When your essay has been marked and returned, set aside time to carefully consider the feedback given. This will give you useful information about how to approach your next essay. If you do not understand the feedback given, it is important to seek clarification and advice. Although lecturers cannot always provide one-to-one meetings, your university is likely to have study advisors who can help.
Tips
Understanding the essay question
Sometimes set essay questions can be difficult to interpret. You may not know exactly what you are expected to do. However, if you break the question down into parts, you will find it easier to answer.
Essay questions can generally be divided into two parts:
Glossary
trait A trait is a particular characteristic, quality, or tendency that someone or something has.
1The topic – this tells you the general area of your research.
2The focus – this tells you what you need to find out about the topic.
It is important to pay careful attention to the focus of the essay question because this indicates the boundaries of your research. The question ‘Is generosity an innate human trait?’ limits your discussion to the issue of whether human beings are generous by nature. You should not be tempted to discuss at length other issues such as whether generosity is morally good or bad.
Glossary
boundaries The boundaries of something such as a subject or activity are the limits that people think that it has.
Notice also that the question requires you to focus on generosity in humans. You may find it useful to make comparisons, for example to behaviour in animals. However, you should keep your focus on human beings.
Once you understand the topic and focus, you need to think about how you are expected to approach the question, that is, what you need to do to answer it.
Choose the option a, b or c which best describes how you should approach the question.
Is generosity an innate human trait?
a You should answer ‘yes, it is’ or ‘no, it isn’t’ and give your reasons.
b You should evaluate the arguments for and against the notion that generosity is an innate hum an trait and come to a conclusion expressing your opinion.
c You should write everything that you have been able to find out about generosity in human beings.
Instruction words in essay questions
Sometimes essay questions contain an instruction word or expression which indicates the approach you should take.
In this case, you are instructed to make judgements about the media coverage. You might ask yourself: How good or bad was it? Or: To what extent was it fair, accurate, or thorough?
Notice how changing the instruction word changes the approach.
For example: Analyse media coverage of the 2008 banking crisis.
This question requires you to study media coverage in order to come to an understanding of why it was the way it was. This might involve looking for patterns or dividing it into categories in such a way that allows you to understand it more deeply. You might ask yourself questions such as: How frequently was the banking crisis mentioned in the news? Which aspects of the crisis were given most attention? What sort of language was used to describe the crisis?
Instruction words often appear in the introductions to essays and reports. Complete the essay extracts below by underlining the most appropriate word in italics.
1 Section 1 will discuss/justify racial stereotyping with regard to the ‘big five’ personality traits. Section 2 assesses/examines the interplay between cultural stereotypes and media representations of minority ethnic communities.
2 This essay compares and contrasts/outlines the main components of the government’s poverty reduction strategy… A final evaluation will trace/assess the extent to which government measures to reduce child poverty have met targets set in 2000.
3 This study will trace/justify the one-thousand-year history of the Catalan language. It will then outline/compare and contrast Spanish policy on minority language protection with that of the Scottish government in relation to Gaelic.
4 This essay will argue that there is little evidence to justify/outline arguments in favour of state intervention.
Eight common instruction words and expressions along with examples are given in the table below. Match each expression with the correct definition a–h.
| Instructions | Definitions |
| 1 Assess the European Central Bank’s response to the Eurozone financial crisis. | a Give a description or explanation of something |
| 2 Compare and contrast social media use among young people in the United States and in China. | b Describe how something happened or developed |
| 3 Discuss the principal factors that are commonly thought to influence a person’s choice of life partner. | c Describe the similarities and differences between two or more things |
| 4 Examine the impact of management style on teamwork in organizations. | d Give reasons and evidence in support of an opinion |
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5 Give
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