Essay Formatting techniques

[toeynawa]

Hello all

I believe we are all studying hard for the May exam! I am sharing the same pain as well.

However, I read the rubric for psychology's essays and I have to say that marks are easily obtained if you follow a certain structure in writing your essay. I wish we can all share essay structure techniques here and get feedbacks from others as well.

Here are my techniques:

- KNOW THE COMMAND TERM. I can't stress this enough. Every mark scheme will stress that, 'The answer satisfy the command term.' If you missed this step I don't think you will do well at all. How you break down the question and plan your essay are base on the command term.

- Always plan before you write. I found bullet points break it down for me really well. I would outline what should go in introduction, a thesis, the 3-4 body paragraph and conclusion.

- I always include 1 or 2 researches or studies in each paragraph. And I also list them as I plan my essay.

- Transitional and topic sentences are essential. Because most psychology essay are argumentative, such as the command term "discuss." It is crucial for me to make a clear shift in the answer from one's point of view to the next. Otherwise I tend to get lost in my writing.

- Reread your plan, make sure you include all the points you wish to make. Check that the plan satisfy the command term e.g. have a research to back up your reasons in "explain" command term and give balanced point of view AND a conclusion in "discuss"

- WRITE!!

I usually spend 3 minutes to plan for each 8 marks question. But around 10 minutes for 22 marks questions. It is better to spend time planning a coherent structure than to jump right to writing and run out of things to say on the way.

Please give me feedbacks to my techniques and add yours as well! I hope my techniques will aid some of you. It would be really nice if someone could give me how they tackle 8 marks and 22 marks question differently cause I tend to approach them the same way.

Good luck everyone!

[blindpet]

I think the key difference between 8 and 22 mark questions will be the introduction and conclusion. For 8 mark questions I would just jump right into the question providing a mini intro but letting it flow into the so-called 'body' of the following paragraph and just make it one paragraph until I finished my point. I would then start a 2nd paragraph and wrap up my argument with the last sentence or two instead of a formal conclusion paragraph.

Thanks for you contribution, it should help many people structure their essays.

There is another key point for 22 mark questions. You must evaluate the studies you present (with the exception of some sociocultural questions that don't have relevant studies - at least in the course companion). Evaluating means talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the study as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the level of analysis as a whole with reference to the question (e.g. reductionist explanation of genetics in some behavior)