HOW TO WRITE A GOOD ESSAY.
How to write a good essay it said bewitching question and it's one I'm going to answer in approximately two minutes and then we'll go on to something else which is dependent on that which is how to use a good quotation an essay.
Is about a presentation of not only your ideas but also the ideas that you've acquired which prove that you understand the subject when we're thinking about the essay we're particularly thinking about these brief essays which we write in examinations which are going to last what three course of an hour.
But the same principles will also work by extension simply by expanding what here we're going to refer to as paragraphs so an essay is made up of a series of units let's say five units we're going to write them down one two and we might call these paragraphs.
PARAGRAPH.
Unit one would be the introduction, and unit five would be the conclusion units two and three paragraphs two and three are those paragraphs where you are going to demonstrate to the reader that you know what you're talking about these paragraphs need to establish that everything is balanced.
So for example in an argumentative essay maybe paragraph with two paragraph two would be the reasons for the preposition in paragraph three would be the reasons against the proposition but there's a certain leeway maybe paragraph two would be your main reasons for and your main reasons against in paragraph three would be your subsidiary reasons for.
And against now there is only one way to write an essay and that it is to plan it and the plan the important bit of the plan is not necessarily about everything that is in the essay I've seen some plans where people have written so much.
They might just well have written the essay anyway the plan is about what you don't say about what you're not going to say at the begging the plan is about getting your main ideas your best ideas on paper.
And then saving them and saving them for the crunch paragraph for paragraph four is where you establish very clearly that maybe some of the points in paragraph two or three are not points you agree with you also maybe add your own special bit of information it is that bit of information which is so important which is so vital to your essay and which is vital to your getting the good mark.
At the end paragraph for the crunch is probably going to be your longest paragraph it's going to be the paragraph where you back up your facts with good quotations going to be the paragraph where you present your argument in a clever logical ordered way.
Now a point about length hedges very quickly paragraphs 1 and paragraphs 5 are probably going to be quite brief paragraph 1 you establish how you intend to answer the question paragraph 5 follows naturally from the crunch paragraph 5 is exactly what it says on the bottle.
It is the conclusion of all this discussion if you want to start in paragraph 5 making a new discussion if you want to start a new idea you might as well write a new essay it's a waste of your time to add anything new to the paragraph to paragraph 5 paragraph 5 concludes what you've been writing it follows naturally paragraph 4 is what you've been waiting for now.
Look it's exactly like the situation where you get into an argument with one of your friends or indeed maybe not one of your friends you want to say there's no point in going on to the offensive right at the beginning and battering somebody their ridiculous childish silly.
You listen very politely to what somebody else hs got to say oh yes I understand and you reason with them how clever your points are how wise is your position but paragraph four one two three reasons why you position is wrong and bang you floored them you've destroyed them you've established your own point of view very calmly.
And very brilliantly by conceding that they also had a point of view - but that it was wrong now as a as an addition to this talk we've got our five paragraph system for the essay we've also got to consider how we defend and how we backup points.
QUOTATIONS.
And we do this with the quotation now the quotation is something which has been routinely misused in the past today we are told that we must not plagiarise now this would have been a nonsensical concept to a first century Greek or first century Roman they routinely adopted somebody else's name to give credibility to their to their writings.
This is something that we're not allowed to do whales are supposed to attribute our quotations we're supposed to tell people where we got got them from now that's the legal business out of the way what you've got to do is to use a quotation in clever way.
Now imagine you've got six brilliant quotations you've got 35 or 40 minutes in which to write your essay you're probably not going to have time to use all six of those quotations you have to choose very carefully because a quotation by definition requires three sentences a sentence to establish the quotation to use the quotation to quote.
And then to explain the quotation it's like taking a jewel from a ring looking at a ring and you look at the ring you think gosh what a wonderful ring how bright and glistening it is how sparky it is and then you take the jewel out of the ring if you're a jeweller.
And you look at that again and you can turn it round you can see it by many different facets well in your essay you're only interested in one or two facets you're not interested in the whole thing so you have to apply your quotation you have to apply that you'll put it back into it's setting in the ring.
Now if you get your quotation you're going you're going to win with your essay you can't you can't use every quotation that you've got in your head now not only can you use quotations of course you might be able to refer to characters or events without necessarily explicitly quoting.
This is useful too but the art of the quotation requires these three points these three sentences establish using the quotation explaining the quotation there is no point in making your quotation longer than the things that you are writing I have seen essays where the quotation is twice the length of the original work Written by the student.
This is absurd your quotation should be brief and add REM to the point if you follow these steps you will write a brilliant essay there its no question.
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