HOW TO WRITE AND APPROACH AN ESSAYt

Thesis statements:

Thesis statements help you set out a compelling argument. Repeating the foundation of your thesis statement (what you are arguing) throughout your essay will achieve easy marks, helping you get the best grade, as you will remind the examiner and yourself that you are focusing on the question. Thesis statements are ultimately your introduction and by following these 3 steps you can construct an excellent introduction, displaying confidence and clarity.

Discuss: talk about the bigger picture, what the author is trying to say

Define:  how the question applies to the text 

Refine: what is your argument? (Go back to refine in every paragraph to reiterate your focusing on the question)

Why write a thesis statement?

• Establish your academic voice. Having a strong academic voice from the start of the essay will not only give your argument direction, but it will also boost your thesis, as this and the conclusion are reflective, personal ideas about the text. This, in turn, makes these parts of the essay extremely reflective of your style of writing and voice.

• Gain A03 marks for Context. In the ‘define’ section of the thesis, you could compare the writer’s themes to real world issues, whether this is past issues (e.g. Reagan’s presidency) that concerned the author at the time (what motivated/ inspired them to write the novel), or how these issues and themes are still prominent in society today (e.g. gender inequality and environmental concerns).

• Repeat your thesis statement and focus on it throughout. There is no point writing a thesis about ‘How Atwood uses language to portray oppression in The Handmaid’s Tale’ if one of the following paragraphs is about structure, or you will lose marks. It might be helpful to keep the thesis a general technique, such as language, as it gives you a lot to write about in the main body of your essay.

• Helps establish direction. For everyone, exams will cause us to fluster, it happens to the best of us. Having a strong thesis statement and therefore knowing your argument will really help you in the long run, as you can always support your thesis with evidence and context. 

Sample introduction answering:

Explore the ways Atwood presents the difficulties of maintaining an identity in The Handmaid’s Tale

Much of a person’s life is spent creating and maintaining their identity: what they think they stand for, and what sort of person they want to be. The process of identity-formation is reversed in Atwood’s novel though as the regime seeks to remove any sense of identity from its handmaids in particular, as seen in the ‘re-education’ they receive at the Red Centre. Ultimately, Atwood uses Offred’s narrative voice and the manipulative use of state language to suggest that a person’s identity is not as much within her own control as she may think.

Make it interesting for the examiner: 

• Academic voice

Establishing an academic voice shows the examiner that you are confident in your writing and that you have thought through your argument very carefully. Avoid using simple phrases that have been used by most (as it’s always best to stand out) such as:

• Instead of ‘for example’: exemplified by, demonstrates, illustrates, highlights,  specifically, markedly, including, poignantly 

• Instead of ‘contrast’: dichotomy, dissimilarity, juxtaposition, divergence, incongruity, distinction, disparity, chasm

• Instead of  ‘in my opinion/I think’: the evidence suggests that…, it is credible to argue…, it is reasonable to advocate for…, one must consider.., it is possible to argue that…

• Instead of ‘in conclusion’: ultimately, in summation, on balance, in closing, to recapitulate

• Instead of ‘a lot’: plethora, myriad, notably 

• Instead of ‘so’: therefore, subsequently, thus, hence, as a result

• Instead of ‘says’: declares, articulates, pronounces, discusses, mentions, remarks, suggests, states, reacts, responds

• Provide different perspectives

A strong answer to the question will provide a variety of perspectives uncovering multiple layers behind the author’s superficial meaning and integral when writing an essay. The examiner wants you to open up new conversations. In offering different perspectives the examiner can see that your writing is evaluative. It offers depth and insight into the novel, not just retaining an idea from class and writing it in an exam. Remember, when offering layers of meaning, you can write about perspectives you have seen that you disagree with. Use it as a counter-argument, opening with ‘one critic argues’ (even better if you can cite the critic!) We recommend reading critical articles too, very impressive!

• Judge the author on how they convey their concerns: is it convincing enough? 

