#itshannyb

essay preparation: a guide by apricitystudies

(section one) the planning stage: getting ready to write

1. understand the requirements: all the things you need to know before you start doing anything else. what’s the word count? how many and what types of sources do you need to use? what’s the required referencing style? what criteria will you be graded on?

2. dissect the question by examining three types of terms. key words, or terms that dictate the topic and focus of your essay. instructional words like ‘how’, ‘why’, ‘discuss’, ‘compare and contrast’, and ‘explain’, which tell you how you should answer the question. scope words, which determine the scope of your essay through location, time period, or people.

(next are two examples which i annotated by hand, so i’ll try my best to express them in text form! sorry if the meaning is unclear.)

example 1: breaking down an easy question. what effect does economic hardship have on the rise of totalitarianism? discuss this relationship using examples from the 20th and 21st centuries. here, ‘what’ is an instructional word and ‘effect’ is a key term -- the question is asking you to identify the types of effects. ‘economic hardship’ and ‘the rise of totalitarianism’ are key terms, and this is the relationship the question is focusing on. ‘discuss’ and ‘using examples’ are instructional words telling you how to got about identifying the effects in this relationship. the ‘20th and 21st centuries’ are scope words.

example 2: breaking down a vague question. was the cold war a real or imagined conflict? ‘was’ is an instructional word telling you that this is a yes-or-no question. ‘cold war’ is a key term and  the focus of the question. (end of examples)

3. creating an essay plan, which comprises three parts. a working thesis, or how you will answer the question, the main points of your essay, or how you will prove your thesis is true, and the order of those points, or how you will organise your answer.

an example essay plan based on the earlier question: was the cold war a real or imagined conflict? working thesis: the cold war was a real conflict because it had real, unquestionable, and lasting impacts. main points in order: the impact off the arms race on modern nuclear arsenals, the impact of the korean and vietnam wars, and the impact of the ideological division of europe. this is a highly oversimplified plan! (end of example and planning section)

(section 2) the research stage: gathering information

1. determine what you need to know using these three questions to help narrow the scope of your research. what types of sources do you need? (e.g. journal articles, primary sources, books, etc.) what information are you looking for? what evidence do you need to back up your main points?

2. make a research log: a single document that contains all the information you need to write your essay. below is a screenshot of a table. the top row is a colour-coding system to split evidence by body paragraph. below, the left column is for in-text citations or footnotes for each source. the next column is for the page numbers of each quote. the final and largest column is for the quotes or evidence themselves.

final note: make sure to create your bibliography as you go!