After completing the first draft of your essay, how do you know whether it is any good? Some editing will improve punctuation, spelling and grammar, but you also need to give serious thought to the content.
Look through your article paragraph by paragraph and ask yourself these questions:-
Essay Introduction
- Is the subject matter clear from the very first sentence?
- Can you identify a ‘topic sentence’?
- Do the remaining sentences in the paragraph develop the argument or idea in the topic sentence?
- Is there any waffle?
- Have you answered the question?
- Have you made your opinion clear from the start?
Body of the Essay
Follow these essay writing tips when writing the body of the essay:-
- Do linking words make it clear how each sentence relates to the rest of the argument?
- Do you give evidence for each claim that you make? Have you given examples and then footnoted these?
- Have you used subject specific terms and phrases? Have you used them correctly?
- Have you quoted material clearly within the esssay (using speech marks in the right places, or indenting longer quotations?
- Does every sentence have a value? If a sentence is not relevant to the topic strike it out. Every sentence should help develop the answer.
- In the body of the essay, have you written what you said you would in your introduction? If not, do some rewriting.
Essay Conclusion/Final paragraph
- How can you tell that this is the conclusion? Are there specific words that show this is the summary?
- Are there any new ideas in the conclusion? If so, you have to move them back into the body of the essay. There should be no new concepts in this final section.
- Have you summarised the main points of the essay?
- Have you referred back to the question and answered it clearly again in this section?
Writing Tips – Bibliography
- Have you produced a full bibliography which lists every book, journal, pamphlet, newspaper article and website you have referred to in your essay?
- Have you listed everything you read for background material (even though you might not have listed it in your essay)?
- Are there items from the recommended reading list as well as relevant items you found separately?
Submitting your Essay
Make sure the presentation of your essay doesn’t let you down. Your essay writing ability may be brilliant, but if you use an unusual font it may make the material hard to read. If the college wants it double-spaced and bound in a special wallet, then that’s what you give them. If they want one printed copy and another emailed copy, make sure you send the work in that way.
Do you have any particular problems with analysing your essays? Let us know! Leave a comment below.
