STEM Nerd

Pond scum under a microscope

Writing an essay without any structure is like trying to find your way around an unfamiliar place without a map; frustrating, ineffective, and a bit of a garbled mess. Structure gives your essay a clear voice and coherency and makes marking a lot easier for your teacher or tutor! Here are a few general tips I often use when writing essays to maximise the effect of my argument and achieve the best results I can both in high school and university.

Text structure While the content of essays varies, the skeleton structure never changes. In order to clearly articulate an idea, an essay needs a beginning, middle, and an end. 

Introduction

Start with a macro sentence - use an interesting quote, fact, or idea which gives the reader a broad sense of what your essay will cover. This is the reader’s first impression of your essay and can determine their whole attitude while reading it, so make it effective!

Briefly outline the main ideas and thesis - in absence of an abstract, your introduction will need to show the main ideas you will be covering so as to support your thesis, or answer the essay question. You will need to clearly express your position and how you intend to argue the point.

Set the limits - sometimes, the scope of an essay question can be very broad, or perhaps there’s a focus to your thesis not all ready indicated. Define the limits of your essay, whether they be a set of years for a history topic, or looking at specific artists who contributed to an art style.

Define key terms - if a term is important to the understanding of your essay, or perhaps you’ve taken your own approach to its meaning, be sure to define it in your introduction!

Body

Separate each idea into a paragraph - ideas can generally be separated chronologically or conceptually. The section below explores this in more detail! 

Start every paragraph with a topic sentence - introduce what the paragraph will discuss and how it relates to your thesis. Signpost it with critical words to make it easier to understand exactly what you are addressing. Ensure it is clear and to the point!

Make a claim and the support it - like in reality, when you make a claim you need to provide evidence to support it so it can be taken seriously. Make your claim early on in the paragraph, generally in the topic sentence, give relevant detail and explanation, analyse it, and then justify it with authoritative quotes, sources, examples, etc.

End every paragraph with a linking sentence - refer back to your thesis or question and make sure what you set out to cover in the paragraph actually addresses it! This is an opportunity to draw a link between this paragraph and the next.

Conclusion

Do more than just restate your points - your conclusion is more than just a rehash of your introduction. Link ideas together and demonstrate how they are interconnected on a less superficial level. An English teacher once told me, your essay is like a mountain. You put in all your hard work to climb it in your introduction and body paragraphs, your conclusion is a chance to look back, make connections where there were none before, and solidify your argument. 

Establish the overarching theme and idea - what idea underlies all the points you have made? How does it relate to your thesis?

Draw a profound and insightful conclusion - what are the implications of this? Is there relevance today? This can transform a standard essay into a more profound and overall, more interesting essay.

Don’t introduce any new information - your essay is complete! All your information should have been expressed in the body paragraphs, so nothing new should be introduced here.

Reaffirm your thesis - restate it with some finality! Your body has provided all this evidence to support it, remind them of this.

Chronological or Conceptual? For the most part, an essay can take one of two approaches; a chronological approach, where each body paragraph follows the text, history, etc., sequentially, or a conceptual approach, where the main idea is broken down into its constituent elements, each addressed in their own paragraph(s).

 In my experience, conceptual essays usually score higher, showing a greater sense of understanding of the topic and its inner workings. You can demonstrate a funnel effect more easily, where each element funnels down from its body paragraph to the conclusion, contributing to the overall idea of the essay. A chronological approach, however, can be easier to follow and is occasionally implicit within the essay question. Choosing which approach to use depends on which you are comfortable writing with, the demands of the essay or your teacher, and can vary from essay to essay. 

Continuity and Cohesion Something I think is highly underrated, yet critical to holding an essay together, is transition words and phrases. They create continuity and cohesion between ideas and paragraphs, and serve as a bridge of sorts within your overall structure. Here are a few posts which have comprehensive lists of transition words and phrases:

Transition Words for Essays - @staedtlers-and-stabilos Essay Transition Phrases - @study-like-you-mean-it Transition Words For Your Essays - @soniastudyblr

I hope this can help with structuring your essays and getting the best marks you can! Please message me if you have any questions :)

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As summer approaches, it is time to begin thinking about where and when you want to apply. Early admissions can be a great tool in your college endeavors. However, they can also be very confusing in their rules.

Early Decision: This is a binding decision. By applying early decision to a college, you are stating that that school is your first choice. Essentially, you are signing a contract that says if you get in, you will attend said school. You may apply to other schools in their regular decision round, but if you are accepted by your early decision school you must withdraw those applications. This is great for students who are 100% sure of where they want to go. However, it limits the opportunity to apply to other schools early or finding a better fit. 

Early Action: This is the most “casual” of early admissions. You will get your admissions decision early, but you may apply to as many early action schools in their early admissions round as you’d like. You may accept immediately, but you have until May 1st to decide what school you will attend, whether regular decision or early action. You may also decline an early action offer. 

Restrictive or Single-Choice Early Action:  If you apply to an early action school, that is the only school you can apply early to. However, you are not committing to attend this college. You have until May 1st to decide if you want to attend, and may apply to as many regular decision schools as you’d like.

Self care is extremely important, especially with finals coming up. Don’t study so hard that you forget to take care of yourself. Remember, you won’t be able to do as well on a test if you’re not doing good. Here’s a quick little list to look at to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.

When did you last shower? Was it yesterday? If not, take a shower.

Have you brushed your teeth today? If not, brush them.

Have you eaten anything in the last six hours? If not, please eat. Don’t think of eating as a “get to” activity, or a reward– you can always eat, even if you didn’t meet another goal. Your body needs food to function.

What about drinking? Have you had a glass of water in the last hour? Drinking is extremely important, and dehydration can cause anything from headaches to nausea to death. (Only death if it’s super duper severe, though.)

If you’re in pajamas and it’s not time to sleep, change into something that’s still comfy but not pajamas. We don’t want to be giving our brains sleep cues when we’re trying to get stuff done, and it can make us feel lethargic.

If you have thoughts racing around your mind faster than you thought possible, making you anxious and stressed and scared: music. It can help you move your focus away from your thoughts.

Open your blinds, okay? You can’t live in the dark all the time. The light will help you wake up and keep your sleep schedule on track.

Try to go outside, even if it’s just to walk a block or two. It’ll get your muscles moving and, again, help you stay awake.

Is your room messy? Try putting one thing away. Just one. That piece of paper on the floor? Recycle it! Just like that, you’ve done something productive. You can do more if you’d like, but that’s enough if you’re feeling overwhelmed. One step per day can add up to a marathon.

Do you have meds? Take them. If you’re prone to forgetting, you can set a daily reminder on your calendar, or download an app that will remind you.

If keeping a bullet journal helps you, open yours up and see what you have to get done today. Do you have any appointments you need to go to? Appointments can be scary, but remember, an appointment means someone is counting on you to be somewhere. (I stole that line from the app Booster Buddy! It’s really encouraging.)

If you’re in school, you probably have some homework. Make a list of your homework tasks and divide them down into small, manageable chunks. Do they seem too big? Make them even smaller. It’s a lot easier to do many small pieces of homework than one huge pile at once.

Talk to someone! Humans are social creatures and we’re made to interact with others. Even if it’s just texting, start up a conversation. Bonus points if you hug someone!

If you have school supplies like pens and highlighters, do a quick check to make sure all their caps are on. This might be more supply care than self care, but that’s okay! Take care of your school supplies!

I already said this, but DRINK WATER! It’s super important!! You gotta stay healthy and drink!

I hope these help! Please take care of yourselves~ ♥ Theo