How to write essays (English for Academic Purposes). Александра Ковалева
that run throughout the course.
Entitled ‘Moral Reasoning – Reasoning In and About the Law’, it is part of the programme at the University of Harvard: How is law related to morality? How is it distinct? Do we have an obligation to obey the law? What, if anything, justifies the imposition of legal punishment? These issues, and related issues dealing with the analysis and justification of legal practices, will be examined using the writings of philosophers, judges, and legal theorists.
Take just about any course at any university and you will see the same: that many of the challenges we face are questions about concepts. For example, the Philosophy Department of the University of Southampton describes its Philosophy of Science course in the following terms:
This course examines concepts of evidence, justification, probability and truth, in relation to scientific explanation, causality, laws of nature, theory and fact; the distinctions between science and pseudo-science, as well as between science and metaphor, are among the topics explored. Examples illustrating the philosophical argument will be drawn from the histories of the physical, biological and social sciences.
Syllabuses like these indicate the importance of key concepts both in the courses you’re studying, and in the essays you’re expected to write. By analysing them you not only give your essay a relevant structure, but, equally important, you qualify for the highest marks on offer. If, at this stage, you don’t acknowledge the significance of these concepts by analysing their implications, you will almost certainly fail to analyse them in your essay. This will indicate not only that you haven’t seen the point of the question, but, more seriously, that you haven’t yet developed that thoughtful, reflective ability to question some of the most important assumptions we make when we use language. It is as if you’re saying to the examiner that you can see no reason why these concepts should raise any particular problem and, therefore, they deserve no special treatment.
2. Choose one topic from each of three groups. Narrow each of the three down to a research topic. Then think of three-five titles of paragraphs in the research paper. Compare with your partner.
3. Underline the key concept in the following questions for research.
1. Discuss the management of health needs within a population group in the Primary Care setting.
(Nursing and Applied Clinical Studies, Canterbury Christ Church University).
2. What is bribery and can it be justified as an acceptable business practice?
(Business and Administration, University of Newcastle, Australia).
3. How do culture, race and ethnicity intersect in social work practice in multicultural society?
(Social Work, University of British Columbia, Canada).
4. “Geomorphology is a branch of geology rather than of geography”. Discuss.
(Geography, University of Oxford).
5. “Mill has made as naïve and artless a use of naturalistic fallacy as nobody could desire. “Good”, he tells us, “desirable”, and you can find out what is desirable by seeking to find out what is actually desired … The fact is that “desirable” does not mean “able to be desired” as “visible” means “able to be seen”. G. E. Moore. Discuss.
(Philosophy, University of Kent).
6. In the light of a number of recent high profile complaints about invasion of privacy, critically assess whether the press should continue to be self-regulating.
(Journalism, University of Newcastle, Australia).
7. What are the assumptions of the revealed preference approach to life valuation?
(Biology, Stanford University).
8. “Free Trade leads to a Paretian Optimum”. “Free Trade leads to unacceptable inequalities”. Discuss.
(Economics, University of Oxford).
Pre-Writing: Brainstorming, ‘Pattern Notes’, Mapping
Brainstorming is a way of gathering ideas about a topic. Think of a storm: thousand of drops of rain, all coming down together. Now, imagine thousands of ideas “raining” down onto your paper! When you brainstorm, write down every idea that comes to you. Don’t worry now about whether the ideas are good or silly, useful or not. You can decide that later. Right now, it is important to gather as many ideas as possible.
It is important to stake your claim as early as possible, indeed as soon as you get the question. This involves two things: first, as we’ve seen, thinking through your analysis of the concepts and implications of the question, and second, writing down your own ideas on the question. It’s now time to turn to the second of these: brainstorming your own ideas. This means that you empty your mind on the subject, without the aid of books. As quickly as possible you track the flow of your ideas as you note what you know about the subject and what you think might be relevant to the question.
Brainstorming is just a part of the process of analysis. After all, they both involve your own ideas, which you get down on paper as quickly as you can without the aid of books. But they are, in fact, quite different, and if you allow yourself to merge the two, skimping on one, you will almost certainly have problems. In analysis you’re unwrapping what’s already there. It may be buried deep, but by a process of introspection, through which you examine the different ways you use a concept such as authority or advertisement, you come to see more clearly the contours of the concept, its essential characteristics.
In contrast, with brainstorming you are going beyond the concept: this is synthesis, rather than analysis. You are pulling together ideas, arguments and evidence that you think may have a bearing on the question’s implications that you have already revealed through your analysis. So, whereas analysis is a convergent activity, brainstorming is divergent, synthesising material from different sources. If you like, one activity is centripetal, the other centrifugal. Confuse the two and you’ll do neither well.
If you overlook this distinction and merge the two activities, you’re likely to struggle with two problems. First, if you abandon analysis too soon and embark on brainstorming, your focus will shift away from the implications of the question and the concepts it contains. Consequently, you’re likely to find that you don’t have the guidelines to direct your brainstorming into profitable areas. You will find a lot less material and much of what you do unearth you will no doubt discover later that you cannot use, because it’s irrelevant. On the other hand, if you analyse without brainstorming you’ll fail to arm yourself with your ideas and what you know about the topic. As a result, almost certainly two things will happen:
1. The authors you read for your research will dictate to you without your own ideas to protect you, it will be difficult, at times impossible, for you to resist the pull of their ideas and the persuasiveness of their arguments. As a result you’ll find yourself accepting the case they develop and the judgements they make without evaluating them sufficiently, even copying large sections of the text into your own notes.
2. And, equally serious, you will find it difficult to avoid including a great mass of material that is quite irrelevant to your purposes. All of this material may have been relevant to the author’s purposes when he or she wrote the book, but their purposes are rarely identical with yours. Nevertheless, having spent days amassing this large quantity of notes, it’s most unlikely that you’re going to find the detachment somewhere to decide that most of these notes are irrelevant to your essay and you’ve got to ditch them. You’re more likely to convince yourself that they can ‘be made’ relevant, and you end up including them in a long, discursive, shapeless essay, in which the examiner frequently feels lost in a mass of irrelevant material.
So, brainstorming should be seen as distinct from analysis. It needs to be done straight after you’ve completed your analysis, which in turn needs to be done as soon as you have decided upon the question you’re going to tackle. This will give your subconscious time to go away and riffle through your data banks for what it needs before you begin