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When the essay question is very long however, you should also analyse the structure of the question to make sure you give a full answer without including irrelevant information.
You could follow these steps:
1 Look for the topic.
2 Use your knowledge of language to find all areas and make a note of the instruction words.
3 Use your knowledge of language to decide what should be included in your answer and what should be excluded.
Let’s apply this to the following question.
Discuss the factors that give rise to parallel trade and evaluate how much of a problem this is for international marketers. Give examples of what a firm can do to minimize the problem.
1 The topic is ‘parallel trade’.
2 There are two sentences. The first sentence has two parts: ‘Discuss the factors … AND evaluate …’. The second sentence asks you to ‘give examples’. In total there are three parts.
3
Note that your knowledge of language helps you understand the question: ‘this’ refers to ‘parallel trade’, and ‘a’ in the second sentence tells you that you do not have to give examples of one specific firm, as ‘a’ here means ‘any’.
The word ‘and’ is very important. Normally it means that you will need to look at two areas separately. Occasionally you could look at both areas at the same time.
Exercise 3
Analyse the following essay question using steps a, b and c. Label your answers a, b and c, writing step c in a table as shown above.
What are the most important key urban planning theories of the post-war period? Outline in summary their key characteristics. With reference to one of these theories, explain how they help us understand the nature of planning practice.
Tip
Increase your knowledge of language: get into the habit of observing the way academic language is used by others, and think about the meaning of words and phrases in their context.
The next exercise shows you how, by comparing phrases in different contexts, you can work out the meaning.
Exercise 4
Look at the example essay titles and work out the meaning of the highlighted word or phrase. Choose the correct multiple-choice option.
1
Why,whenBritain has one of the richest economies, does homelessness still occur?
‘when’ here means:
1 at a certain time
2 at the same time
3 despite the fact that
4 only if
2
How is local government financed at present and how,if at all, should that financial system be reformed? Discuss.
‘if at all’ suggests:
1 we need to take everything into consideration
2 or perhaps this is not the case
3 if not
4 in your opinion
There are support structures in place at university. You will probably be given the name of a personal tutor, who you can see for advice. Moreover, it is unlikely that you will be given very difficult titles to start with – the first essays will probably require a relatively easy content and structure in comparison to the ones you have to write later in the academic year. You are likely to get a number of titles to choose from, and the ones in the first semester may ask you to ‘describe’, or ‘explain’, before you are asked later on to carry out more difficult tasks, such as ‘analyse’ or ‘evaluate’. The required essay length will probably also be relatively short to start with.
Remember that it is perfectly acceptable to ask the tutor who set the question if you have understood it correctly. You will, however, need to show that you have put effort into interpreting the question.
Exercise 5
Look at the notes made by a student about an essay question. Put
if you think he is right about it,
if you disagree, and ‘?’ if you think the student might have misunderstood something. Use a dictionary to help you.
An appreciation of politics is essential to understand the opportunities for and limitations on development.
Analyse this statement with reference to a selected country and by reflecting on development theory and thinkers.
Tip
You will have to make many decisions about whether to include something in your essay or to leave it out, but you can work out the answer: remind yourself of the purpose of essays in general, and go back to your analysis of your specific question.
Remember
Break down the essay question to identify its exact meaning.
To analyse a question you need to look in detail and use your knowledge of English to understand the clues about what is expected.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help with understanding the question.
You need to demonstrate the ability to evaluate different points of view and demonstrate research skills.
You need to show awareness of the reader, of academic conventions and the way others in the discipline write.
2
Reader expectation and essay structure (#ulink_498c5a33-cdbe-5560-a79f-c881c933439e)
Aims
plan your essay structure (#litres_trial_promo)
guide your reader through structure, signposting and cohesion (#litres_trial_promo)
understand paragraph structure and how to connect paragraphs (#litres_trial_promo)
Quiz
Self-evaluation
For each statement below, circle the word which is true for you.
Making your essay more readable
Your assessor is mainly concerned with the content of your essay. This partly depends on your research skills but also on your ability to get your points across.
You can make your essay easy to read in a number of ways, e.g. by using a clear structure and by guiding the reader through the text.
Essay structure
Glossary
outline (outlines) N-VAR An outline is a general explanation or description of something.
principle (principles) N-COUNT The principles of a particular theory or philosophy are its basic rules or laws.
