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Essay Writing 101:
Welcome to university/ college. You've chosen to study a language as your major or minor, congrats! You like reading, right, so spending your days channelling the perfect dark academia aesthetic, reading texts written by dead poets and learning about Shakespeare (and I guess other Elizabethan playwrights as well, if you have to) sounds like the dream. The year starts off great!
The professors are weird but smart, all of your fellow classmates are nerds and probably also queer, and you get to read cool stuff and then discuss it in class! Fantastic. But at the end of a successful seminar where you really felt like you made some revolutionary points about life and death in Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein, the lecturer utters some horrifying words: "don't forget the essay is due next week!"
Alas, a literature study isn't all just drinking tea and learning to understand Sparknotes memes (although that is a large part of it). It is, in fact, a lot of work. And now you have to write an essay? How are you even going to do that?
Enter me. The Quibbler is not my full-time job. I am, in fact, in possession of a BA in English, and will soon be in possession of a
ReMa in Old English literature as well. Suffice to say that I've written my fair share of essays.
With the added bonus that my university was so kind to actually force us to take courses on "how to write a good essay".
So here's one and a half year of specialised courses and 5+ years of experience condensed into a single Quibbler article, just for you. Enjoy.
How to Write an Argumentative Essay for Literature Studies
- Eldis_
Very important. Crucial, even. For any essay that’s at least 1000 words, I want to take at least a week. I can easily write a 1000-word essay in less time now, since I have so much practice, but it’s better not to. Having more time allows you to think through the essay even when you’re not actively working on it. I usually get great ideas when I’m about to go to sleep. So during the deadline season, I have a notebook and pen next to my bed. Allow your brain some time to digest the information necessary for the essay. Start. On. Time.
STEP ONE - KNOW WHAT IS EXPECTED
The first active step to any essay isn't writing, and isn't research either. It's knowing what your lecturer wants. What is actually required of you? Carefully read, and then reread, the assignment. Look out for:
• How many words/pages? Are footnotes, if applicable, included or excluded from the word/page count? How much are you allowed to deviate from the word/page count?
• Which topic? Can you choose whatever? Does the professor provide you with a research question? Do you get multiple questions to choose from? Does it have to be about a specific text, genre or topic?
• Which formatting? Do you have to use MLA, APA, Chicago?
• When's the deadline? Are there in-between deadlines where you have to hand in drafts?
• What are the general requirements? Do you need to use a minimum amount of sources? Give the location, size and date of the manuscript you're using? Include at least xyz number of images? Do you need to add a ‘state of the field’? An abstract? Make note of this information, maybe write it down as a bullet point list, if your lecturer has not already.
STEP TWO - CHOOSE YOUR TOPIC
Okay. You have your information, you know your assignment. Now, it's time to choose your topic. If the lecturer pre-provides it for you, great! You have the single topic you have to write about at the ready. Read the question or statement carefully. Is it really one question, or does it consist of multiple parts? Look out for words like "and" and "or". A question like "Compare and contrast how people inside the narrative react to Margery Kempe and the Wife of Bath. To what extent can they be considered exemplars?" isn't one question at all. If you have to write an essay about that, you have to write about:
1. How the people in the narrative react to
Wife of Bath 3. How these two reactions overlap 4. How these two reactions differ 5. To which extent Margery Kempe is considered an exemplar 6. To which extent the Wife of Bath is considered an exemplar
Not as straightforward as it seems, clearly. Read carefully and try to separate the question or statement into as many small questions or statements as possible.
Did your lecturer give you a list of questions or statements to choose from? Great! See which ones stand out to you. Go through the list and note down the questions you find interesting. This’ll usually eliminate quite a few options already. From your own list, pick the one you like best. To eliminate options, consider:
• Which primary text do I like the best out of these options? • Which critical approach do I prefer? If one requires a feminist approach, and
QUIBBLER EDUCATION another a post-colonialist approach but you are really interested in women's rights, it's wise to choose the former. • Which one do I think I can motivate myself to write about?
