iting essays

Welcome to Writing Essays, the RLFs online guide to everything you wanted to
know but were afraid to ask about writing undergraduate essays.

The guide is a toolbox of essay writing skills and resources that you can choose from
to suit your particular needs. It combines descriptive and practical elements. That
is, it tells you what things mean and what they are; and it uses examples to show
you how they work.

Writing Essays takes you through the whole essay writing process from preparing
and planning to completion. Writing essays is structured progressively and I
recommend that you use it in this way. However, you will see from the sidebar that
the guide is divided into a number of main sections. Click on any one of these and
you will see that its divided into shorter sections or subsections. So you can either
read it straight through from start to finish or you can go straight to the area thats
most relevant to you.

Writing Essays does not cover every type of writing you will do at university but it
does cover the principal types. So you will find guides to essay writing, dissertation
writing, and report writing. You will also find a section dealing with the differences
between writing for the humanities and writing for the sciences and social sciences.
The information and guidelines in these sections will provide blueprints you can
apply elsewhere.

You will see in the topbar options above that there is also a glossary of terms used
in this guide; and a list of suggested further reading and online resources.

It is important to say here what Writing Essays does not do. It does not offer
detailed advice on general study skills although it does cover some aspects of
reading for writing and how to write a literature review. Unlike some guides, this one
does not have anything to say about using computers except: use them, and save
your work often.

Writing Essays does not deal with grammar and punctuation. This does not mean
that I think that these things are not important, or that you dont need to pay
attention to them all writers do. However, my experience of working with students
has taught me two things. First, that the most common difficulties in writing essays
are to do with areas like understanding the question and making a logical structure.
Second, that when these difficulties are fixed, problems with grammar and
punctuation are easier to see and fix.

Dont just use Writing Essays once. Make it your constant reference point for writing essays.
Make it the emergency number you dial if you breakdown or cant get started! say aims
to persuade readers of an idea based on evidence.

An academic essay should answer a question or task.

It should have a thesis statement (answer to the question) and an argument.
It should try to present or discuss something: develop a thesis via a set of closely related points
by reasoning and evidence.
An academic essay should include relevant examples,
supporting evidence and information from academic texts or credible sources.

Basic steps in writing an essay

Although there are some basic steps to writing an assignment, essay writing is not a linear process. You
might work through the different stages a number of times in the course of writing an essay. For example,
you may go back to the reading and notetaking stage if you find another useful text, or perhaps to reread
to locate specific information.

Possible steps (In no strict order)

Analyse the question and define key terms
Establish a possible thesis/ point of view
Research the topic. Use books, journals and other credible academic sources for
support and evidence.
Take notes from your readings.
Write an essay plan and organise your ideas
Write a first draft to include your introduction, body and conclusion
Set the draft aside for a day or two, then re-read and make changes.
Have a friend/parent/colleague read it.

Edit and redraft your essay

Complete or finalise your references and citations
Complete your final draft and hand it