Writing an Academic Essay: A Comprehensive Guide, Study notes of Literature

Download Writing an Academic Essay: A Comprehensive Guide and more Study notes Literature in PDF only on Docsity! EXTENDED PROJECT QUALIFICATION A helpful guide to writing your academic essay The Lakes School Where do I start? Writing an academic essay can be a daunting task but it is a skill anyone can learn if you follow some simple guidance. Flair, originality and accurate use of language are all helpful when writing an academic essay but this booklet provides useful guidance on the technique of academic writing. It’s a style you can learn if you follow this guidance. In bringing this guide together, we have sourced the very best advice from top universities, from exam boards and from academic scholars who teach at The Lakes School. We hope this booklet helps you to unlock your talent for academic writing. Remember, your EPQ supervisor is on hand to help you so do seek them out if you need help with any part of your extended project qualification. Perfect theories and academic approaches are rare – the clear majority of theories, arguments, and studies have flaws. Being descriptive is fine if you are looking to scrape a pass, but for a higher grade you need to show that you are able to apply critical reasoning in your dealing with academic materials. What are the limitations of the theories you are drawing on? How have these been dealt with in the literature? How do they impact the quality of arguments presented, and to what extent do they limit your understanding of what you are studying? What alternate explanations might offer additional depth? Critical thinking is what will make your essay stand out. It shows the marker that you are not simply repeating the arguments that have been fed to you throughout your studies, but actually engaging with theories in an academic manner. Work hard to read around your title and find a collection of different sources that both support and challenge your own views. Organise your thoughts Inevitably, reading about your chosen topic will bring to light many opinions, points of view, arguments for and against and all from different sources. Do you prefer paper and pen or are you paperless? Think carefully about how you are going to organise all of the information you read and collect. Keep articles, annotate them, summaries longer articles so that you can access important information later. Spread out A large table or wall can help you set out and move your information around so that you can take a step back and see the big picture. This enables you to make links which will ultimately help you organise your essay paragraphs and make links between different sections. Reliability and validity Keep a record of all the source materials you read. Decide if they are from a reliable source and if the information is valid, accurate and based on fact or is it just opinion. You can find an example table for tracking your source materials in the EPQ SharePoint area. Be critical Section 3 How you present your argument is nearly as important as the argument itself, which is why it is imperative that your essay follows a logical structure. A classic piece of advice is to “tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, and tell them what you told them” – this, in essence, summarises the core introduction, main body, and conclusion structure of your essay. Having a clear and logical structure will help ensure that your essay stays focused, and doesn’t stray from the question being answered. Each section, paragraph, and sentence should add value to the argument you are presenting. As you are writing, it’s good to take a step back and ask yourself “what value does this sentence/section add? How does it link to my overarching argument?” If you find that you can’t answer that question, there is a high risk that you have strayed from your core argument, and you may want to reconsider the path you are taking. You should also make sure that all the different parts of your essay fit together as a cohesive and logical whole, and that the transition from one argument to the next is fluid. Students often treat essays as lists of arguments, presenting one after the other with little consideration for how they fit together, which inevitably leads to a lower grade. Make sure to tell your reader why you are transitioning from one argument to the next, why they are in this particular order, and how each argument helps shed light on a particular aspect of what you are discussing. With these points in mind, you need to remember some of the fundamentals of an impressive and effective piece of writing. For example, linking paragraphs together (topic sentence at the beginning of a paragraph should somehow link back to the previous paragraph) and using each paragraph to fully explore the point or points. Sequence your information appropriately and try to ensure that you are always clear – remember that you may be writing on a topic you are extremely knowledgeable about but you must ensure that it is accessible to those who are not. You will be expected to use appropriate sentence structures; sentences will tend to be complex and longer in length so that you can elaborate on points and use evidence to support your research but a variety is always recommended to maintain interest for the reader. Structure, flow and focus Section 4 Writing may be the core task, but reading is equally important. Before you start writing your essay, you should conduct a broad search for relevant literature. Learning how to sift through a large amount of data is an important academic skill. You should start by searching through databases – Google Scholar is a great tool for this – using key words related to your research topic. Once you find an article that sounds promising, read through the abstract to ensure that it’s relevant. If you are still not a hundred percent sure, it is usually a good idea to skip to the conclusion – this usually contains a detailed summary of the study, which will help determine whether you should read the article as a whole. You don’t want to waste time reading through an endless number of articles simply to find that they aren’t actually relevant. Once you have identified a few solid articles, you should (a) go through their bibliographies and take note of who they are citing, as these articles will likely be of value for your own research; and (b) check on Google Scholar to see who has cited them. To do this, simply input the name of the article in the search bar and hit enter. In the results, click “cited by” – this will return a list of all of the articles that have cited the publication you searched for. It’s important that you don’t rely too heavily on one or a couple of texts, as this indicates to the marker that you haven’t engaged with the wider literature. You should be particularly careful in using text books as these are essentially summaries of other people’s work. Always be prepared to back up arguments or points with several different sources of reliable and valid information. Demonstrate to the person marking your essay that you have read widely by referencing the work of several people who may share a similar perspective, whether this is in support of or in contradiction to your own point of view. This also shows the marker that you are able to bring together the findings from your extensive research - analyse and synthesise! Read widely Section 5 One of the most critical points is that this piece of writing should be “fluid”. The writing should reflect the journey you have been on and should be expressed appropriately for this level of study (critical, coherent, logical and developed) so aim for “a fluent and comprehensive” piece. Also think carefully about your vocabulary choices as these can seriously enhance the quality of your writing. A common issue is the use of non-academic language: “In this essay I will look at how people who buy art use cultural capital. My theory is that having more cultural capital will change their taste in art, as they are able to understand the pieces differently to other people.” Examples such as the above are unfortunately rather common, and should give you a good idea of what to avoid. The sentiment behind the text is good, but it reads more like a second-rate blog post than an academic essay. An academic might instead write: “This essay explores the role of cultural capital in the consumption of art, and the impact of cultural capital on consumers’ perception of artistic expressions.” You will note that this second example is far more concise yet none of the meaning is lost. It also uses present (rather than future) tense, and avoids informal terms. Clear, concise, and precise language is a hallmark of academic writing. Use footnotes throughout as they are not included in the final word count. The footnotes can refer to the books in the bibliography and can also clarify a point you have made in relation so some research evidence. Data, diagrams and models Graphs, charts, diagrams and conceptual models can enhance your essay if used carefully. Learn to refer to them as figures and reference them correctly. Developing your own conceptual model can help to support your arguments and demonstrate that you are bringing something new to a research based essay. Read about how to write academically and then practice There are many websites that aim to help people with learning to write academically but select carefully. Take the time to read reputable advice rather than a blog post which may be full of gimmicks and tricks. Try this Harvard University site for some good advice. https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/essay-structure Write academically Section 8 This page might provide you with a possible outline plan for your essay. The following sources were used in the production of this guide. https://www.oxbridgeessays.com/blog/essay-writing-tips/ https://www.manchester.ac.uk/connect/teachers/students/post-16/extended- project/resources/. https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/essay-structure