How to write a structured essay

During your academic work, or even as part of your application, you will have to write essays on different topics. It is well to know that the generally accepted way of writing these essays demands complianceto a number of “academic writing” rules, mostly related to the structure of the essay. Some of these rules are outlined below.

Even when assigned, the topics on which the essay should be written aregenerally quite broad, allowing the narrowing of the topic. You shouldfirst do some research and try to get an idea about what has beenwritten on the topic so far. Most often, your essay will build on,analyse or criticize one or more pieces of work, while building an ownposition.

In the introduction, you should clearly state the subjectyou are going to deal with, the narrowed topic, if any, and theposition you are going to take. Specifying the position (thesis statement) is one of the most difficult parts of writing a structuredessay. In the end, you should be able to state in one phrase what yourthesis is. It should be narrow, specific and clear. You should notpromise to analyse, review, interrogate or examine a problem, but tofind and defend a specific side in the debate. As an example, a goodthesis sounds like ｫI will argue that the differences in economicstatus between the countries in transition are the result of economicpolicy options made at the beginning of the transformation processes, rather than I wish to analyse the differences in the economic well-being of countries in transition. Version A takes a stand, defends it and by introducing a new idea,contributes to the debate, while version B merely points to some facts.The thesis statement is one of the few places in the essay where it isacceptable to use the first person writing, while most of the restshould be written in the third person. Announcing the organisation ofthe essay is what follows the thesis statement in the introduction.Depending on the size of the essay, you will develop a number ofarguments to defend your thesis. It is advisable to enumerate thosearguments in the paragraph following the thesis statement. “Three arguments defending the thesis will be presented. First, it will bepointed out that … . The second argument developed will be that … .Finally, it will be proved that … “

The body of the essay should discuss the arguments youpresented, preferably in the order that you have announced. Eachchapter/paragraph starts in a well-written essay with a “topic sentence“,restating the argument and the author’s position to it. In case you usechapters, give them names that respect the structure and make thelecture easier. The discussion should follow the statement of eachargument in a manner resembling the overall organisation of the essay: facts, ideas, and opinions of authorities in the field, as well as ownreasoning should be brought in the discussion one by one. In the end,it should be examined whether the argument survived the debate or not,inside a conclusive sentence/paragraph.

Conclusions. When all the arguments have been presented anddiscussed, the essay closes the end, and you should be able to presentthe conclusions. If the essay has been well written and organised, thearguments have been proved and, together, they prove your thesis. Youonly have to show that, note the progress that has been made in theresearch of the examined subject, mention its possible implications.

A possible, but not mandatory section, usually met in academic papers on more important dimensions, is the limitations.Here you can note the limitations of your reasoning, assumptions heldtrue, but which if proved wrong could invalidate your conclusions,aspects that have not been brought under scrutiny, possible conditionsthat could limit the impact of your conclusions, etc.

The specified size of the essay is, unless otherwise stated, under the+-10% rule. That is, the entire text should not be shorter or longerthan the suggested size with more than 10% of that size. Ex: for a 3000words essay, it is acceptable to write 2700-3300 words. Use the Word’sWord Count function to see the size of your essay measured in words.

In some, very very rare cases, it is very difficult to reduce yourposition in the essay to a thesis. It is acceptable in such cases, forreasons of clarity, to replace the thesis with a research question,that should meet the same requirements, with the exception of the factthat the author postponed taking a stand until the end of the paper. Wedo not recommend such an approach; still, if it happens, make sure youdirectly address and answer the research question in the closing ofyour essay. The reason we support these strict rules that, we admit,make writing rather boring, is simply put, quantity. Think how manyessays will read the examiner or university recruiter, essays that haveto say more or less the same thing. You surely want under theseconditions, in order to increase your chances, to make the lecturer痴mission as easy and pleasant as possible, don’t you? This is why werecommend you to enforce those rules.

An academic essay necessarily contains a bibliography, where you quoteall the sources used. Western universities tend to be very rigid withplagiarism rules. So quote every source you have used. In the body ofthe essay, avoid lengthy citation, use paraphrasing – saying with yourown words what other guy said before. If you quote, make it clear, andgive the source! In any case, referencing should be used only to startdiscussing an argument, never to end it.

In some essays, like those that you write when applying for an MBA, you have to answer question like “What would you do if you were the manager of a plant and why ?”. In this situation, the rules explained above do not apply thatrigidly. You should maintain a clear structure, but a bibliography isno longer necessary, since your answer will be more practical-orientedthan theoretical.

Source: http://www.eastchance.com/howto/struct_es.asp