Activity

Some might say the key to successful and comprehensible essays is structure. When an essay is well-structured the reader finds it easier to navigate and therefore easier to read and understand what they are reading.

How can I write well-structured essays?

Scenario 1

You may be given a specific structure to follow while writing your first essays at university. In which case, your job is to get to grips with what goes where, and how this structure functions to guide your reader through your argument from posing the question, justifying our approach, and stating what the overall AIM is (your introduction), to arriving at your final conclusion. This can be harder that it seems! So do take notice of how research papers are written in your subject area, and see if you can see how (and indeed whether) they usually follow the same pattern as the one you have been given. If not, then what have they done that works well for their particular research project?

Scenario 2

You haven't been given an explicit structure, but you have been given clear instructions in the essay title what to do. The unit on 'Breaking down the task' shows you how to get an overview of what you need to achieve, and therefore what to cover in your introduction and conclusion.

Here we talk about the middle section - the main body of your essay.

Assembling your ideas

The key to structuring is to plan, or work backwards, from material you have already got! Whether you like to gather your notes in a mindmap of ideas (see below, left), or whether you like to free-write to get all your knowledge and ideas down in one place (see below, right, you can work from these materials to plan our your ideas more logically.

Mindmap

From your materials (which may well, depending on your subject area, include both primary and secondary sources) you should then review the essay question and ask yourself

Which parts of these materials directly relate to the question?
Can I gather any of these materials into topics/areas/themes?
Have I considered both sides of an argument (if I am required to)?
Are there any obvious gaps that I need to fill by reading more widely?

Essay writing tip.
Remember! Just because you know something doesn't mean it should be included in your essay! Don't just cram in irrelevant information to show that you know it! One of the most difficult skills to master in academic writing is "murdering your little darlings"!

Activity

Get your hands on an old A-Level essay, or practice essay you have written.

1. Revisit the title and (without reading your answer!) make a note of two or three key themes which you would use to answer the essay.
2. Colour code those themes in different colours.
3. Go through your essay and highlight where you have referenced those themes.

Activity question
Are the themes collected together neatly?

Activity question
If not, was there a different, discernible structure you had used instead?

Activity question
What might you do differently if you were to write it again?