How to Write Better Essays

naturally reluctant to give up material that we’ve struggled hard to

uncover and record, especially if it includes particularly interesting

points that we know will impress our reader. It’s not surprising, then,

that without a clear criterion by which you can decide what’s relevant

and what’s not, you will find it difficult, if not impossible, to resist using

material that’s not relevant.

This will have the effect of clouding the structure of your essay

with unnecessary distractions that weaken your arguments, and break

up the logical sequence you’ve worked hard to create. On the other

hand, however, with a clear interpretation of the implications of the

question, it is so much easier to be uncompromisingly ruthless with

your material.

Ordering

Although you don’t have the same heart-wrenching problems of

ditching material you’ve become attached to, you still need an iron

will in ordering your ideas, if you’re to avoid the same problem of

being dictated to by your sources. It can simply be very difficult to

abandon the order in which we recorded the notes in the first

place.

Some people find that keeping their notes on index cards helps in

sorting out and selecting their material: they can change the order of

the cards, and their ideas, much more easily than if they are recorded

on continuous sheets of paper in the order the notes were taken from

the texts. Others use just one side of the paper and then cut the papers

up and organise them. Both methods give you more control over your

material. They free you from the sense of being dictated to by your

sources.

In general it makes sense to arrange your ideas in ascending

order: from the simplest to the most complex. Logically this makes

sense, particularly if the clarity of your most complex arguments

depends upon how convincingly you’ve used your simpler, more

obvious arguments to build a basis for them. But it also makes

psychological sense in that in dealing with the most subtle and

impressive arguments at the end of the essay you leave your exam-

iners with the impression that the whole of your essay was of

that quality. Hopefully, you will have left them with a well developed,

interesting argument to think over as they consider what mark to

award you.

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