Quote:
Originally Posted by llama64
I'm a little late to the party, but I thought I'd put in a general comment about essay writing. I actually kinda miss writing them :P
Can't say much about the subject, but for general essay layout you may want to look at re-organizing things.
The key to writing an essay (especially one based on a thesis) is to make it easily accessible and readable. The following structure helps enormously:
Introduction: Explain the purpose of the paper and a brief summation of the argument you a re going to make.
Paragraph: one for each point in support of your thesis.
- State the point
- Provide evidence backing up your point
- explain how the evidence applies to your point and the thesis
- conclude the point and lead into the next one
Conclusion: tie up any loose ends, restate your thesis and explain how all your points have now proven it true.
It helps to think of each middle paragraph as a sort of mini essay.
Oh, and remove any extra words that are not needed. For example:
" In stark contrast to Hamlet’s character there is Laertes."
Stark doesn't add anything to the sentence. And I'd rework that sentence anyways:
"Laertes provides a contrast to Hamlet's melancholic and brooding behaviour."
Another one from your second paragraph:
"His character is effectively summed up in a quote"
"His character is described during his soliloquy...."
And never write a paper without a basic framework. Some people like free flow writing, but when doing an argumentative essay you'll end up doing more work revising it. Using this format, I found I could spit out a 3000 word essay in about 2-3 hours of pure writing time (research not included).
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Oh, I wish I had this last night haha, I turned it in today. Everyone elses were about a page longer than mine, but when I read a few of them they had just filled them with fluff to draw it out, so I'm not too worried. But thanks for the advice, I'm writing my diploma in a few weeks and these are some great points, should help quite a bit
