How to Write an Essay Introduction | Study Coach UK
University students should aim to understand what is a good essay and how to write a good essay and write a good dissertation. Study Coach educational service is here to provide academic support to University students. You owe it to yourself to do well at University or College and to be the best student you can be. Students can freely register for online academic support with Study Coach UK. If a substantial part of your course is now being delivered online, you might also need greater academic support to help you to understand essay requirements and the overall criteria for assignments. Study Coach is online, meaning that our email service is open 24/7, simply send us an email and connect with us; alternatively, give us a call during office hours or send us a text and we will respond. The question of how to write an essay introduction is often asked, we will attempt in this academic blog to give students some guidance on how to write an essay introduction.
How to Write an Essay – The Title
Every essay title contains an actual or implied question. In order to do well, students must ensure that the whole of the essay is focused on the essay title and students must ensure that all aspects of the essay question asked is addressed. It is worthwhile consulting with a Study Skills Handbook to help reinforce why it is important to pay close attention to the essay title. If you have not yet found a Study Skills book, you could take a look at Stella Cottrell’s Handbook (Study Coach UK is not promoting the book, but have found it useful and often make reference to study skills when writing blogs). Take a look at sub-headings in books to identify content on how to write an essay.
How to Write an Essay introduction
In the essay introduction you need to explain what the essay is going to do. Universities will usually provide a word count guide for first year students to help with planning the essay. For example, the guide might say: ‘introduction, approximate 300 words’. Do remember this is a guide, you can write under or over 300 words. The introduction should explain the aim of the assignment, by including a brief explanation of the essay subject and you should outline the contents you intend to cover. The introductory paragraph should explain how you interpret the question, and students should identify issues that they intend to explore in the body of the essay. The introduction should therefore provide a brief outline of how you will deal with each issue identified from analysing the essay title/question and say in which order you will present the issues. The aim is to briefly discuss what the research is about, say why it is important or significant?
If you have been asked to state your proposal or hypotheses, then do so, ensure that it is brief, say what you’re going to show or hope to support. Try not to use the term ‘prove’ if you are dealing with theoretical ideas.
How to Write a good Essay
Analysing the title is important to how to write a good essay, however the essay title is worded you will find that all assignment titles contain a central question which has to be answered. The student’s main task is to apply what you know to the particular problem. Do note that it is not to show how much you know, meaning it is not about writing everything you know about the topic, however brilliant your piece of writing is, if it does not answer the question you may get no marks at all. Students are marked partly on how well they select and organise information to meet the requirements of the title or problem, in order to write a good essay, students therefore need to keep focused on the question asked.
Keeping the focus on set questions is also important when preparing and sitting exams. During exams use the title or question to guide you to recall relevant information and to write a good essay answer or short answer.
Essay Writing – Focus on the Title
Keep the focus on the title, put the title where you can see it easily and keep checking the exact wording as you research and write, through constantly reminding yourself of the exact wording of the title it will help to keep you on track in view of the assessment criteria. It is easy to forget the focus of the title and drift off on a tangent, particularly if you have other assignments to submit and other workload.
Time management is important when writing essays, it is therefore essential to make time to ensure you understand what is required for essay writing. It is advisable when starting to plan an essay to read the title around three times, you could underline or highlight words which indicates the approach to take. You can also underline words which guides you on how to select the subject matter of the assignment, write out the title to help you make sense of it, note how many sections are there to it, and when writing the title rephrase it into your own words. Consider what is the assignment really looking for? What are the central questions to be found in the main question and what topical questions (if any) does it refer to? Essay writing can be a lonely journey, if you have a study buddy or family member who can spare you some time then discuss the question with them. Study Coach UK encourage all students to get in touch prior to the drafting of an essay, we are here to help guide you. Students should consider how the essay title link to what they have read or heard in lectures and students should consider what else the essay question is asking/what they need to find out?
In your introduction in the first paragraph, you should refer directly to the title in order to focus your reader. Explain how you interpret the title, this is where you should rephrase the title in your own words. If you have misunderstood the question, then at least readers will be aware of what has happened. Do be mindful not to include irrelevant material and though you need to give some description, make sure that the work is not heavily descriptive. In the body of the essay, you will need to write discursively as opposed to descriptively.
How to Write a Discursive Essay
Start by making notes as you read and start to mentally raise questions in view of the essay title. For example, you could ask yourself why the university have chosen to set the particular essay question, there might be a public or academic controversy inferred in the question, waiting for you to explore. If the essay question ask that you should consider the topic from a local, national and global perspective, then you should do so. Each level is likely to unearth its own dynamics and at the same time be linked. Your job is to gather relevant and sufficient evidence for each perspective and to raise a discussion, this will require you to use critical thinking skills to produce discursive arguments. If you find yourself basically reiterating what the research says then you are being descriptive and this could lead to issues of plagiarism, irrespective of you referencing the source. To write a good essay, students need to rely less on researchers words and instead critically analyse research findings, weighing-up research data and considering the merits of arguments, relevance of methodology used, assumptions made, debatable points, and expressing why the points are debatable will all help to lead to a discursive essay.
