How to Write Better Essays

Not surprisingly, most students find it difficult to make sense of

this. They have learnt that if they use their study skills in a particular

way it will bring success. After all, that’s exactly what has happened

so far in their education. Therefore, understandably, they continue

to back what they believe to be a winner: they continue to take notes

in the same way, to read in the same way and to write essays in the

same way.

However, they face different examinations, with different assump-

tions about the nature of learning, requiring a different pattern of study.

Unless this is explained to them, they will continue to get poor marks

for their essays. And they will have no idea why, when all they’re doing

is just what they’ve done successfully in all their work before. Con-

fused and dispirited, many will go through the whole course believing

that while they might have been up to taking the examinations at

school, they’re just not up to these at university. Whereas, in fact, it is

not that they lack the abilities, or the motivation, or even the capacity

to understand, but just that they lack the right skills to unlock their

potential.

The cognitive domains

It should be clear, then, that by setting essays as a mode of assess-

ment, particularly in university courses, our aim is not just to assess

the limited ability to understand and recall, but to assess a much

broader range of abilities. All syllabuses are written in the context of

six ‘cognitive domains’ – six intellectual abilities. Listing them from the

simplest to the most complex they are as follows:

1 Recall

2 Comprehension

3 Application

4 Analysis

5 Synthesis

6 Evaluation

While many of us find it difficult to shake off the belief that exam-

inations are set exclusively to assess our recall and understanding

(abilities 1 and 2), most syllabuses at universities are designed largely

to assess abilities 4, 5 and 6. The questions set use instructional

verbs like ‘Discuss’, ‘Criticise’, ‘Analyse’ and ‘Evaluate’, to assess our

The Range of Abilities 63

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