students. Australian Lutheran College favours the use of the author/date system, as would most of the writers of your subjects. However, if your lecturer requests another system, please follow the lecturer's instructions.

The author/date system has been developed to meet the requirements of students who do not constantly need to quote from, or to acknowledge sources in detail, but who do need to:

quote or refer to an idea or theory in passing
summarise the main arguments or theories of a particular author or source

This system uses very brief in-text references within the body of the assignment.

When completing a piece of written work for assessment it is important that you acknowledge all ideas and information that are not your own. To help you formulate your ideas you will have researched your essay thoroughly. In coming to your own conclusions regarding the topic you will have drawn on the ideas of other people. If you use other people's ideas or quote from references, you must acknowledge that you have done so. If you do not, you could be accused of plagiarism, that is the presentation of another's work as your own. In many instances, this can result in a fail grade.

If you are required to use the author/date system of referencing, then sources should be acknowledged and referenced in the following way.

Depending upon whether the surname is used in the run of a sentence or the ideas of an author are paraphrased with the source provided later, the citation should be:

Kelly (1979) claimed that the.
It has been claimed (Kelly).

Where multiple authorship is referred to, the source is cited either as:

Barker, Dembo and Lewin (1941)
or
(Barker, Dembo and Lewin, 1941)

Further references to the same multiple authorship within the same chapter would allow the use of Barker et al.

Barker et al (1941) found a significant relationship.

Should more than one reference from the same author be published within the same year a lettering system should be employed so that the following citations appear:

In a series of studies Clements and Barr (1973a, 1973b)

... as shown by these studies (Clements and Barr 1973a, 1973b).

If multiple references are cited at the same point in the text the citations are arranged alphabetically by authors' surnames, separated by a semi-colon and enclosed in one set of parentheses:

Recent studies (Brown and Smith; Smith, Williams) have shown.

If material is cited from a secondary source, both sources should be given. Piaget (cited in Developmental Psychology Reader) has shown
Where reference is made to ideas, opinions or evidence which are traceable to a specific page, this should be indicated: Adamson (p.20) claimed that.. It has been claimed (Adamson:20) that.
If there is no author, the text citation consists of the first two or three words of the entry in the references (usually the title):

It has been shown (Developmental Psychology Course Guide).

Referencing direct quotations

When a quote is used you must:

provide the author's surname, the date and the page number
use the exact wording used in the original
include in square brackets any clarifying information
use three spaced dots to show that information has been omitted
include a quote of less than 50 words in quotation marks, letting it run on in the body of the work. If the quote is longer, the entire quote should be indented about 1cm. from the left margin
use direct quotations of another's work sparingly. Quotations should only be used when the way an author has expressed ideas is as important as the ideas themselves.

References

Your list of references should be at the end of your work on a separate sheet of paper. In the author-date system the word 'bibliography' is replaced by 'references' or 'list of references' as the heading for the list of all the books and articles cited in your essay. All references cited in the essay must be included in your references. Those books and articles you have consulted or read but not referred to are not to be included among the references.

The list should be arranged alphabetically according to the authors' surnames and chronologically if more than one work by an author is used. The title of the book or journal should be put in italics.

Under the author/date system of referencing, the entries in a bibliography should be:

For a book:

Author's surname, initials or name, year, title of book, publisher, place of publication.

Eg - Strano, Z, 1984, Communicating, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Sydney.

For a specific chapter in a book where all the chapters have been written by different authors:

Surname of author of chapter, initials, year, title of chapter, title of book, initial(s) of editor(s), surname(s) of editor(s), publisher, place of publication.

Eg - Pring, R, 1985,'Curriculum integration', in The Philosophy of Education, ed R.S. Peters, Oxford University Press, London

For a journal article:

Author's surname, initials, year, name of article, name of journal, volume, number, page numbers.

Eg - Bottersby, D, 1989,'The need for reform in early childhood teacher education', Unicorn, vol.15, no.2, pp.42 - 47.

For a newspaper article:

Author's surname, initials, year, title of article, name of newspaper, day and month, page numbers.

Eg - Knuckey, D, 1990,'Get organised and add two hours to your day', The Weekend Australian, 11,12 August, p.12.

For a Website and other electronic data sources:

Author's name, date, home page title, [what sort of document], home page URL (underlined). If the date is unknown put (nd)

Eg - Beckleheimer, J, 1994, How do you cite URL's in a bibliography? [WWW document]. http://www.nrlssc.navy.mil/meta/bibliography.html

Should you wish to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of referencing, you should refer to the Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers 1994, 5th edn, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra