A short guide to essay planning and structure.
Essays are a particular form of writing, with their own structure and conventions. This guide explains the conventions of the essay and shows you how to write clear, well structured essays that communicate effectively with the reader. A good essay takes the reader into account by clearly presenting.
How to Write a University Essay Most pieces of writing you will be expected to produce at university will be argumentative or thesis-based essays. Rather than merely regurgitating other people's ideas, this means that you will be expected to articulate a clear, coherent position of your own, and to support it using arguments and evidence.
Good essays will still need to meet important criteria that you have probably encountered at school and college: essays should be appropriately presented, clearly structured, and should demonstrate they have been proofread to check for clarity of expression and to minimise errors.
The standard way to think about structuring an essay is in three parts. Introduction. This should explain why the question is important. It should also signpost how you are going to tackle the question in the main body of the essay and it can include the conclusion of your argument.
The main body of the essay should be structured with each paragraph being separate (but linked to the overall theme) and have your argument developing throughout. In other words, each paragraph should focus on a different aspect of the topic under discussion but should also always be clearly identifiable as connected to the essay question.
All essays should be researched and planned in advance. Work out what you want to say and how you want to say it before the essay is written. Bad essays tend to be written at the last minute, on the basis of inadequate research and with no forethought about structure and argument.
STRUCTURE 1.1 The Introduction Should be half a page to a page in length Content What you are examining in your essay. A summary. Any relevant points you wish to make. 1.2 Sections Your essay should be broken into sections; each section discusses a major theme or argument of your essay, and you should make clear how the theme or argument of that.