Writing essays

What is an essay?

An essay is a short prose composition on a particular subject that presents a particular conclusion as true.

Your task is to select the best view, normally through a process of weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of opinion or evidence. It usually presumes a context where you face a number of competing views or sets of facts, each of which has supporting evidence. In order to more effectively present evidence, you also need to weigh up which parts are more convincing and which are less. Essays are usually analytical, speculative, or interpretive.

The approach still works well when your set of facts fits only one conclusion, because you must still present your information in an easily understood structure that demonstrates the truth of its conclusion.

 

Outline for short essays

Longer and shorter essays use the same underlying structure. Here's an outline for a very short essay that presents only three aguments in support of a thesis statement.

Although it looks very different from the more complex kinds of writing, the underlying philosophy is the same. It starts with a clear purpose (the thesis statement), then assembles arguments in favor, then arrives and its conclusion, i.e. that the thesis is correct. Similarly, the chapters in a thesis or dissertation (literature review, methodology, data, and analysis) are all steps leading to the conclusion.

Here's a simple formula for putting contents in order. To put the opposing arguments in order, start with the strongest opposing argument, so that you can get it out of the way first. Then put the others in decreasing order so that you end with the weakest. To put your supporting arguments in order, put them in order from the weakest to the strongest, so that you end with your strongest argument.

 

1. Title
2. Introduction
1. Introduction: Show why the topic is important.
2. Thesis sentence (Your conclusion stated in one sentence). This sets the direction of the whole essay.
3. Presenting your view:
1. First reason in support of your view
2. Second reason in support of your view
3. Third reason in support of your view
4. And so on, finishing with the strongest reason in support of your view.
4. Conclusion
1. Restate the thesis sentence to make the conclusion.
2. Review the arguments in favour of your case.
3. Finish with a brief, general closing sentence that doesn't bring up any new information.
5. Bibliography

Outline for longer essays

This outline gives a defense against contrasting views, as well as providing arguments in support of its thesis statement.

1. Title
2. Introduction
1. Introduction
2. Thesis statement, in one sentence
3. Defense
1. Strongest view that you disagree with
2. Your response
3. Second-strongest view that you disagree with
4. Your response
5. Third-strongest view that you disagree with
6. Your response
7. And so on, finishing with the weakest view that you disagree with.
4. Presenting your view
   This is the longest part of the essay. It starts with shorter, weaker arguments for your view, and progresses up to the strongest.
1. First reason in support of your view
2. Second reason in support of your view
3. Third reason in support of your view
4. And so on, finishing with the strongest reason in support of your view
5. Conclusion
1. Thesis statement, in one sentence
2. Review the arguments for and against, without bring up any new information.
3. A general closing sentence that doesn't bring up any new information.
6. Bibliography

 
In diagram form, here's an outline for an essay with a defence against three opposing viewpoints, and four main supporting points.

 

Allocating space

There's a way to determine how much space for each point. The number of words and detail assigned each point should be proportional to its importance in the project. If something is really important, explore it a little so that you give more space and detail to stronger arguments. Avoid giving lots of space to low-priority issues.

When you give a rebuttal, your rebuttal needs to be longer than your statement of the opposing view, because you are presenting your view as a truth that your readers should accept.

 

Planning

Plan your goals and make a schedule for each of the steps. Set yourself a deadline if your tutor didn't do it for you. Then you can allocate time.

The recommendations below give percentages of the total time for each stage:

Choose your topic and narrow it down: 10%

Review literature: 20%

Fieldwork and rough draft: 40%

Revise draft and prepare it for submission 30%

 

Choosing a topic

For many undergraduate essays, your tutor will probably set the topic for you and you will be using only written resources. No fieldwork yet. Even so, you will need to narrow the topic yourself.

In upper years, you will more likely have more freedom to choose topics. Look for a problem that is significant enough that can act as the focus of your essay. Discuss it with your tutor to refine it if necessary.

Look for a problem that is significant enough that can act as the focus of the project. Finding a research problem is primarily your responsibility, although your supervisors will work with you to refine it if necessary. At graduate level, it is not normal to prescribe topics. In fact, developing a topic is one of the major skills to be learned.

