Generally speaking, essays should reflect a sound knowledge of the
main theoretical and practical questions involved as well as your ability
to form an independent and critical opinion on the validity of
theoretical arguments, both vis-à-vis competing theoretical views and
empirical developments as you see them.
Perhaps the most important point about essay writing is to keep in
mind that clarity and concision of argument and presentation are
absolutely vital. However sophisticated your understanding of a
particular topic may be, if you fail to make your arguments in a
coherent, concise and clearly structured fashion – getting lost in detail,
trying to fit in too much, failing to make clear transitions from one
argument to the next, etc. – your essay will not be a success.
In addition, the following guidelines may be helpful;
Once you have chosen a topic, it is important that you realise that
there are many ways in which you can address this topic. You may be
broadly interested in a particular topic, but, given the word limit, the
general topic will almost always be too broad to cover
comprehensively. Think about the particular argument you want to
make in the context of the overall topic: Why are these questions
important? Why should the reader be interested in them?
Set out an essay plan, however brief, that lists central aspects of the
questions and issues you are going to address in a logical order. Try to
think about theoretical and applied issues raised by these questions
and make a clear statement of each position involved, while relating to
the main conceptual approaches to respond to these questions and the
particular contexts to which they are relevant and/or have been
applied. In constructing your essay, begin with a clear statement of the
precise problem/question(s) you are addressing. This should help you
organise your essay, in particular, to decide what should be included
and what should not.
Next, think about and organise your sources: these can be primary
(original documents, speeches, empirical data) or secondary (journal
articles, monographs, etc.), or both. Think about and explain why you
are using particular sources as opposed to others, what their
limitations are, and what the limitations of your essay are (e.g. why you
can cover a particular time period, but not another, why a particular
country/region and not another, why a particular angle (policy question)
and not a related one, etc.). While it is important that you specify
reasons for the way in which you approach the topic, keep such
explanations short and introductory. They should not distract from
your substantial discussion of the topic.
Always use several sources. It is important that you place your own
argument in the context of existing debates, particularly when an issue
is controversial. Set out the main existing viewpoints, there similarities
and differences, and relate your own argument to these viewpoints in a
systematic manner: What do you agree with and why? What do you
disagree with and why? Put differently, it is important to cover existing
debates (i.e. provide a brief literature review), but it is even more
important to make points you find in the literature part of your own
argument (while always clarifying the source).
Essays can easily turn into a jumble of quotes and paraphrases of
different authors/sources without a clear underlying direction. Try
to provide a coherent analysis of a theoretical problem, or where
appropriate, even to tell a coherent narrative, rather than to make a
long list of points, and to keep in mind that quotations should only
always support an argument and never replace it.
While reading widely is very important, synthesising what you have
read and relating it to your own argument is even more important.
Therefore, even during the reading phase, avoid getting lost in too
much detail, and focus on the essential arguments made in a text.
Once you have clarified how to address a topic, what your own
argument/story will be and have finished reading the secondary
literature (and/or interpreting primary sources), it can be helpful to
draw an “essay map”. Essentially, this is a visual representation of all
the arguments/points you wish to make (including your own and the
sources you are using) and how you want to organise them in a logical
order with a clear direction of the argument. Such an “essay map”
should consist of key definitions and terms as well as of keywords for
each of the arguments/points involved in the story you will tell/analysis
you wish to present. Once you start writing, you can then turn each of
these keywords into one or several paragraphs according to the overall
essay structure you have adopted. However, “essay maps” work for
some students and not necessarily for others. Sometimes, arguments
only fall into place in the process of writing up. In this case, it is very
important to start writing early on so that you have enough time
to re-organise and re-write parts of your written essay.