GUIDELINES ON ESSAY WRITING AND REFERENCING
When preparing an essay, we strongly encourage you to discuss your essay plan with the relevant module tutor in good time before the submission date.
What do we look for in an essay?
Writing an essay is an opportunity for you to review your understanding of an area of the course, and provides us with a guide to your progress. You should use the essays as a focus for your reading, and as a device for sorting out your ideas about an issue. We therefore expect a well-structured piece of writing, showing a critical awareness of the relevant literature, and an ability to organise arguments and evidence relevant to the essay title. You may wish to use the following points as a general check-list or guide in relation to the planning and writing of your essay:
1. Essay Introduction
how to writing essay Begin your essay with an introduction outlining what will be covered/argued in the essay: a brief outline of what you intend to focus on, how your discussion will be structured, issues that will be discussed and sources/theories/evidence that you intend to draw on.
2. Essay Structure
The basic ingredients of any essay are its introduction, the body of the text and a conclusion. The body of your essay needs to demonstrate clear links with the question(s) you are addressing throughout. Its structure should follow the outline set out in the introduction and may benefit from the periodic use of clear and appropriate sub-headings to indicate where the essay is going. The text should also show clear patterns of continuity and progression from one point to another. Conclusions to the essay should not only summarize the key points, but also indicate the significance/implications of what has been discussed and some of the insight that you or the reader can draw from the essay.
3. Demonstration of Understanding
The body of your essay should indicate that you clearly understand the issues under discussion. To do this, there needs to be a logical progression of the points discussed, an indication of how key terms are understood and are being used, and the periodic illustration of abstract or theoretical points with relevant examples or evidence. You might also indicate how questions of theory under discussion link up with issues of method, i.e. what research methods can be, or have been, used to explore the theoretical points being discussed?
4. Breadth of Material Covered
http://www.400190.com/Thesis_Tips/Handbook/Your essayshould draw on a suitably broad range of references from the recommended readings. You should avoid over-reliance on any single source. The sources you draw on should be used to illustrate points that you are making, and youshould clearly indicate how the materials drawn on facilitate consideration of the issues involved. You also need to show awareness of how the question, your approach to it and/or the materials you draw on illuminate certain aspects of a topic/subject and not others. In order to accomplish this latter goal, you need to consider what types of questions/issues are not being explored and suggest why these areas are not/should not be included in your discussion. #p#分頁標題#e#
5. Description and Analysis
As you write your essay be sure to not only describe the way the issues have been, or can be, thought about, but also the implications of thinking about an issue in certain ways and not others. That is, you need to describe the way in which researchers/authors have thought about the issues under consideration and analyse the implications associated with different ways of thinking about the topics being considered in your essay. To describe things is to indicate how things are, while an analytical approach focuses on significance and interpretation and seeks to explain why things are the way they are.
Some Dos and Don'ts in essay writing
1. DO read the essay title carefully. Decide what the question is really about; what are the key phrases or concepts?
2. DON'T write everything you know about the topic alluded to by the title: try to organise your essay around the theme or question.
3. DO make a plan or outline before you write your first draft. Ask yourself if the essay makes a logical argument with a clear conclusion. Does it review the appropriate range of material?
4. DON'T make assertions without necessary evidence or argument to support them. We are interested in your views and opinions, but the essay should demonstrate how they are arrived at.
5. DO acknowledge by proper referencing (see below) all quotations, or allusions to other people's work. Please remember that plagiarism is unacceptable and will be heavily penalised.
6. DON'T simply invite the reader in a footnote to "see also x, y, z". This is appropriate in a publication, but in a student essay we want to see what you know about x, y and z, not merely that you have heard of them.
7. DO make sure you have read all the relevant material in the reading lists before completing the essay, but do not feel obliged to mention everything.
8. DON'T feel obliged to regurgitate lecture material or rehearse the presumed views of teaching staff. Lectures are intended to guide your reading and act as a framework for your studies but they are not sources of inviolate orthodoxy.
Presentation
1. Essays relating to First Semester Modules should be 3000-4000 words, certainly no longer.
2. Essays should be typed or word-processed.
3. Type or print on one side of the paper (A4) only.
4. Number each page clearly.
5. Include a title page with the essay title, question number, module name, a word count, and your name.
6. Footnotes should be kept to a minimum. They should be indicated by raised numbers (1,2, etc.) in the text, and should be reserved for additional information which would interrupt the flow of the main body of the essay.
7. References should be indicated using the APA citation style, i.e. by parentheses in the text following a quote or indirect reference to somebody else's work, e.g. (McQuail, 2000). See the further details on bibliography and citation style at the end of these guidelines. #p#分頁標題#e#
8. At the end of the essay include an alphabetical bibliography of all items referred to in the essay. The bibliography should only contain details of publications actually http://www.400190.com/Thesis_Tips/Handbook/referred to - either through direct quotation or indirectly - in the text of the essay. See the further details on bibliography and citation style at the end of these guidelines.
how to writing essay The front page of all submitted work must contain the following:
• The student's name and signature.
• The name of the course or option module to which the assignment relates.
• The assignment number.
• The title (and number, if applicable) of the essay/assignment.
• A word count.