Writing Tips

Writing Tips And even if the essay title isn't in the form of a question, make sure that you have something clear that you want to say. Don't just talk in general terms about the subject area. Make sure you have a clear point that you want to communicate in your essay. Hello, my name is Robin Banerjee and I'm a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Sussex. You also need to reread your first draft with a fresh eye, as though you were reading it for the first time. Once you feel you have covered what you want to cover, read through again to make sure that the organization and development are logical. One strategy for doing this is to note in the margin in a few words the point of each paragraph. Take those brief phrases and look at them to see whether they follow logically or require reorganizing. I teach many first year, second year and third year students so if you come into the Psychology department I'm sure I'll see lots of you while you're here. Purdue OWL --This site offers information on nearly all aspects of student writing. Read what you have written, make margin notes on the purpose of each paragraph, and then take these notes and arrange and rearrange as needed. It is a lot easier to rethink the organization when you are looking at brief notations than when you are looking at the entire text. After you have rearranged your notations, you can cut and paste your document to match the new outline. By this time, you will have received feedback on your first draft, which you need to review carefully. Look for patterns in the responses or questions that are raised by readers. Before you start the main part of your essay or assignment, there should be a title page. The title page should contain information to enable your lecturer and departmental office or other reader to identify exactly what the piece of work is. It should include your name and course; the title of the assignment and any references; the lecturer it is for etc. Check with your department for clear information. At the end of the essay, there should be a list of references. This should give full information about the materials that you have used in the assignment. See Writing a list of references for more information on the reference list. It should clearly signal to the reader that the essay is finished and leave a clear impression that the purpose of the essay has been achieved. Make any appropriate changes to your organization and development. Correct grammatical mistakes, check to see that you have answered all parts of the question. You will have to support your argument with evidence, and this may involve memorizing some key events, or the names of theorists, etc. This site is maintained by Zachary M. Schrag, Professor of History at George Mason University. This material was formerly posted at and was moved to this domain in the summer of 2010. The views expressed here are my own and may not reflect those of George Mason University. Our goal is to make it the best one stop shop for teachers and students to learn the basics of teaching English. ● Transition words and phrases such as alternatively, consequently, in contrast should be used to give flow and provide a bridge between paragraphs. See what concepts are used or what lecture topic this falls under, and look over your notes and readings. When we are asked to describe or explain causes, factors, functions or results, the examiner wants us to group our facts. Similar causes are put together, for instance the economic causes of a situation. There are basically two main ways to organise this type of essay. Once you've got that sequence of key points expressed in complete sentences you should have a pretty good summary of your essay. And that should be able to stand alone as an answer to your essay question. And actually that's not a very good plan, because when you go down to write something you don't know what you're going to say. You know what you're going to talk about, but you don't know what you're going to say about it. ', their extracted main points should look very similar to the main points that you had in your plan. So that would be a good sign that you've accomplished what you wanted to accomplish in the essay. So find someone, maybe a friend that you can bribe to read your essay, maybe a family member, long suffering flat mates - whoever you can. Get someone else to read the essay and to try and extract the main points.