Make a list of as many ideas as you can. Then improve the weak ideas and eliminate those that lack potential or don't meet the requirements.

1. Get ideas

Getting ideas isn't always easy. You probably need some help, so here are some suggestions:

• What really interests you?
• What sort of things do you need to know most?
• Read. Do an Internet search for a start.
• Talk to people, especially subject matter experts and researchers. Some will give you good ideas, or spark good ideas in you.
• Observe, and ask why. If you're careful, you might notice questions that need answering.
• Check: Do you have library resources for what you want to do?
• Follow up a weak idea. It might lead to a much better one.

2. A research problem must be unitary, significant, and need inquiry

This is really three requirements:
1. The problem must be unitary, although it may comprise several related smaller problems. Avoid simply pushing several separate problems together in one paper. (You will be frustrated when your paper looks like two separate essays that are simply put together under one title.)
2. Show that the problem is really significant. This sounds obvious, but why put lots of effort into something unimportant? Is it important just to you personally or is it important to other people too?
3. Your topic must be real research, that is, the problem must require some kind of theoretical inquiry. This means that many possible topics are not feasible. That is, it's not research if ....

• You only need to collect and report information. A researcher needs to think about (analyse) the information to achieve a purpose. It might be that somebody else has done the research, and your job is simply to locate and compile it. For example, you might get information from a library. Fieldwork is not necessarily research either if you're just collecting and collating information.
• You can look up the answer in a book. You are not doing research if your topic only requires you to restate what is already written. However, it is possible to use existing literature and put it together very differently or apply ideas in an innovative way.
• You could adequately solve the problem just by getting the advice of a practicing professional. It's not really research if experts already know the solution although they didn't write it down.
• You are just putting together some steps or writing a practical handbook. For this reason, many purely practical problems are not good research topics. (However, if you want to figure out how to do something, model-building is a valid means of research, and might be right for you.)

3. Then clarify the problem. Express it as either one question that cannot yet be answered, or as a hypothesis

State the problem you want to solve through this research clearly, concisely and exactly. Check that your research could produce more than one possible result. (If only one result is possible, why do it?)

 

Narrow the topic

Narrow your topic so that it is specific enough to make real progress. Avoid thinking This is my big chance, so I need to choose the biggest and most important topic possible. You can't research everything possible in enough depth to draw defensible conclusions. You will do better if you are carefully focussed. Write down exactly what is in your topic and what isn't and how you tell the difference Here are four examples of different ways to narrow topics.

Particular aspects of the topic

Narrow your topic by choosing a specific aspect. "Aspect" is a broadly inclusive term that means other ways in which a topic can be narrowed to make it of manageable proportions. For example, you could use defining aspects such as:

• conception of worldview
• social structures, such as extended family or village
• history
• the teachings of a particular person or group.

You will need to state your reasons for choosing the aspect that you did. Most likely, your reasons will be in some way relate to being the best or most feasible way to reach your research purposes.

Specific time period

Narrow your topic by choosing a specific time period. For example, you could use defining elements such as:

• "Since the end of World War II ..."
• "From the arrival of the first missionaries to declaration of independence..."
• "From the establishment of the church at Bongo to the first graduation of the Tinga College."
• "From the first Synod Council to the third General Assembly."

You will need to explain the role of transitions between periods, and state your reasons for using those time parameters.

Particular organizations

You can also narrow your topic by choosing a particular organizations or a group of organizations. For example:

• The General Association of Western Batugede
• The Tingo field of HMF International
• The Society for Poverty Relief

Geographical regions

You can also narrow your topic by choosing particular geographical regions. For example:

• The northern highlands.
• The coastal regions
• The village of Wanago
• The western desert

The geographic region will have some significance; it is not just an arbitrary delimitation.

If it is a village (whether rural or urban), it is probably quite integrated as a unit and the significance is probably obvious. Explain why you selected that particular village. In practice, you might find that the two main factors are access and the extent to which it might be "normal" and representative of other villages.

If the region is wider than a local community, it will probably coincide with other defining features, for example, transportation, ethnicity, industry, religion, historical background or sets of cultural values. As a result, you will need to specify the defining features of the region and explain why you chose it as a way of narrowing your topic.

