{"id":6613,"date":"2022-03-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/?p=6613"},"modified":"2022-03-11T13:12:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T13:12:49","slug":"writing-an-essay-step-by-step-guidance-from-the-academic-skills-development-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/writing-an-essay-step-by-step-guidance-from-the-academic-skills-development-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing an essay: step-by-step guidance from the Academic Skills Development Team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A selection of books on academic skills.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not sure about how to start writing an essay?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most frequently asked questions in the academic skills drop-ins in the Walton Library is about how to write an essay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed with how to begin a piece of assessed written work, it is worthwhile thinking about writing as a process as opposed to a final product. Thinking about it in this way means that you break the task down into smaller manageable chunks, but you can also review, reflect, and edit your work as you go along which helps you to meet the marking criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is important to remember that although we call it a process, you are likely to move back and forward between stages reviewing, evaluating, revising, and editing as you go along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A student in the Law Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first stage in the process is planning, this includes looking over the marking scheme as well as the questions, this will give you a clear idea of what the marker is looking for, you can then begin generating ideas, this will lead you to begin the research process.  It is worth reading broadly at first to get an overall picture of your topic, here you\u2019ll use the materials you\u2019ve been taught in lectures, look at your reading list as well as other resources you\u2019ve been directed to. At this stage (and throughout your work) it is a good idea to have the assignment question to hand so that you can refer to it, this will help you keep focussed on the task you\u2019ve been set. You\u2019ll then be in a position to decide how you want to respond to the assignment question, this will then help you source more detailed texts. Deciding on your position at the planning stage will help make your writing focussed and coherent. Once you\u2019ve decided on your position, you can begin to map out a rough plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is important to have a plan because this gives you a clear overview of what you\u2019ll write about, it will guide you as you work through the assignment and will help you ensure that you\u2019ve included everything and addressed the task fully. The plan doesn\u2019t need to be detailed, even a list of headings and subheadings can be helpful to guide you. Regardless of how you plan your work out, this process will enable you to organise your argument and the evidence you\u2019ll use to support this, you can also establish connections between points. It will also help you read with a clear purpose, as you\u2019ll be looking for material to support your point, as opposed to summarising relevant texts and adding them to your work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image courtesy of Glenn Carstens-Peters<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After the planning stage you\u2019ll move onto the composition of the assignment. Here you\u2019ll use the rough plan as a guide, and you\u2019ll begin formatting ideas and incorporating references to support your points.  You\u2019ll think about how to structure and the composition of each paragraph and add the appropriate references. Remember it is important to integrate sources when you are writing, not simply summarise one text per idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then you\u2019ll go over what you\u2019ve written and review it, you should evaluate what you\u2019ve written thinking about the evidence you\u2019ve found and your argument throughout the essay, and as you look through your work you are likely to revise and edit what you\u2019ve got. This process will continue until you have completed your assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reviewing, evaluating, revising, and editing your work is likely to occur in several cycles. Eventually you\u2019ll have a completed draft. At this stage it is worth ensuring that you read the whole piece of work to ensure flow throughout, you can also check for any language, structural, referencing, style or grammar issues. If possible, take a break from writing so that when you do your final checks you are looking at your work with fresh eyes and therefore will be more likely to spot any potential errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our video<\/a> illustrates this process and can help get you started on tackling a piece of work you\u2019ve been given. Don\u2019t forget that we\u2019ll be able to answer your questions about essay writing and much more when we visit the Walton Library for our drop-ins, the next one is scheduled for Wednesday 16th<\/sup> from 11:00-13:00.<\/strong>
We\u2019ll add more dates after the Easter break, however, in the meantime if you\u2019ve got any academic skills queries, we\u2019ve now got a Live Chat widget on all the Academic Skills Kit pages, it\u2019s live from 12:00-16:00 Monday to Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We always love to hear from students, if you\u2019ve got any feedback or questions about our support or resources please get in touch! AcademicSkills@newcastle.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not sure about how to start writing an essay? One of the most frequently asked questions in the academic skills drop-ins in the Walton Library is about how to write an essay. If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed with how to begin a piece of assessed written work, it is worthwhile thinking about writing … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Writing an essay: step-by-step guidance from the Academic Skills Development Team”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8402,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[36,37,38,194,40,41,42],"class_list":["post-6613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-skills","tag-biomed","tag-dentistry","tag-medicine","tag-nutrition-dietetics","tag-pharmacy","tag-psychology","tag-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8402"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6617,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6613\/revisions\/6617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/subject-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}