Starting an Essay

5 Steps to Starting a Successful Essay

Step 1: Understand the essay topic!

The answer depends on the question (strangely enough)
Read it as many times as it takes to understand it properly.

Well written assignment topics will normally spell out the task in a way that you can easily follow. They will include three important elements:

• Content or topic words which tell you what you should write about.
• Scope or limiting words which indicate the boundaries or limits of what should be discussed / analysed in the assignment.
• Task words which tell you what it is you are expected to do in the assignment.

If you have understood the assignment topic properly you should be able to answer the following two questions: What am I being asked to do (task words)? What am I being asked to write about (content words)?

Step 2: Research to find the answers.

• First read to get an overall or general understanding of the topic - general text books are good. Make rough notes. Get an idea of the big picture.
• Second, read for evidence - Find specific, up-to-date journal articles. Only read those that will help you. Make sure they are from acceptable academic journals.

Step 3: Write a main thesis.

Before you start writing the essay you need to decide exactly what you are going to write about. To focus your thinking on the purpose (and, if required, the argument) of your essay write a main thesis. The main thesis is one sentence in the introduction that provides a clear statement of the purpose or argument of your essay. The main thesis restates the assignment topic in active terms. Every paragraph that follows will refer back to and support the main thesis. It often starts with the words: "this essay will..."

Step 4: Draw up a plan of action

One last step before you start writing the essay itself.

Plan out the structure of your essay in advance! List the points of discussion or arguments you want to make based on your research of the topic. Each discussion point or argument (depending on the kind of essay you are being asked to write) will become a topic for a different paragraph. Make sure you have expert sources to back each point.

Step 5: Fill in the blanks.

Now you have the structure of the essay worked out, with the paragraph topics in place and expert sources to back them up, all you need to do is complete your paragraphs with explanation/arguments and expert sources. The hard part is over.

Links

Essay Writing: The Basics
It is what it says: A fairly brief, but useful, guide to getting started on, and then writing up, your essay. It has some useful ideas to help you get the ball rolling in the 'Researching your topic' and 'Organising your ideas' sections.

Writing Argumentative Essays
This is an excellent series of tutorials on argumentative essay writing. It provides instruction and practice exercises on a range of important aspects of the essay writing process including the development of a main thesis, the effective use of connectives, the structure of a paragraph and the appropriate introduction of oppositional arguments. Doesn't look very exciting but if you want to develop your academic writing skills it is well worth a look!

Essays and Assignments Survival Guides
Bite-sized and very popular, the survival guides are a great way to get quick and easy information on essay writing skills. This series covers issues such as literature reviewing, introductions, paragraphing, writing a main thesis, conclusions and building an argument.

Review

Bate, D. & Sharpe, P. (1996) The Writer's Handbook for University Students.[2^nd ed.] Sydney: Harcourt Brace.

The Writer's Handbook for University Students provides some useful insights on the first stages of preparing an academic essay, including sections on analysing the topic, preparing an essay outline and structuring paragraphs. It has a very helpful list of definitions for instructional (task) words such as 'analyse', 'discuss' and 'evaluate', which could help you to avoid writing the wrong essay. While the text is fairly dense the writers do use examples to illustrate each major point and have included a model essay and report in order to demonstrate the theory provided. There are also some interactive exercises (with the answers in the back) that you can use to practice and test your understanding and skills.

Reviewed books can be borrowed from Student Services,
2nd Floor Guild Building.

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