London series: Synthesising

Being able to synthesise your analyses and arguments is what really makes an easy great. This shows you are able to write and think cohesively that will aggregate into an eye-opening essay for your tutors to grade. There are two main steps to doing this; have a line of argument that is interdependent and show this interdependency in your conclusion.

First, make sure when constructing your arguments there is a clear relationship between them. For example, you could relate your arguments in terms of causality. For instance, if you’re writing an essay on the negative effects of studying you could argue in terms of fatigue and stress. You could relate the two by stating that studying causes fatigue which in turn causes stress thus creating further problems related to studying. This allows you to explain both arguments in great detail while showing your understanding of the two topics.

Second, the easiest way to show this line of thinking is in your conclusion. Trying to write down the relationship between arguments will be difficult to do in your body. This is because it takes up a lot of words and might mess up your flow. However, writing a conclusion which not only summarises your main points but also shows the relationship between them will score you points with your tutor and allow you to keep it concise.

London series: Analysis

ANALYSIS. The most important part of any academic product that will make or break the substance the pieces thinking. However intimidating the opening part of this article may sound, analysis is a fun and simple process if you know how to do it properly. All it takes is any piece of evidence and your analysis that should align with the academic knowledge you are taught in class. For example:

Stance: Cigarettes are good for controlling your emotions

Evidence: 8/10 people remain can remain calm due to smoking but risk addiction

Analysis: Cigarettes are helpful in controlling your emotions due to the data regardless of the risk of becoming addicted. This shows that cigarettes can become a stop-gap measure in controlling your emotions and will be positive if indulged appropriately.

The example above might not be the best study case for analysis but what is intended to be emphasised is the possibility of manipulating data. Even when presented with evidence that cigarettes can cause addiction that could lead to further emotional problems, there are several ways to redefine that problem or discredit it which ultimately increases the appeal of cigarettes in controlling your emotions. Furthermore, another step to take is to have a stance that does not emphasise the “good” or “bad” nature of controlling your emotions. This leaves the topic entirely to your interpretation and it will be much easier to analyse any sort of evidence to your favour.

London series: Research

Doing research is the most tiring and tedious step in writing an essay. This requires focus as finding the write evidence and being able to properly gage how useful evidence is quite difficult in the sea of information known as the internet. As a result, going on online journals is usually a must when writing essays for uni. However, sometimes websites such as JSTOR or academia.edu require you to pay for access to certain materials. Luckily, a useful tip in gaining access to these types of material is to log in through your institution. To do this just follow the following steps:

  1. Click “Log in through Institution”
  2. Find and select your institution
  3. Log in through your single-sign on account

London series: Essay Outline

Writing essay outlines are an extremely important part of essay writing in UK universities. This is because the questions themselves can be more detailed when read after a few times. So writing an essay outline and establishing your stance within the essay will save you the panic of worrying if your essay answers the question appropriately.

Writing essay outlines is very standard and you all are probably used to it. But the key is to write your thesis in a way that you won’t forget your stance when writing your essay. The standard way in writing a useful essay outline is the following:

  1. THESIS (write your thesis in bold and at the top of your outline)
  2. Argument 1
  3. Evidence
  4. Analysis
  5. Repeat steps 2-3 until you feel you’ve had enough arguments
  6. Conclusion

London series: Essay Ideas

Essay ideas is a very vague concept to discuss. This very vagueness is what makes writing essays an interesting journey as you can take your essay on any narrative you desire. However, for the sake of this article, we will be discussing two easy processes to come up with essay ideas; rationalising evidence and succumbing to evidence.

The first process, rationalising evidence is probably the easiest way to come up with ideas. All you have to do is use your own knowledge of the subject and make up a fantasy stance towards it. If you have sufficient knowledge of the subject then it will make the research process much easier. For example, if you are given an assignment to write an essay on the political dimensions of the Covid-19 pandemic you’d probably already have your own knowledge of the subject. Say for example you took a stance that it was not politicised, what you’d do is only use evidence stating so or use excerpts of evidence which you would further extrapolate to plead your case. This way you would not have to revise your original stance and can deliver powerful arguments.

The second process in coming up with essay ideas is succumbing to evidence. This process will take multiple revisions on the essay in general as you might have to change your original stance. Anyway to use this process in coming up with essay ideas what you need to initially establish are the specific elements of a topic you want to discuss. For example, when discussing the politicisation of the Covid-19 pandemic you might want to narrow the topic to elections are discrediting certain political parties. This way you’ll know what data to research. After that, you will have to find the relevant data and from there build your arguments.

London series: Questions

Properly reading the question or the assignment guidelines is a massive first step in writing a good essay. These questions usually hold more meaning than first perceived so doing this should be done with great attention. To do this effectively, there are several things that you need to take note of. First, identify the problem in the question. Once you’ve identified the problem you’ll be able to construct your essay and arguments correctly so that they answer the problem. Second, identify the concepts you should use. Some essay questions mention specific concepts or refer to examples that you have to use. Ignoring this will definitely hurt your grades. Third, identify the range of the problem. By identifying the range you will be able to apply a specific focus towards a certain unit of analysis. This will dictate the amount of elements that you will factor into your arguments.