Writing essays

Abstract

If you are doing a course of some kind that lasts longer than a week, you are likely to have to write essays. Essays are an almost universal form of assessment, and there are some simple rules about writing them that can be learned fairly easily. The aim of this chapter is to make your essay writing easier. It has to be said, though, that some people like writing and write easily, whilst others struggle to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Whether you find it a pleasure or a pain, the keynote, once again is structure. If you can get the structure right you are likely to find the writing easier. This applies if this is your first or your thirty-first essay. No-one should sit down and begin to write the first line of an essay without prior planning. The planning stages of an essay are as follows:

• reading the question

• underlining key words

• brainstorming

• writing the essay outline

• collecting information

Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound

Walter Savage Landor