Could you please give any tips on getting a first in a humanities/essay writing subject? My essays right now are high 2:1s and getting 1sts seems to be a bit of hit and miss. Im a fresher so dont really know how to go about this. Thanks!
Itâs really hard to pin down exactly what could push your essay up to a 1st without having actually read it. I would highly recommend going to your supervisors for the individual papers and having a chat with them about where they think you can improve. Theyâve had a lot of time to get familiar with your writing style and believe me, they want the best for you in these exams, so theyâll be happy to help you identify points in your writing that could be weak. Also, different subjects have slightly different ways of writing essays and therefore different focus points â something that may be really important in one subject may be less important in another, and itâs only through talking to your supervisors that youâll learn whatâs key in yours.
All that being said, here are a couple of things that I think are important:Â
1. Originality: this is kind of the key defining feature of a first, but itâs really hard to pin down. It doesnât mean that you have to come up with a brand new argument â instead, it means including something in your essay thatâs a bit different. It could be a critical assessment of the material youâre using (is it severely limited in its support for the argument? Why? What are the implications?), an example/theory that youâve derived from material not on the reading list, a new interpretation of an example (ie. if itâs interpreted using (x) theory from the reading it means this, but if you interpret it using (x) theory not from the reading it could mean this), drawing a link between different parts of the paper/different papers etc. Itâs important though not to sacrifice the quality of your essay in your attempt to be original (i.e. donât just throw something with a very tenuous link to your overall argument in because it wasnât on the reading list â it has to be well-incorporated); you donât want to be told that your essay was original and good, but the parts that were original werenât good and the parts that were good werenât original (yes, I totally stole that from a professor).Â
2. Coherence: structure is absolutely positively 100% key. If youâve got all the right information, but itâs all over the place with no clear argument, then you canât get a first. Make sure youâve got a strong thesis statement (what makes up a strong thesis statement differs across subjects -- some want a âthis is what iâm going to argueâ, some want âthis is what Iâm going to argue and this is what Iâm going to do to argue itâ, some want a list of factors that youâre going to consider blah blah -- it can be very very variable), and make sure that at the end of each paragraph, you link back to the question. Like great, youâve said all this cool stuff -- how does it answer the question? What does it mean? Also make sure youâre linking between your paragraphs very clearly, and that the beginning of each paragraph has a strong topic sentence. The examiner may have read several essays by the time s/he gets to yours. S/heâs going to be tired -- donât make them work hard, give them a very clear indicator of what youâre argument is. Also make sure you finish your essay. Even a one sentence conclusion is better than no conclusion, because at least youâre not leaving them hanging!Â
3. Opinion. This sort of ties into originality, but if you just restate the lecture material in a nice organised way, youâre not going to get more than a 2.i. You need to be arguing a point, you need to be bringing your opinion into the mix. The way you do this will depend on the essay -- for some, youâll be able to intersperse it in the essay in each paragraph, for others you may not be able to bring it in until the end. But youâve got to make sure that youâre putting in your opinion of the evidence/arguments.
Oh, and of course #4: Answer the question. If youâve got a question thatâs similar to a supervision question, donât just jump in with your supo essay without reading what youâre being asked to answer. Make sure to argue your point in a way that relates to the question -- by referring back to the question at the end of each paragraph, when youâre doing the whole âthis evidence is cool but hereâs why it mattersâ, you can do this pretty well.