Essay writing
This interactive online tutorial will take you through the process of preparing and writing an essay.
Constructing a paragraph
This interactive online tutorial will help you learn how to structure paragraphs effectively.
Editing your work
This video lecture discusses the process of refining a draft assignment to improve the flow and clarity of the writing.
Assignment pre-reading service
Get feedback on your assignment's structure, focus, style, use of sources and referencing before you submit it for marking.
The essay is one of the most common types of assignment at university.
Essays often involve constructing a debate around a particular issue, comparing 2 or more related ideas or persuading readers of a particular argument or position.
All essays share the same basic structure, although they may differ in content and style. You should answer the essay question with a thesis statement or proposition and follow it up with a logical sequence of arguments and information to support your answer.
What is required in an essay?
It can be challenging to understand what's required in an essay – it requires more than just presenting what happened in a field of work. Typically, you will be constructing an argument for or against a particular issue, taking into account the different positions in the debate.
In other words, you have to be able to convince the reader of your point of view. This will usually involve:
- acknowledging the opposition's arguments
- rebutting those arguments in some way by mentioning their weaknesses or disadvantages
- strengthening your own argument.
It is usually good to be aware of the following and to acknowledge them in your assignment:
- alternative views
- interpretations
- evidence surrounding an assignment topic.
Acknowledging them does not necessarily mean you have to agree with these views – by mentioning them you show the assignment marker that you have read widely, you are well informed on the issue and you are not biased in your position.
Academic style
Essays are written in a specific style: they use particular words and grammatical structures. This academic style is described in detail in academic writing.
Essay planning
It is important to plan your essay before you begin writing. Planning will save you time later. It is also essential that you have a starting point to plan from, even if it is in a very rough form.
There are 2 ways to approach planning for your essay.
The obvious place to start is at the assignment question itself. From the question you can develop your answer in the form of a thesis statement.
From there you can decide what your essay's subtopics will be and what you want to say about them. When you have a basic idea of what you want to talk about, you can begin to write the essay.
However, it can be difficult to come up with a point of view early on. Instead of developing a thesis statement first, you may choose to read up on the assignment question and make notes on relevant concepts, theories, and studies. Once you have these notes and can develop a summary of the issues, you can write a thesis statement.
For more information on analysing the assignment question and planning your essay, go to your assignment.
Essay structure
Introduction
Learn how to write an introduction paragraph, including context for your essay, your response to the essay question and the structure and organisation of the essay.
Thesis statement
Find out how to outline an argument, contention or thesis that answers the question in your thesis statement.
Body paragraphs
Learn how to write body paragraphs and discuss each major point in your essay, using the Point Illustration Explanation (PIE) method.
Conclusion
Find out how to summarise the most important, relevant and useful main points from your body paragraphs in your essay's conclusion.
View our example essays for model introductions, body paragraphs & conclusions.
Essay revision
Before you submit your essay for marking, look over it and improve it wherever possible.
Have you answered the question? Refer to your original interpretation of the assignment question and check it against your final answer.
You may also be too far above or below the word limit. To find actions you can take in this situation, read the section on word limits and assignment length on our formatting and editing page.
Review the content of the essay
Are there any unexplained contradictions?
Can anything be written more clearly?
Are the main ideas easy to identify?
Consider the structure and flow of the essay
Does the introduction contain a clear thesis statement?
Does each body paragraph have a unique topic sentence?
Does the essay flow within paragraphs and between paragraphs?
Have the main points of the argument been summarised in the conclusion?
Look over your use of outside sources
Is all paraphrased material used correctly and integrated into the paragraphs?
Are all outside sources referenced correctly?
Is there a reference list?
Are your spelling, grammar, punctuation, and presentation correct?
This part of revision and editing is described in detail in formatting and editing.
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