Prepping for the essay

So, I know this is going to seem counterintuitive or just plain crazy, but trust me, there’s a method to this madness. Before you do anything else, figure out your referencing. It’ll make everything else much easier, and screwing this up can have bigger consequences than just getting a bad grade. 

Referencing

The first thing you need to do, before even looking at the essay question, is to find out what referencing system your professor/college/department uses. It’s important to get this information before you start researching, because you can make your life a lot easier by using incorporating the referencing system into all of the notes you’re going to be taking. You don’t want to come to your notes while writing your essay and find the perfect quote that would support your point only to find that you forgot to write down the source and so now you can’t use it. 

If you can’t provide the correct reference, YOU CAN NOT USE THAT SOURCE. Using it without referencing the author and publication would be plagiarism, and you can be kicked out of university if your professor catches you doing it. Also, you can’t just make up a reference. Your professor knows your topic better than you and will likely as not know the origin of your quote. Even if they don’t, there’s plagiarism checking software out there that everyone’s essays get run through, and that will pick up on your fake reference. So don’t try to scam the system. Not only is it stupid, but it’s wrong. Someone worked hard to create the source you’re referencing. It’s only right that you give them the appropriate shoutout.

So, before you start hitting the books, hit up your professor and make sure you know which referencing system you’re supposed to use – the MLA, the APA, the Harvard, or the MHRA. And do this for every class because, if you’re studying full time, you’re doing a lot of classes and, odds are, not all of them are using the same system. While these systems all serve basically the same purpose, they aren’t interchangeable. Each of them is a little different from the others. So, once you know which system you’re using, go and find out just what exactly that means with regards to the sorts of information you’re supposed to provide, and how you’re supposed to provide it. When you look up the particulars of this style, you’ll probably see one or more examples. Create an example, do something to it to remind you it’s an example and not one of your notes, and stick it somewhere obvious so that you can reference it both while doing your research (so you get all the information you need when making your notes), and when writing the essay (so you can check you’ve included all that juicy information when you’re proofreading your work). 

Starting the Essay

Now that you know how to make sure you don’t accidentally plagiarise anything and get yourself kicked out of school, you’re going to want to take a look at the essay question. Ideally, you’d have access to all the assessment questions from the first week. That’s not always the case though. And, also ideally, you’d have some choice as to what topics you were going to write about. Sometimes your professor will set the essay question and sometimes they’ll provide a list of questions you can choose from. If you’re lucky enough to get a choice, make it as early as you can. If you can choose your topic early, you’ll have more time to do in-depth research. A lot of the readings the professor gives you will probably touch on your topic in one way or another, and, if you’re paying attention from the start, you can take note of these and include all the relevant quotes in your list of sources.

So, the first thing you should do is create a document with the name of your class, the assessment number, and the word ‘sources’ or ‘notes’ in there, e.g. Eng Lit – Ass 1 – sources. You need to do this even before you create the document in which you’re going to write the essay itself, because you’re going to be dropping references and ideas into this doc long before you start writing the essay. Then, when it comes time to write the essay, you’ll want to name it pretty much the same way, e.g. Eng Lit – Ass 1 – essay. If you’re submitting your assessment via email, the professor will probably want you to include extra information like your name, student number, and class ID number in the file name as well. But they’ll tell you this at the start of class. Make sure you take note of this and follow it properly. If you don’t, your professor will probably just give you an F rather than checking with you about whether you submitted your essay or not. They don’t usually have the time or energy to check in on all their hundreds of students, not when it’s your responsibility to make sure you’re following the guidelines.

Choosing the question

Okay. So your professor has given you half a dozen or a dozen essay topics to choose from. Why? Well, partly because it’s really boring for them to read a couple of hundred essays all dealing with exactly the same topic, especially when they’re written by undergraduates who are still struggling to come up with original ideas. Having all those students writing about a variety of topics makes it a lot more interesting for them, and a lot easier for you. 

The reason it’s easier for you is because you get to look at that list and pick the topic that resonates with you. It might be something you already know something about, or it might be something that you’re really interested in learning more about. Either way, your interest in the topic is going to make it a lot easier to research and write. Being interested in a topic always makes it easier to learn.

One of the other points you need to keep in mind when choosing the question is, is this something I think I can actually do? The topic might be interesting, but if it’s asking you to ‘Justify’ something that you don’t think you can justify, then you might want to pick a different topic. 

Analysing the question

Alright. So, regardless of whether you got to choose the topic or had to take the one you were given, once you have it, you need to analyse it. Some of these topics are presented as questions, others as statements. 

The first thing you need to do is to read it carefully and pick out any key words, words like – 

These indicate the kind of essay your professor expects you to write. (See the post on What is an essay for more on the different types.)

Once you’ve worked out just what sort of essay the professor wants, and what exactly they’re expecting in the essay, you can think about how you are going to answer the question or respond to the prompt. I suggest copying the question, using the exact wording, into both your ‘sources’ and ‘essay’ document. Somewhere at the top is a good spot. You can always delete it from your essay before you send it off to be graded, but this puts the topic right where you can see it whenever you’re making notes or writing the essay. Having it there as a constant reference helps you to stay on point when crafting your essay.

Analysing the question isn’t just so you know what sort of essay to write, it’s also so that you know what sort of answer to provide. I’ve seen too many students lose marks, or even fail, because they didn’t read the question carefully and so wrote an essay that, however interesting or well written, didn’t provide an adequate response to the topic raised or question posed. These are assessment essays. You can’t just write whatever you want and call it good. The assessment isn’t about whether you can write in English, though terrible grammar will probably lose you marks, it’s about whether you know enough about the topic to answer the question, or about showing that you have the skills to uncover that knowledge. This is a prime difference between a language proficiency essay and a university assessment essay. 

Just to reiterate, you should carefully read through the question and analyse the topic before you start researching so that you know both what sort of essay you’re writing and what answer/response you need to provide. Knowing what it is that the professor wants will give your research direction, and save you time and effort. Having some idea of what your answer to the question will be will allow you to look for supporting evidence and opinions in the assigned readings. It will also allow you to follow all those lose threads to other, non-assigned texts from which you can pull quotes. Doing this makes a good impression on your professor, and, all other things being good, will probably get you a higher grade.