It is also important to be evaluative. Showing you’re evaluative and judge the author’s choices will exemplify your understanding and confidence with the text. Using particular words to sign post to the examiner you are being evaluative is crucial. Words such as: persuasive, compelling, criticise, endeavours to show, expresses, successfully conveys, fails to provide closure, ambiguous, didactic, moralistic, scholarly, eloquently, poignantly. This also plays into the tone of voice, which is key to analyse. 

• Embedded quotes

Using embedded quotes will elevate your writing style, making the examiners reading your essay flow effortlessly. This also shows skill and how assured you are during the exam. Embedding context is also a hard skill as it can sometimes feel too forced as it does not apply to the rest of your point. Finding the correct context which applies suitably will also help with the smoothness and clarity of your writing. 

• Literary and Structural terminology

Including literary terminology especially ones that are highly sophisticated help you gain AO2 marks, giving you more marks. Terminology will vary as poetry terminology is different from prose terminology. 

• Think of the significance of the beginning of the novel and the ending

  • Does the ending provide us closure? Unsatisfactory openness?

  • Does it help fulfill the author’s purpose/convey their messages/themes/concerns

  • How have the characters changed? Character arcs

The Assessment Objectives 

• AO1: Respond to the question

  • A personal and creative response to literary texts

• AO2: Analysis

  • Remembering to zoom in and out (in the play and out to context)

  • Subject terminology

• AO3: Context

  • Research relevant contextual information about the text you have learnt about:

    • The author: read autobiographies or watch videos on their lives and their beliefs. 

    • The time it was written: their beliefs and important elements of their lives e.g. religion or nature

    • Historical events

    • How critics and the readers at the time responded to the text.

Common mistakes

• Unfinished Analysis. With the time pressure, we also forget to fully finish our analysis, leaving a potentially strong paragraph unfinished and holding us back from expressing our points completely. Therefore, planning beforehand is crucial even for just 5 minutes, so you yourself know what you will talk about and not get carried away!

• We tend to write everything we remember from lessons and our revision, which may not necessarily be relevant to the question. Again, planning will help you remember quotes and context relevant to your question. Take your time!

• Forgetting to plan!! Personally, I did not plan and fell into the trap of over analysing and not having enough time to finish other paragraphs.Taking as little as 5 minutes to plan what your main body paragraphs will be about can help you structure your essay and show the examiner that you have carefully thought about the question. (this will also come in handy when writing your conclusion)

• If you take the Edexcel English Literature exam, it is easy to fall into the trap of not learning quotes, as you are given the texts in the exam. It is still worth learning some quotes, as looking for them in an exam setting will take a long time and you may not pick judicious quotes (the relevance of the quotes you pick is worth marks too!).

• Writing too many ideas can be just as dangerous as writing too little ideas. If we write everything we’ve remembered from lessons, we risk losing in-depth analysis, leaving the essay with lots of incomplete arguments. If we write too little, there is a risk of lacking enough awardable content, and missing marks.

• Focus on the question. It  is as easy as repeating the words of the question, further showing your understanding of the question to the examiner.

Writing a conclusion

The conclusion is often the hardest part of the essay to write. If you’re anything like me, you are writing it with about 5 minutes left of the exam (and panicking slightly!)

• Quality, not quantity: The conclusion only needs to be around 2 or 3 sentences, but it must be concise and strong. It helps prove your argument is compelling and convincing, something which should be carried through the essay until the very end.

• Reveal don’t repeat: To write a strong conclusion, it is important to remember that this is not a new argument, so don’t add in any new ideas. On the other hand, it is vital that you don’t just repeat what you have already written, or it is unnecessary. Instead, look at your essay holistically and write a conclusion that sums up what you have already said, linking to the overarching point you were making. The conclusion should be personal and reflective, describing what you have realised about the essay question and the writer’s intent in the process of writing the essay. What is the bigger picture?

  • To do this, ideally you should read over the whole of your essay, to pick up on ideas you wrote about which link to your thesis, but you hadn’t considered when writing your thesis. However, with only 5 minutes left of an exam this may not be possible. This is where your plan comes in handy! Read over your plan (which is a ‘skeleton’ of your essay) and take your ideas in the same way from there.