'A Guide to Exam Essay Writing'

The heavy emphasis on essays as a means of examination in most colleges is easy to understand when you consider the demands that good essay writing places on a student.

The intent of most lectures courses is that you come away with more than just a collection of facts, but rather a store of information that you can draw upon to tackle real world issues and situations. Essay writing tests this by asking you to apply this general knowledge to specific problems. Secondly, it is often true that we can store information without really examining or understanding it properly. It is only when we are forced to externalise our thinking, by having to fit those same facts meaningfully into an essay, that we really know whether or not we understand them. Lastly, the ability to communicate effectively in writing is as skill that will be essential no matter what course we take after college. Essay writing requires us to master writing conventions, ensuring that we have those skills when we graduate.

So as you can see, writing essays is integral to the academic process, but is a skill that is difficult to pick up without some serious effort. These are some guidelines for the writing of an academic essay which you should try to follow in your writing in general (both for continuous assessments and exams). If you keep to these guidelines, your writing will be more readable and more in tune with the academic style, getting across information in an accurate and concise manner.

Your essay writing will not improve without effort, you may have to consciously try to follow these guidelines to begin with, until you get into good habits. This is probably not something you are used to, but it is a very valuable skill to learn and will become nearly second nature with enough practice.

Naturally, the greatest concern that most students have is not about their future careers but about the exams that they have to take today and tomorrow. Many students make the mistake of thinking that remembering the facts is the only thing that matters and that how you write those facts down is just the icing on the cake. In reality how you write is almost as (if not more) important that what you write. Think of it like trying to send a message by radio or telegram. Poor communication means bits of the message are garbled and can't be understood by the person at the other end (in this case, the examiner). If 50% of the info in your essay doesn't make sense or seems to be irrelevant, then the examiner is left with marking you out the remaining 50% instead of 100%. Improve your communication and less is lost, which can only improve your mark. As such, we would hope that the advice contained in this handout will be just as valuable in the short term as it should be in the long term

So let us now consider in turn the three sections should be found in every essay, the introduction, the main body and the conclusion.

The Introduction

There are two important steps you must take before you write your answer to an exam question. The first is preparing your answer correctly and the second is writing the introduction to your answer.


Preparing your Answer

NB : DO NOT BEGIN WRITING YOUR ESSAY UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SAY!!

This may seem to be so obvious it's almost pointless to say it. And yet huge numbers of students forget this basic rule. They look around and see that everyone else has started and the pressure to start with something, anything and not get left behind is tremendous. As a result, they end up dumping information rather randomly onto the page and hoping for the best. This is never a good idea.

Think about the zoo, or a museum, or a textbook. The animals, exhibitions or information are not just thrown in at random, but are grouped together according to some kind of overall structure. If they weren't, people would quickly get lost or bored and this is what will happen to your examiner. Imagine you're giving a guided tour of what's out there, plan out your route first and then make sure your reader can stay with you all of the way. Do not introduce material suddenly, and be absolutely ruthless in excluding irrelevant material from the essay (essays are too short to allow waffling).

Before you can plan your route, you would have to know what the people you are guiding have come to see. The answer to that is presented in the question that is being asked. This means that before anything else can happen you need to interpret the question.

Take some time at the start to read the question carefully. I'd even go so far as to say read it out to yourself under your breath. It's amazing how the mind can play tricks on you when you're flustered, so take your time about it. Better to waste a few minutes here then get half way through your answer and realised you've made a mistake.

It may sound like a tough job to interpret a question, but most questions are written in a very similar fashion. You could almost say that there's a formula to it. Firstly, the question will be linked to a specific area of the course being examined. You can usually spot this pretty easily as the name of the area will be mentioned or some of the major terms or individuals connected to the area will point the way. But you need more than that, because an area can be huge, covering enough information to fill an entire library shelf-load of books. You need to narrow it down, and to there are clues in the question to help you do this too. Usually the question is phrased in such a way as to highlight some sub-section of the area, allowing you to focus on that and cutting down the amount of information you need to bring in.

There are some traditional ways to phrase essay questions that are used in many different courses. We've included a small example of the most common ones with a rough outline of what the phrasing is looking for.

Question & Possible approach to answering it :

×Some statement & quote. Discuss
×Discuss the idea that ……
×Assess the truthfulness of the statement & quote by presenting info from the area that either supports the opinion in the statement & quote or contradicts it.

×Evaluate the theory…..
×Critically evaluate the theory…..
×What are the strengths and weaknesses of ….
×Present the positive aspects of the topic & theory (strong arguments, evidence that supports it, people that agree with it) and also the negative aspects of the topic & theory (weak arguments, evidence that contradicts it, people that disagree with it)

×Compare and contrast Topic A and Topic B
×Offer a very brief overview of both topics. Then for the majority of your answer take the two topics or theories and looks for common features and ways in which they are different

Once you think you understand the question, write a one or two line interpretation in your rough work along the lines of “I think this question is asking……” This is for your benefit, not the examiners. This interpretation is something you can check bank on later on while you're writing your essay. Sometimes people get half way through an answer and forget what it is they are trying to do with the answer. This interpretation can help remind you what it is you're trying to do.

Another useful thing to do at this point is to write out in bullet points an outline of your answer in your rough work. You should include any relevant names and dates while you can still remember them. It makes a big difference to do your figuring out of which-point goes-where at this stage before you've written anything.

The end result of all this preparation is a much more impressive way of structuring your essay, giving it a definite direction, an argument. Rather than an aimless meandering around the subject, an essay that picks a target and moves in a straight line will keep the reader on board and make them think about the issues. Introduce the issues and what your argument will be, give evidence for your argument based on research in the area, draw a solid conclusion. This kind of argumentative essay requires clear thinking, preparation, and a concise (non-waffly) writing style. It is not very difficult to cultivate these things, it just takes some time and effort.

One important point to remember, all this preparation will take time. This gives you less time to spend actually answering the question so you don't want the preparation to take so long it doesn't leave you enough time to actually write the answer. Two things will help keep your preparation time down to an acceptable level (about 5 minutes), these are knowing your topic and practice. Knowing your topic is all about study, the better you know it the quicker you can remember the relevant facts about it. On the other hand practice is just about taking old exam papers and practicing writing an outline of an answer to each of the questions asked. Since interpreting a question and writing an outline only take a few minutes this sort of practice doesn't take very long and you don't have to write that much since it's only an outline. Both of these methods will help reduce your preparation time in the exam itself and will translate into valuable extra answering time and extra marks.

Writing your Introduction

Once you have prepared your answer, writing the introduction itself is very simple. The first thing your introduction should have is an interpretation of what the question is asking and a short explanation of how you are going to answer it. This is just a slightly padded out version of what you've already written in your rough work.

Following this there should be a brief overview of the main points you are going to use in your answer. You don’t have to list every single point your going to make or explain them, just naming the main areas and maybe offering an example or two is enough. This will be a big help to your reader in avoiding getting confused or lost later. This is kind of consideration for your reader is about more than being polite. Since your reader is also your examiner anything that helps them do their job, helps your mark.