Writing essays, dissertations, and projects

Length, format/margins/spacing/fonts/notes, pagination, and structure:

The ability to write a good essay/project (i.e. to present a case/argument briskly and succinctly, to marshal facts and ideas, to handle counter-arguments, to provide good examples/ illustrations) is one of the most useful skills you can develop whilst a student. In later life when you’re working for/with people you don’t get to see personally, or for whom time is precious, the ability to write an effective memorandum (or letter) is a great boon. Memo-writing skills are, in essence, little different from essay-writing skills.

Stick to the deadlines. Stick to the agreed length. Stick to the subject.
If you meet the deadline, it is fair to expect to get your essay back within a fortnight.

Good handwriting (or, nowadays, word-processing) and good spelling will not guarantee a good mark, but they do help. It is naturally sensible to read around the subject before starting to write, but be sure in the finished essay/project to acknowledge your sources (plagiarism is regarded as a particularly heinous crime by academics) therefore, try to make received opinions your own.

People differ as to whether academic essays/dissertations – which are essentially argumentative – ought to entertain or persuade as well as to inform the reader (see Whitehorne’s golden rules for passing exams: "1. Don’t try to amuse the examiner. 2. Don’t try to convert him to Christianity.") The best essays certainly manage both to inform and entertain, and certainly it is always desirable not to bore the reader. However, either way, a dissertation/long essay remains an examination script which will be scrutinised by a critical readership. It is essential, therefore, to get right the potentially boring framework of method and structure (pace D.H. Lawrence) – the division of chapters, the bibliography, the unavoidable and often tedious apparatus of footnotes and source-references, before attempting to develop your own ideas, vision and personal interest and pleasure in the subject – even though the latter is, of course, the real point of the exercise.

Choice of subject
For many essays the subject and title will be prescribed. But when working up a subject independently you will have to make choices of your own. It is usually not necessary to determine the title of a dissertation/long essay from the outset: it is enough to know the general area you want to work in, then to read around the subject, do the outline planning, and maybe draft as much as half the work before deciding on a specific title.

Always bear in mind the distinction between ‘subject-matter’ and ‘theme’: subject-matter is relatively straightforward, e.g. "Statistics in Heinrich Böll’s fiction", but a theme would be "Böll’s use of statistics in order to confuse."

Stand der Forschung
The target readership for graduate dissertations is fellow-scholars in the field. So, for a study which will eventually find its way onto library shelves, it is essential to include a section surveying the work of fellow-scholars, past and present. For undergraduate essays, on the other hand, such a survey is not essential, but the finished essay will be the more impressive if it shows an awareness of recent writing on the subject.

Quotations and source-references: these must always be fully indentifiable, i.e. include a page number or line number along with the title of the work – as given with the short Faust-quotation below.

Do read widely and do make other people’s ideas your own. But if you borrow other people’s ideas, always acknowledge them, and if you actually use their words, make sure you place them within quotation marks and add a source-reference – otherwise you will be committing plagiarism which, for academics, is theft. (When, from time to time, you spot an academic scurrying around head down, tight-lippedly uncommunicative, you may well guess that s/he is trying to prevent the premature escape/theft of a good idea. Academics’ lives are ever haunted by the imperative ‘publish or perish’!)

Short quotations should be placed within the text with quotation marks around them.

Longer quotations should be entered on a separate line, indented with single-spacing (no need to add quotation marks), e.g.:

If you want to use a quotation which you did not come across in its original context, it is quite acceptable just to provide the context where you did meet it, e.g.: ‘Andersch stated on one occasion: Freiheit wäre da, wo wir an einer Grenze sagten: es ist genug. Es reicht uns. (Bühlmann, p.5)’; with a corresponding entry in your List of works consulted:
BÜHLMANN, Alfons, In der Faszination der Freiheit (Berlin: Schmidt, 1973).

List of works consulted (sometimes called Bibliography):
At the start of the essay state which editions of the texts you will be referring to (in most cases these will be the ones used for the module, but you may want to use others). Then, when quoting a specific passage, just add the page (or line) numbers after it in parentheses.

Within the essay use the author-page referencing system for quotations (but if you quote more than one work by a particular author you will need to differnetiate by adding the particular year of publication, i.e. author-date-page): i.e. after the passage quoted, provide (in parentheses) the author’s surname, and the particular page number for the passage quoted, examples: (Robertson, p.171), or (Murray, p.369f), or (Bridgham, p.85); then, in the List of works consulted provide full details, e.g.

As a general rule, all the works you consult should be listed, but it is not normally necessary to include more than the works actually referred to in the body of the essay – don’t pad out the list with books and articles which you don not actually refer to! – and don’t bother to include dictionaries, or Histories of Literature, unless there is some special reason.

Structure
A long essay should be shaped as consciously as any dissertation – even if the actual process of writing is seldom so systematic as the final shape may suggest – many essayists start by writing their conclusion, then work backwards to show how they got there. Apart from that, though, essays should start with an Introduction which explains the subject and scope of the project; then comes the bulk of the essay, divided up, as appropriate, into chapters, and this is followed by any general Conclusions which may have been reached. Finally, add the List of works consulted, dividing this into primary works and secondary literature, listed alphabetically by author. Always include the date of publication, and, in the case of periodical/journal literature, also the volume number and page numbers.

Dissertations have to include, additionally, a title-page, acknowledgments, contents page(s), and a list of all abbreviations used, plus a more fully differentiated bibliography.

Assessment
A typical essay-marker’s ‘tick-list’ is covers four general areas: Presentation, Structure, Style & Expression, and Content & Interest. Two particular aspects of content weigh more heavily than any of the other criteria, i.e. whether or not the essay’s argument is developed clearly, and whether or not the essay shows evidence of ‘sound critical judgment’.

What is ‘sound critical judgment’? There are no easy answers to this question, but features like reliable information, clear expression, and a balanced tone are all observable, objectively measurable and important. Try to cultivate such features and, when writing, always bear in mind that an academic essay is a form of argument which weighs up the pros and cons of a particular thesis or proposition. It should not be written as a speech for a live audience, nor should it attempt to persuade the reader to change his/ her mind about matters of faith or political conviction.

Supervisor’s role
Good co-ordination with your supervisor is crucial. The final piece of work has to be yours, of course, not your supervisor’s and, surprisingly enough, you do not actually have to agree together on the interpretation of the material, but you do have to agree on what aspects of the subject need to be covered and on the minimum appropriate reading.

Besides acting as a sounding-board for ideas, or suggesting lines of thought, a supervisor can often be helpful in providing a letter of introduction to an Archive or Library, or generally acting as an intermediary.

Most importantly: you must agree appropriate deadlines to discuss preliminary drafts and for the submission of the final version, and if you cannot meet the deadlines, don’t fail to explain why.

Finally, regarding that thorny old problem, the management of time, please bear in mind that your supervisor is also trying to work to his/her own set of deadlines!

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