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This page is designed to help you write
an essay as a part of your "A" Level studies in biology, but
there is no reason why you should not use it just because you are writing
an essay in another subject. You will still need to do some research,
plan, draft and proof-read your essay. Anyone reading your essay will
expect to find some kind of introduction, they will expect to follow a
logical argument, and will expect there to be a conclusion.
If you follow the methods and structure
suggested below your essays should be easier to write, easier to read, and
score higher marks than your previous essays. I hope that you will find
writing essays becomes a much more enjoyable and valuable exercise than it
was in the past.
If you find this page useful please
e-mail your comments to me at: nigel@purchon.com
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- The Stages
in writing your essay should be:
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When you have been given the essay title or
topic you should start your research immediately. Start with the notes
that you took in class. Write a list of "key words". Now go to
your text book. Look up the key words and check that you know their
meanings. Decide which ones are relevant to the essay title. Read the
text book; do NOT copy out pages of text at this stage. At this level in
your studies you must consult more than one book. You will find books in
a library!!!
You should end up with a list of
references to your notes and text books, e.g. "Phillips p87 key
word", or "Class notes Page/Topic reference" or
"Phillips Page 207 Diagram 11a". This might be a single page.
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The first thing to do when you plan your essay
is to arrange all the key words on ONE page. This might be a list or it
might be a "spider diagram". Highlight or underline words
using different colours to show where these will appear in you essay.
Use green to show what will go in the introduction, blue to mark the
body text of the essay, and red to show what will go in the conclusion.
Don't worry too much about this now, you can always change you mind when
you start to draft the essay.
You should end up with a list of
words. This might be a single page.
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Now that you have done some reading and
thinking about the essay you will be able to decide what the essay is
really about, i.e. what the theme is. Try to write ONE paragraph which
other students would understand to explain what the essay is about. Now
write a list of the main ideas which you think should be included in the
essay.
You should end up with a list ideas.
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- Structure
- Introduction
- This section
is probably just the first paragraph; it should be an overview
of the content of the essay. You might find it easier to write
after you have drafted the main content of the essay.
- Text
- This is the
main content of the essay. When you draft it you can write
individual paragraphs on separate sheets of paper. You can
then arrange the paragraphs into a sensible order without
having to do lots of arrows, numbering or crossing out.
- Conclusion
- Here you are
writing a summary of your essay. You should include the main
points in the content of your essay and justify your
conclusions. By now you should be an expert on the subject of
your essay. If your tutor does not learn something when
reading your work you should be disappointed.
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This stage involves writing paragraphs. It is
sensible to use a whole sheet of A4 to write one paragraph. If you use
double or triple spacing there will be room for you to make corrections
and alterations. When you have finished drafting the individual sections
of the essay you can start to put them into the most suitable sequence.
When you have finished the draft you should read through to see if there
is a logical progression to your essay. You should also check back to
you plan to see if you have covered everything that you intended to
write.
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When you have completed and checked the draft
you should make a "fair copy" of your work. This must be
proof-read, i.e. checked for grammatical and spelling errors.
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Although this is the last section of your
essay, you can construct it as you draft the essay. The Bibliography
must show what texts you have consulted. Each reference shows the Title,
Author, Publisher, & Date.
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More "A" Level pages are available at:
Gondar Biology.
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