Essay Writing

With apologies to those of you whose essays are already in - and thanks for being the pioneers (!) - I'm putting up here some advice I composed at the request of an individual student so that you can all benefit from it, and to stimulate some discussion about how you guys go about the task of researching and writing essays. Even if your essay for this unit is already in, it's not too late to benefit from this kind of virtual ideas workshop - you take these skills with you into the future of your degree and your later careers, so make the most of the opportunity!
Kathleen

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There is a lot of information out there, so it's good to built strategies now that can help you manage it. Obviously, there is so much to know you can't actually say it all in 1750 words, so you need to be focused and selective. I tend to be much more focused on the primary stuff, so others might do it differently, but here is one strategy that you can use to try and keep on track:

• First, read the question closely, and determine what it is actually asking you. (If you like to take notes on the computer, I'd even say to copy and paste it into the header of your document so that it's always right in front of you; or alternately write it into your notebook in big colourful letters.)
• Sketch out a draft plan of the points you think you need to cover in order to answer the question - you might create a new page/file for each point, or do it all in one document/notebook.
• Read one, general, secondary source to give you the context, like dates, etc. that you need to interpret where primary sources fit, and take notes that give you the skeleton of the issue.
• Then, search for primary sources on the topic and skim them to see if they relate in any way to the question. Note the relevant quotes you might want to use, including the publication details (for the footnotes), on the file or page for the point you think they relate to (or if you prefer to keep all your notes together, you can go through later and use coloured highlighters, or numbers in the margin, etc. to categorise your evidence). Note why you thought it might be useful (because it's easy to forget later).
• Once you have at least one interesting quote per point you want to make, read some more secondary sources to see what other historians have said about the topic. Note whether they agree or disagree with the picture you are building up from the primary stuff, and make notes to yourself about why you agree or disagree with them. Categorise these notes like you did with the primary sources, under points relevant to the main question.
• Look back over what you have - see if you are satisfied the information you have collected answers the question thoroughly (for the available words), and logically, with as few loose ends as practical. If not, you might need to do a bit more research.
  
• Look back to see if the draft points you designed in the beginning need to be reordered to make sense.
• Write a paragraph about each point, using the notes you have made from the categorised primary and secondary sources, then add an introduction and conclusion that links the argument you have made directly to the question.
• And you're done!

Here are some other handy links about essay writing from the interwebs, and don't forget the handy links to the right of screen...

• University of Kent essay advice
  
• University of Toronto essay advice 
• 'Best Essay' tips on research.
  
• Even Wikibooks has something useful to contribute!

Discussion welcome...