How To Write An Undergraduate Essay: A Step-by-Step Guide

Emma Southon

Step One: Choose a Title

• Choose a title you find interesting!

• Choose a question you have an opinion on.

• Choose a title you have an answer for.

Read!

• Read your primary sources FIRST if possible.

• Read around the topic: Read some general texts.

DO NOT RELY ON THE INTERNET!

Critical Reading

• What is the main argument?• How well is the argument supported?• Is it possible to disagree with any of this?• How does this text relate to others on the subject.

• Does it agree or disagree?• Similar themes?• When was it published?

• What is this text?• Where is it from?• When was it published?• What kind of text is it?

Constantly Question Your Texts!

Answer the Damn Question

• Work out your answer to the question you are being asked.

• Find the primary materials necessary to support your argument.

• Pull out relevant/important quotes• Find patterns

Read a bit more

• Read more specific articles/books/chapters.• SKIM books/indices/articles for relevant bits

– Don’t read the whole thing!• Reduce each item to a 2 line synopsis

– Does the author agree/disagree with your argument?

– How do they support their view?– Can you find the flaws?

• Read lots, read quickly.

PLAN!

• Plan your essay, – with a logical progression through your

narrative/argument.

• Include your quotes from primary and secondary sources.

• Show it to someone (preferably me).

Start Writing

• Write a proper introduction and conclusion. • Lay out your main point and its progression

in the first couple of sentences of your introduction!

• Sum up your argument and precisely what you have been attempting to convey concisely and confidently in your conclusion.

Rule One:BE CONFIDENT!

Rule Two:ANSWER THE FRAKKING

QUESTION!

Rule Three:BASE YOUR ARGUMENT ON

PRIMARY EVIDENCE!

Overly Hopeful Advice:

• Write your essay. Spend time on it. DO NOT WRITE IT THE NIGHT BEFORE!

• Finish at least 2 days before the deadline. • Give it to someone you trust to be honest

with you to read! Ask them to tell you about spelling/grammar errors, repetition of points, illogical or confused structure, use of quotes and references

• Stay away from it for 48 hours. Go back with fresh eyes, re-read, implement your friends advice (if it is good advice) and re-write. Don’t hand in a first, un-read draft.

• Check referencing, bibliography formatting and proofread again. Do not lose marks here – it is painful and not worth it.

Part Two: Referencing.

When to ReferenceQuotes – primary and secondaryEmbedded quotes

Barratt argues that the perceived change in Gaius’ behaviour is ‘likely to be the residual effects of the illness,’ but many others disagree with this conclusion.1

1. A. Barratt, Caligula: The Corruption of Power (London, 1983), p. 78

Longer quotes•

– As Barrett concludes:If Caligula was mad, he was not the type of potty eccentric typified by a Ludwig of

Bavaria, but a much more frightening Stalinesque figure, capable of rational decisions, capable of statesman-like acts (when it suited him), but morally neutral, determined to sweep all before

him in the pursuit of his own personal ends and ultimately indifferent to the consequences of

his actions.1

1. A. Barratt, Caligula: The Corruption of Power (London, 1983), p. 78

Empirical Statementsand Statistics

– As a child Gaius was often affectionately called Caligula by the army, a nickname meaning Little Boots.1

1.Suet, Cal 9.– Preferably to primary literature.

Paraphrase

– While this may not be representative of actual behaviour, the image of a Roman mother as an authoritarian, a transmitter of traditional morality and an educator is consistent in Roman literary sources.1

1.S. Dixon, The Roman Mother (Baltimore, 1988), pp. 15-17

To support your argument

– Preferably to primary material– The superlative Roman mothers, whose behaviours

were held up as exemplars, are moral guides and active intercessors in their children’s lives.1

1.Veturia: Livy, 2.39.1-40; Plut, Cor 33-36; Cornelia: Plut, Gaius Gracchus 13; Cicero, Pro Cae 211; Cornelius Nepos, On the Latin Historians Frags 1&2; Atia: Nicolaus of Damascas, Life of Augustus Frag 127; Tac, Dial 28; Suet, Aug 61.2; Aurelia: Tac, Dial 28; Plut, Caesar 7.3; 9).

How to Reference

Authored Book

• Author- title- (place of publication-year of publication).

• H. Pelling, Origins of the Labour Party (London, 1965), p. 65

Articles (Book & Journal)– Journal

• A. Pacemaker, ‘Martian sociology and the question of gender’, Journal of Interplanetary Studies, 3 (1993), pp. 1-34.

– Edited Book• C. Rainbird, ‘Problems of excavation,’ in

W.C. Bloodhound (ed.), Leafy Groves: An Anthology (Scunthorpe, 1966), pp. 35-55.

Multiple volumes

• E. S. de Beer, ed., The Correspondence of John Locke (8 vols., Oxford, 1976-89), V, p. 54.

Repeat References

• Pelling, Labour Party, p. 87.or

• Ibid., p. 87