When you wrote shorter essays, you learnt that the basic structure is: introduction / main body / conclusion, and that each separate idea needs a new paragraph. When you are writing a longer essay, the main principles are the same, but there are some differences.
The same three-part structure applies to any essay. In a longer essay, the introduction and conclusion will be more developed, but the biggest change will be in the main body, where there will be much more space to develop ideas. Although each new idea will still require a new paragraph, these separate ideas are likely to need more than one paragraph each to be fully developed. Before you do your research, you won’t know how many paragraphs you will be writing, but you are able to do an outline of the structure of the whole essay from the start.
The method we used in Chapter 1 (#ub266d11d-a5d1-5d82-a9e1-1fbd571ccca3) can be used here to help with structure too. Look back at the example essay question about parallel trade and the three-step analysis of this question in the section Analysing key words and structure of essay titles.
This breakdown will lead to your outline, which can function as a plan for your writing as well as a starting point for your research.
Here, it would look like this:
Exercise 1
Write an outline for the essay title below, from Chapter 1 (#ub266d11d-a5d1-5d82-a9e1-1fbd571ccca3) Exercise 3. Before you start the outline, look at the Answer key for Chapter 1 (#ub266d11d-a5d1-5d82-a9e1-1fbd571ccca3) for the three-step analysis of the essay title.
What are the most important key urban planning theories of the post-war period? Outline in summary their key characteristics. With reference to one of these theories, explain how they help us understand the nature of planning practice.
The last thing you want to do is confuse your reader, so it is important to structure your work in the order that they would expect to find it.
The introduction
In an introduction you would normally:
1 give a description or explanation of the situation or problem (more general)
2 say why this situation or problem (or a more specific aspect of it) is important
3 say what your aim is, what your position on the situation or problem is, and what the organization of your essay will be.
The main function of the introduction is to show your reader you have understood the question and to indicate that you will be discussing it fully. You do not have to go into detail yet.
It is difficult to say how long an introduction should be, but as you won’t be starting to discuss anything in any detail yet, it won’t be long. It is likely to be less than 10 per cent of the word count.
Until you have finished your research, you might not be sure exactly what the structure of your essay will be, so it is a good idea to write your introduction last.
Exercise 2
Look at these two introductions of 1,000-word essays. Look at the three things you would normally include in an introduction above and then think about how you would improve the introductions.
‘It would be better not to let pupils use calculators at all in their maths lessons.’ Discuss.
Introduction A
It may be a good idea not to let students use calculators in maths classes, but there are also reasons why they can be helpful. This essay will first address the role calculators play by considering their benefits, as well as possible drawbacks. Then I shall present a simple argument for the use of calculators by examining the fundamental purpose of an educational system before concluding that we should not reject the use of calculators in a learning environment.
Introduction B
Calculators are useful pieces of equipment and are very popular in mathematical learning. However, some of their functions have raised concerns with maths teachers about the harmful effects on the students’ ability to improve their learning. This is why the idea of forbidding the use of calculators is being discussed. I think this opinion is too extreme and limited.
The conclusion
Your conclusion will normally consist of:
1 a summary of the main ideas (related to the importance to the topic)
2 a summary of your evidence (with your evaluation of it)
3 your overall conclusion / your answer to the question.
The conclusion will be more specific than the introduction, as you will already have mentioned the ideas you are commenting on. Do not add any new evidence or ideas: if you have more to say, then this should be done in the body of the text. Like your introduction, your conclusion is likely to contain no more than 10 per cent of the word count.
Exercise 3
Look at the ending of this 1,500-word essay and identify the three different parts of the conclusion. The first part has been identified for you.
In conclusion,(1)new technologies have provided a remarkable breakthrough which has allowed society itself to become incredibly advanced.They have now become so highly developed that they have provoked ethical questions about their morality. One of the main reasons for this is that they can be controlling, but as we have seen, they are liberating at the same time, with cyborg (mechanical body parts) technology even being able to save people’s lives. Another area of thought is related to the area of feminism: despite their large contribution to the fields of science and technology, women still have to struggle with inequality in everyday and scientific life. While new technologies have undoubtedly influenced postmodern thinking, the amount of research activity in the field in recent years suggests that the influence may also work the other way round.
The main body
