How to Write: Successful Essays, Dissertations, and Exams by Chris Mounsey;

Author:Chris Mounsey;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OUP Premium
Published: 2009-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

9 More about writing

CONTENTS

Have I answered the question?

Too much information

Drafting and redrafting

Some common errors to look out for

Another strategy for writing essays

When you have written a few essays and are writing essays that count towards your degree, you will need to make them extra-specially good. This chapter teaches you how to be self-critical so that you can really shine.

First, write your essay well before the deadline. Then put it aside for a few days. Return to it as the deadline approaches. Read it through to see if it still makes as much sense to you as it did when you first wrote it. Ask yourself questions about the essay. Does it communicate what you thought it did when you first wrote it? Would someone else understand it easily? Most of all, ask:

Have I answered the question?

In Chapter 2, ‘Looking at questions’, we saw that questions did not look for a particular answer. We saw that the coherence of the argument was the most important part of the essay, not the point that was argued. ‘Coherence’ means that all the elements of the essay are pulling in the same direction. The three elements of an essay are:

Opinion;

Evidence;

Brevity.

One frequent comment made about an undergraduate essay is that it does not answer the question. To answer the question, you need to have all three of these elements in balance, and it must also refer to the title.

As you read through your essay, you should be reading about your opinion and why it is valid based upon the evidence you have found. As you look out for these factors, ask yourself two more important questions:

Does your opinion cover the same concerns as the question?

Does your evidence apply to your opinion?

If the answer to either question is no, then you have not answered the question.

Examples

You are writing on the essay title: ‘Discuss the importance of the Tizer brand and its role in the development of the marketing mix’.

Your opinion is that the Tizer brand is very successful, and your evidence, based on market research carried out in London, Manchester, and Leeds, shows that the brand is one of the most successful soft drinks in the UK.

You have not answered the question. Your evidence is in order, but your opinion does not explore the role of the brand name in the ‘marketing mix’.

The ‘marketing mix’ in the title suggests that there are a number of factors in the company strategy to sell the product. The question asks you to evaluate the Tizer brand, with relationship to the rest of the ‘marketing mix’. By demonstrating that Tizer is one of the most successful drinks in the UK, you have only gone halfway to fulfilling what has been asked. We need to know how much a drink being called ‘Tizer’ is important in making it successful. However good your evidence, if your opinion does not have any bearing on what the question is after, you have not answered the question.

You are answering the question: ‘To what extent can

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