The Basics Of Essay Writing

The Basics Of Essay Writing This material was formerly posted at and was moved to this domain in the summer of 2010. The views expressed here are my own and may not reflect those of George Mason University. to enhance your subject knowledge;to cite references for ideas and numerical data included;to paraphrase the content, in line with your school's academic integrity policy. We value the trust you instill in us and even though we provide last minute essay help, it’s never at the cost of quality. What might be the immediate negative reaction of someone reading your central claim? How can you defend yourself against that response? Ideally you want to be able to split your burdens of proof into a few different points. Start your intro with the central claim of your essay. If I’m reading it, I want to know within literally five seconds what you’re trying to convince me of. If I see an argument citing an author whom nobody else has mentioned, and it’s a decent argument, it will make my day. You will save yourself literally days over the course of your university career. They allow you to reference as you write, and you can create and reformat your bibliography and citations at the touch of a button. Finally, make sure you formulate every claim in the strongest possible terms. Don’t make your opponent look like they have no arguments, or take the weakest version of their argument. Look at every premise you’ve used and claim you’ve made. Be aware whilst you’re reading that all arguments and authors are fallible. Think about the text you’re reading and think how you might respond to it. This is the single easiest way to get more marks. Write out that response, then tell me why it doesn’t defeat your argument, or at least why it only mitigates it. This is the stuff that actually makes up your argument. If you perform poorly at this, you might as well pack up and go home. Next, think about what you need to prove in order to make that claim. Ninety nine percent of the structure of your essay is exactly the same as you learned in secondary school. You might think you’re too good for Point, Evidence, Explain. How are you going to relate your argument to the existing literature? Make sure you know their arguments reasonably well and have armed yourself with flexible quotes from their work. If you can, familiarise yourself with the people who think they’re wrong and awful. Figure out if there are arguments which are unresolved and see if you can make a contribution towards resolving them. You don’t want to get penalised because you didn’t reference your readings properly after you’ve put in all that effort to make sure that your arguments are founded in the literature. If the reading list is really short, you’ll need to go beyond it. Look through the reference lists of the papers and books you’ve just read. After you read your assessment notification, you need to plan and scaffold your essay. This will ensure that you organise your thoughts and ideas in a structured and logical manner instead of brain dumping everything in your essay. You should be writing notes during the 2nd and 3rd to document your findings. You also need to update your notes after every reading to consolidate your understanding of the text. Once you’ve written the whole essay, read over it again. Mark out a few of the most promising-looking readings. You have a big test coming up, and you know it’s going to include an essay question that will account for a large percentage of your grade for the semester. Or maybe your teacher is assigning an essay question for your final assignment. This site is maintained by Zachary M. Schrag, Professor of History at George Mason University. Think about the strongest possible response to the claim you’ve put forward, then beat that. If you’re making a claim, you need to tell me why that claim is correct. Think of a potential response to your argument, perhaps from an author you’re arguing against.