Essays_CUS: Home

Writing Essays

The essay is one of the most common genres of written assignments at university and, generally, its purpose is to aid students’ ability to reason independently on a topic and build an argument that makes sense (Nesi and Gardner 2012). All whilst answering the question set. The way a student organises and structures an essay is dependent on the type of essay question that has been set.

Two of the most common include:

• Discussion essay – review and evaluate alternative perspectives on a topic before reaching a conclusion.

Examples: • How does nature differ from nurture in explaining mental illness? • Discuss the extent to which current community policing methods are considered effective.

• Factors and Consequences essay – argue for a set of factors that lead to or consequences that result from a specific situation.

Examples: • Outline the economic and technological consequences of a country’s complete conversion to green technologies. • What are the potential factors affecting children’s learning at the early years stage?

Essay Structure

Writing an essay with a clear structure helps you to:

• Make all your ideas clear.

• Discuss similar ideas together.

• Avoid including irrelevant or tangential information.

• Avoid repeating information you have already covered.

Introductions begin with general statements and end with a specific thesis statement. 

• The thesis statement, which comes at the end of the introduction, has two parts. First, it includes a ‘summary’ sentence that gives the overall purpose of the essay (e.g. ‘This essay will discuss/examine/consider…’).
• This is the information you need to provide the reader to bring them into the context of your essay.
• Once you have created the context for the reader and informed them of the question you will be addressing, you can provide them with the outline of your answer.   
• It then includes several sentences which describe the main ideas of the essay and the order in which they will appear (e.g. ‘First the essay will explore… . Then/Secondly it will… . Finally/Lastly it will… .’).

Main Body

The body of an essay is organised into main ideas (usually three to four). 

• Essays must discuss one main idea at a time. When moving on to a new main idea within the body of the essay, use signal phrases such as ‘first’, ‘secondly’, ‘next’ or ‘finally’, along with the keywords of the next main idea. These topic sentences make it clear to the reader that the essay is moving from one idea to another.
• Topic sentence: This sentence is found at the beginning of a paragraph and it informs your reader what the topic is going to be.

Paragraphs

What you include in this part of the paragraph depends on what your question requires and what your answer is. But most essays will include the following in this section: 

• Evidence to support or counterpoints made 
• Examples to illustrate meaning to the reader 
• Explanations to clarify the meaning of your evidence and example or your interpretation of what they signal
• Analysis of information and sources 
• Evaluation of this information and sources
• Synthesis of different sources to make a new point

Conclusions 

Conclusions begin by restating the specific thesis statement and then continue with more general information such as:

• A summary of the essay’s main points.
• Some general recommendations.
• Ideas for future research.

Inform the reader what has been covered in your main body by summarising the key points, including any limitations. Also, tell them what the answer to the question is; state a conclusion. Do not forget this part. You want your reader to agree with you after reading this.

Essay Planning Template

Writing Essays Presentation

How to Write Better Essays

Journal Articles

Journal articles can be found by searching the databases through Locate. 

They are articles written by experts in their field and are academic sources that you can reference to support your arguments and ideas when completing your assignments.