The Evil Essay

I’m not going to pretend to be the greatest essay writer in the world. I’m not even going to pretend to be a good essay writer. But most of this week has been dedicated to getting the first draft of my essay down and I just thought I’d talk about that really.

In my first politics lecture of the year we were told we would have to write a 2000 word essay and submit it in week 12 (today is the end of week 9). We were given questions to choose from and then would have to choose which to do.

After a couple of weeks (during week 3, I do believe) I decided which question I would go for based on the one I had the most thoughts about without having to do any research. That meant I had somewhere for my research to start, and could take it from there.

Then, during week 5, our lecturer told us he wanted an essay plan by the following Sunday. Great.

To be fair, it was really a kick in the back side for me. I’d been dawdling about, mentally planning what I was going to look up but never actually doing anything. I got the essay plan done in the week and sent it to my lecturer.

I probably should have started looking at sources before this point (I had a couple, but none that actually found their way into my essay), but then I finally got started at looking for sources and constructing my arguments in week six and seven, getting a better plan down (it turns out having done more research actually shapes your plan a lot) and then got down this week to getting the first draft of my essay done.

My essay template is fairly simple:

Introduction: define any key terms and answer the question.

3 arguments on the side you have taken.

3 arguments on the opposite side.

Conclusion.

This is the first real university level essay I’ve written, but I used the format my politics teacher from AS taught me. I’ll update when I get feedback to let you know what my lecturer thinks of this layout.

I know I am a poor essay writer, so I’ve sent my draft to my lecturer to read over the weekend. Hopefully that comes back soon with all the faults highlighted so I can redraft my essay next week and do the same thing before handing in the essay during week 12, which is coming surprisingly quickly.

Finding Resources

At university, and even at college, essays and assignments are common place. When I came to university, I hadn’t written an essay (outside of exam conditions) since secondary school, and the first essay I was set was the first one I’d ever really had to find quotes and evidence for (beyond the assigned books in GCSE English). So, besides having to learn how to write an essay properly (something I struggled through in A levels in timed essays), I also had to learn how to find sources.

Use your library: Your university has a library. It might even have more than one. Use it. Know how to use it. At the beginning of the year, there might be sessions to help new students learn how to navigate the library and find what they need. Go to those sessions. It will spend what could be hours searching through shelves to find what you want.

Use databases: Does your university have a subscription to some kind of database, where online journals are kept? If so, use it. Google Scholar can be another useful resource, but if your university is paying for a similar service (and they probably are) use that. You’re more likely to get access to the journals your looking at (rather than only the abstracts), and it may be easier when it comes to recording your sources.

Learn how to use the database: Different databases work in different ways. If your using one your university has signed up for, you might be able to find videos and tutorials prepared for you (a good place to search for these is on your library homepage if they aren’t pointed out to you). Learning how to search using key words, synonyms, and symbols will really cut down the amount of time you spend looking through irrelevant articles.