Lecture 5: Essay Writing

Vicky Angelaki
vicky.angelaki@miun.se
What Is an Essay?

• An essay enables you to express your opinion, to substantiate it, to present an argument that is convincing. It is, in an ideal
world, a confident and informed piece of writing on a topic that you are interested in, or that you can convince your
reader that you are interested in – if you do your job of discussing/arguing well, it should not matter whether you are
interested in your topic or not, as the objective will have been met.

• But if you are interested in your topic – and I always encourage students, with each essay, to identify at least one aspect of
the topic/case study that you are really interested in, and then to foreground it – this may help you write a better essay.

• An essay, then, is an informed, balanced, well-argued position paper on a given topic that you discuss critically; in an essay,
there is room for different viewpoints/perspectives, and for your own opinion – always cross-substantiated with evidence.
In an academic essay, there is no room for ambiguity, subjectivity and colloquialism.
Main Challenges

• What to include

• What to leave out

• How to maximize the amount of words you have available: write enough, not too much, not too
little

• How to avoid subjectivity, especially when you feel strongly about your topic

• How to balance summary (e.g. of a case study) and succeed in providing essential information
without allowing the summary and description to take over

• How to cite properly – though this you can command quite easily by absorbing citation rules early
and then sticking with them for everything you’ll write.
What to Avoid
• Anything that conveys subjectivity – and subjectivity can happen in two main ways: 1) through subjective verbs such as
‘feel’, ‘think’, ‘believe’, ‘like’ (the list goes on); 2) by entering the analysis part of your essay without engaging with textual
evidence that will help you substantiate your arguments objectively

• Unless an essay specifically asks you to engage in a biographical analysis of the author, steer clear of this; to read any piece
of writing on the basis of the author’s life is fraught with issues and ultimately problematic; to read a piece of writing (and
indeed any art) with reference to the social, political, historical and/or artistic context within which it was created
(synchronic contextualization), or, similarly, within any subsequent context in which it was re-read, staged, etc. (diachronic
contextualization) is, on the contrary, a very good idea.

• Avoid forgetting that all titles of longer works (novels, plays, but also names of newspapers, websites etc…) need italics;
poems, articles - and all that can be understood as shorter works, require quotation marks for the title citation.
What to Avoid
• Summary of everything (that is, an exhaustive plot exposition): a summary should be succinct and to the point; it conveys essential
facts to the reader early on (introductory section/paragraph) but does not take over the entire essay. You can discuss more facts
about your case study/-ies as you come to the critical analysis part, where you will be able to include more details.

• Writing too much/writing too little: word lengths have been specified for a reason: they suggest to you how much we expect you
to cover; they are realistic; they help you manage the task without feeling uncertain as to the depth you are expected to go into –
so be prepared to make tough decisions as to what you need to omit; and, likewise, do not compromise your essay by not going
into sufficient depth of coverage

• Repetition: take a step back, re-read that paragraph. Have you said the same thing in different words more than once? Have you
become caught-up in a point, which you have struck to, without expanding your argumentation? Go back and add more nuance to
your argument. However good the idea, when continuously restated it loses its impact.

• Typos: do avoid submitting an essay with typographical errors that could have been easily avoided through proofreading – so allow
yourselves that essential time to revisit and read through for consistency, clarity and accuracy before submitting.
What to Do
• Dedicate sufficient space to your introductory and concluding paragraphs; do not neglect them. They are important parts
of the essay and need their own, dedicated space. The first should tell us why you have chosen to write about your topic
and what you plan on discussing/arguing, but, also, how you plan to prove your point(s). The latter should summarize the
points you have made and tell us what you have, therefore, shown/proved/evidenced/demonstrated.

• The above are all strong verbs. Use them. Use, also: propose; argue; contend; claim; discuss; analyse; conclude.

• Apply the argument-text-conclusion model to all paragraphs in the main body of your essay. Argument = what the specific
paragraph/section will claim; text= evidence from your case study in the form of quotation or paraphrase – in more
advanced assessments, where you are explicitly asked to engage in the reading of secondary sources (related critical
studies of the topic(s) you are writing about, or of the specific case studies you are analyzing), this is also the part of the
essay where these come in); conclusion=the summative statement in the closing of a paragraph/section, that, in an ideal
world, also serves as a segue to the paragraph that follows (but don’t worry if the latter doesn’t come naturally to you just
yet).
What to Do
• Cite your sources properly, using the specified citation style; start your Bibliography (Works Cited) list on a separate page, always. No bullet
points, no numbering, no separation on the basis of type or format of soursc: we only expect one consecutive alphabetized list.

• If you have read more than you have quoted from (and again this is more a point for more advanced assessments), include, also, a list that
you will call Works Consulted (again on a separate page) and this is where you can list sources that you have read, which are of relevance to
your topic, but you have not quoted or paraphrased from them.

• Keep track of your argument – do not allow your critical focus to wander.

• Quotations more than 4 lines (or shorter quotations, if they merit emphasis – though do note this is rare): indent them and place apart
from your main text. No quotation marks needed unless they appear in the original. Only use italics in quotations if they appear in the
original or if you wish to emphasize something, in which case write [my emphasis] next to it; for standard quotes, use double quotation
marks and embed in your text; for quotes within quotes, do the same, but using single quotation marks for the quote within a quote.

• Remember a paragraph is a consistent sequence of argumentation: give it space. Five lines is too short. Fifteen is too many. Be mindful of
the presentation of your material, just as you are mindful of the content.
Who is Your Reader?

• Your essay is obviously read by an academic who knows what you are talking about; still, think of
your reader as someone who needs to be told the key facts of plot and context before you go into
your analysis; then, when you have entered your analysis, think of the reader as someone who,
regardless of whether they agree or disagree with you, need to be convinced of the fact that you
have argued your point well: from a balanced, critical and informed perspective. It is not
important whether they will agree with you or not. They important thing is to convince them that
the argument you are making/the reading you are proposing/the conclusion you are arriving at is
a viable one and that you have done the requisite work to present it confidently through
exposition and substantiation. In other words: facts; rigour; objectivity – they all matter.
The Importance of Feedback
• Go back to all feedback you have received on your work so far:
engage with it, learn from it – remember, feedback extends beyond
individual assignments though it may be written with individual
assignments in mind.
• In other words, maintain a dialogical relationship with all comments
you have received from your tutors, so that you can continue to
improve your work. (This, we call ‘feed forward’)
Questions?

As always:
if you have any questions about any part of the guidance offered in
these slides, please get in touch via e-mail and I’ll do my best to get
back to you as swiftly as possible.

Thanks for your attention!