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Tips Beasiswa
How to write a structured essay
By Eastchance.com
During your academic work, or even as part of your
application, youwill have to write essays on different
topics. It is well to know thatthe generally accepted
way of writing these essays demands complianceto a
number of ｫ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 (thesisstatement) 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 processｻ, rather than ｫI wish to analyse
the differences in the economic well-being of countries
in transitionｻ.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. Threearguments 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 ｫtopic sentenceｻ,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 ｫ What
would you do if you were the manager of a plant and why
? ｻ. 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.
Good luck with this one as well!
Source:
http://www.eastchance.com/howto/struct_es.asp
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