Students should note obvious questions prompted by the essay title and identify important issues to include. Students should consider what they already know and what they do not yet know, reflect on where to find relevant resources and locate the evidence they will need to support opinions. If the assignment ask for a detailed explanation of the search strategy then students will also find the above points useful.
How to Write a Critical Thinking Essay
A discursive essay and a critical thinking essay have much in common, in order to raise a discussion we must learn to think critically. Critical thinking skills assumes abilities in a range of skills such as categorising, selection and differentiation, these points are highlighted by Cottrell, in her Critical Thinking Skills book. An academic essay requires students to slow down their processing of information in order to assess research, analyse the methodologies used to identify flaws in the way we arrive at a conclusion. Critical skills include the ability to spot assumptions, identify inconsistencies, errors and merits of research arguments. Higher level critical thinking skills usually requires a combination of skills and attitudes, critical thinking skills will enable students to decide on a number of issues, for example: whether information included in a piece of published research is relevant to the research question and whether chosen methodologies are appropriate for answering research questions.
In writing and presenting the essay, your ideas should be clear to the reader and ideas should be suitably linked. Paragraphs should therefore be well structured and the style of writing should be in keeping with academic writing style, meaning that self-expression is not too chatty or flippant. Essay writing should be clear, ensure that there is nothing for readers to find confusing, language is straightforward and sentences are of reasonable length and are uncomplicated. Self-expression should be free of slang and colloquialisms, technical vocabulary should be used correctly, text should not be repetitive and with minimal reliance on researchers’ words. If there is too much reliance on researchers’ words remember that students run the risk of falling foul of plagiarism.
What is a Good Essay
Try comparing the following 2 styles of writing cited from Cottrell’s Study Skills. The first piece of text is conversational:
Mount Pepe is going up – it’s going to take everything with it when it goes. And I mean everything – villages, farms, trees, the lot. It’s frightening to think of how powerful a volcano can be. Think of the damage they cause! Remember Pompeii and Mount Etna!
The second piece of text is in a general academic style:
In order to assess whether it is necessary to evacuate the villages on Mount Pepe, three main factors need to be taken into consideration. The first, and most important, of these is the element of safety. According to seismic experts currently working on the volcano, there is likely to be a major eruption within the next ten years (Achebe 1997). According to Achebe, the eruption is likely to destroy villages over a radius of 120 miles (Achebe 1997, p7).
When writing an assignment it is important to choose an appropriate writing style, in this case you should opt for the style used in the second piece of text.
Best Essay Writing Service | Study Coach UK
Study Coach is an Online Academic Support Service, helping Adult learners with Essay Writing, Assignments, Research Skills, Dissertation, Presentation Skills/Pastoral Support. Students draft their own Essay and submit to Study Coach for detailed feedback, consultation, proof-reading, teaching and suggestions on how to write an essay and how to raise the standard of the essay. We support non-traditional learners studying for a Degree or Diploma. Adult Nursing students, Social Work, Law, Youth Justice, Health and Social Care, Public Health, Mental Health, Education and Teaching, Access Students have all vouched for the great support they have received through Study Coach. Students have described Study Coach as the best essay writing service available.
Adult Learners may be studying on a full-time or part-time basis, learners may be studying for a formal or non-formal qualification. What adult learners do have in common is that they have been outside of education for a number of years and have taken the decision to re-educate self in order to find employment; returning to formal academic studies can be challenging and adult learners sometimes need to seek support, hence the reason Study Coach is in existence.
For many adult learners’ English is not their mother tongue, this can pose difficulties for students in understanding new theoretical concepts and drafting assignments. Morel Benard at Study Coach is very experienced working with adult learners, give her a call on the number below and have a chat.
Morel Benard at Study Coach UK
Morel’s academic credentials are as follows: MSc Educational Leadership (University of Leicester); MA Criminology (Middlesex University); LLB Honours Law (University of East London); BSc Honours Psychology (Open University); PGCE (University of Greenwich); Internal Quality Assurer (IQA).
Contact Study Coach UK
You don’t have to wait until you receive your first assignment brief to get in touch with Study Coach. Phone today and introduce yourself and have a chat with Morel about getting help with essays.
Phone Morel on: 07944 849271 Email: info@studycoach.uk.com
Website: https://www.studycoachuk.com
See the website for details of how to submit Assignments; Find out about Fees and payment for Essays and Dissertation. If you have any questions call the above number, send an Email or send a Text (WhatsApp available). We look forward to hearing from you.