 

Assumptions and definitions

As soon as you have a topic, start keeping notes of assumptions as you notice them. You will also find that some terms could be ambiguous. Keep notes of definitions as they arise. Don't trust your memory. Good notes will be extremely valuable when you get around to writing your introduction. Besides, as you reflect on them, they might form a pattern of core and peripheral issues.

 

Get writing

If you have been writing as you go, this stage will probably be less work. The guidelines for annotated bibliographies describes much of what you need to know for a library research project. Link (Opens new window)

Be fair and responsible in taking a line of argument and in the way you use your sources. Be as objective as possible; when there are alternative viewpoints to yours, be sure you represent them fairly. If you make generalizations, check that they are justifiable from the information your have provided. Qualify them as necessary, for example, by explaining the limitations of their validity, or by specifying classes of exceptions. Although you might feel that you are arguing for a lesser point, your argument becomes much stronger and your goals more specific.

 

Review

As you learn more about the topic, you might find that the question you started with is not the best question. This is quite normal, and it is usually a sign of progress, because the new understanding of the issue is a result of your research. It doesn't necessarily mean that you made a mistake.

Do you need to redefine your research question? If so, refine it and check whether you need to go back and extend your research. You might need to either go back to the library or the field and simply get more information, or plan new fieldwork.

It's called the Research Cycle:

It really means, "I think I might have done enough information, but perhaps it need to go back and do more."

However, in some kinds of research, especially ethnography, you could always get more good information. You might simply have to stop when you have enough to solve your research problem.

 

Analysis

Analyse your material. Think about your data and how it will solve your research problem. This is the most abstract step of all, and perhaps hardest to define.

With the information you have, does it in some way form a pattern or otherwise answer the original question?

1. Are other bodies of literature now relevant? If so review them.
2. Is any more information necessary to completing the analysis?
3. What implications are there?
4. What new questions arise as a result of your research?

Draw conclusions, and check that they relate to the main research problem as most recently defined.

 

Conclusion and introduction

Writing a conclusion

Conclusions are mostly easy. Restate your thesis statement to show readers that you have reached your planned destination. Recap the stages you used to get there, or review the arguments in favour of your case, and write a concluding sentence. The last sentence is often the most difficult sentence of all. It needs to round off the essay without bringing up any new information.

Writing an introduction

The first couple of paragraphs in an essay (or chapter one) are normally the introduction. It gives the reader a clear direction on where the paper is going, explains the topic, and gives information that readers will need to interpret you paper properly.

Write the introduction last, so that you can put in it any assumptions and new directions that come up during research.

The parameters of the project need to be clear. Say what is in the topic and what isn't. Poorly defined boundaries have the potential to cast doubt on the conclusion. This may be implicit, and probably will be. Parameters may be defined in terms of specific populations, programs, movements, periods, bodies of literature, etc. Sometimes parameters are purely arbitrary, but you should explain what they are and that they are arbitrary.

Clarify your assumptions either in the introduction or as they become most pertinent in the body of the text.

Define or explain terminology either in the introduction or on its first occurrence. Terms that most need defining are those that are highly specific, innovative or otherwise potentially ambiguous. Use the terminology very consistently. It's grossly confusing if you use a term with one meaning in one place and another meaning somewhere else in the paper.

Explain your research methods and strategies in enough detail for someone else to copy them. However, this isn't always relevant, for example, library-based research.

 

Language and presentation

Big tip. Edit, edit, edit. A large part of what you learn is to polish your written product. Some of it is simply the mechanics of writing. Revise your language until it is clear, concise, and grammatically correct. Check for spelling and typing mistakes. Make sure your English expression reads well.

Make your thinking is as logical and as responsible to others as it seems to you. Leave it in a drawer for a couple of weeks and then pull it out. Now that you've forgotten what you were thinking and rely only on the text, is it still as good as you thought?

Your language style need not be perfect but must not devalue the work. Pay attention to reworking convoluted language, removing redundancies, and expressing your ideas efficiently.

 

Putting arguments in the right order

To put opposing arguments in order
Start with the strongest opposing argument, so that you can get it out of the way first. Then put the other in decreasing order so that you end with the weakest.
 
To put your supporting arguments in order

Put them in order from the weakest to the strongest, so that you end with your strongest argument.