How to Write Better Essays

which you will have uncovered in the interpretation stage. This may

involve identifying the main problem or set of problems at the heart of

the question, or it may involve pointing to the central importance of

one or two concepts, which need to be analysed. But this does not

involve discussing these problems nor analysing the concepts in the

introduction; it merely means you show the examiners that you have

the ability to see the implications of the question and point them in

the direction you intend to take them.

For example, in the question we discussed in Chapter 2 you might

begin with the following introduction:

Question

‘Authority amounts to no more than the possession of power.’ Discuss.

Most of us would no doubt agree that in the cases of police officers

and government officials this claim is largely true: their authority

does seem to derive exclusively from the power they have been given.

Indeed, we acknowledge their authority because we are all too aware

of the consequences of not doing so. But to accept that every case

of authority amounts to no more than the claim that might is always

right, threatens the very existence of modern democracy along with

its goal of balancing order with accountability and justice. Either

way, whatever we’re prepared to believe depends upon our under-

standing of the two central concepts, power and authority.

By identifying the major issues in the first few sentences you establish

the relevance of these, and the relevance of your essay in tackling them.

This is what writers describe as the ‘hot spot’: the first sentence or two

in which you sell the subject, making it clear that you’ve seen the

problem the question is getting at, and you’re aware of its importance.

The structure of your answer

Having done this you then need to outline in the broadest of details

the structure of your answer, the plan you’re working from. You don’t

need to do this in the authority/power question, because you’ve already

done it by pointing to the central importance of the analysis of the two

concepts. Again this need not be in any great detail, but it must provide

a map so that your examiners are at no time unsure which way you’re

going and where you’re taking them. At Harvard students are told:

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