When you choose a question, reread it on the lecturer's list, not on your own list, and, as demonstrated above, separate it into smaller questions.
Are you free to choose your own topic? Consider the core subject of the course.
• Which week of lectures did you find most interesting? • Which of the primary texts you had to read did you enjoy most? • Which secondary source made the most fascinating points? • Or, alternatively, which secondary source did you disagree with most?
Based on these elements, construct your own research question or statement. Then, and please don't forget this, check with your lecturer if they're OK with you writing about this. Do this BEFORE you invest a lot of time into research!! Truly have no idea what to write about? Ask your lecturer for help! That's what they're there for!
STEP 3 - READ THE PRIMARY SOURCE
Now, you know what you have to do, you have your topic, it's time to…. read the primary source you're using. And NO, only reading the Wikipedia page or the Sparknotes summary does not count. These are both great starting points, especially if the text is a bit more difficult, but they are no replacement for actually reading the primary source itself, preferably, if possible, in its original language. You can, if relevant, use a translation as a guide, but try to use multiple different translations when actually forming your argument. If the point you want to make works in one translation, but none of the others, it's time to properly examine the source text or toss out the argument. If your text is published as, or part of a collection published as, a critical edition with an introduction, read the introduction. This is an amazingly comprehensive overview of the state of scholarship surrounding the text, presented to you on a silver platter. Use it!
When reading, or rereading, the primary source, make notes on what you think might be useful. Write down chapter titles or page/ line numbers, with a brief summary of the scene (can just be "Grendel's first introduction l. 86"). Only do this with moments you think you’re going to use, though, it’s not the point to rewrite the entire text.
STEP 4 - READ SECONDARY SOURCES
So, you’ve read the primary text and you now also have a general idea of the scenes you might use for your essay. Now it’s time to broaden your horizons: what are other people saying about this? Once again, Wikipedia and Sparknotes can be a great starting point, but should never be an ending point. If you are writing on something that has already been extensively discussed (like “religion in Animal Farm”), these websites are great resources for the current general academic consensus - if they answer your entire research question, you should probably choose a more innovative topic for your essay.
The great thing about Wikipedia is that it cites its sources. Those little blue hyperlinked numbers are there for a reason, and they make for a great starting point to find secondary sources. The references in the Wikipedia page for the Middle English poet Thomas Hoccleve, for example, regularly mention Sebastian Sobecki and J. A. Burrow, and also contains a quite recent reference of Misty Schieberle. These references come from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, books published by Oxford University Press and Medium Ævum. These are all highly trustworthy sources in the early English discipline, so great places to start. The ‘Scholarship’ tab also mentions David Watt, Ethan Knapp and Nicholas Perkins,
so those are also relevant people to look for. The article also links to the International Hoccleve Society, so that will probably also be a wonderful resource!
You do, however, have to look beyond what Wikipedia gives you. Try to summarise your topic in 2-3 words (usually one relevant term + name of primary source/author), and put those in whichever academic search engine your university/college supplies. “Feminism Beowulf”, “depression Hoccleve”, “gay picture Dorian Grey” would all work great. Most sources your institution provides will be trustworthy, but if you have never heard of a publication or press before it might be wise to Google them and see how usable they are. JSTOR will usually provide you with other articles the article you’re looking at is cited in, which is very convenient - especially if the articles refute the original one you’re reading.
During your research, copy-paste relevant quotes into a word document. Don’t forget to give the page numbers and where you have the information from. An example from my latest essay’s source doc looks like this:
In the late 17th century, the main production of paper was holland (27)
Werner, Sarah. Studying Early Printed Books, 1450-1800: A Practical Guide, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central
It might be convenient to sort these under subject headers, especially if you discuss more than one primary text or use multiple approaches. Create a new bookmark folder in your browser where you can bookmark all the articles you’ve found online, so you can easily find them again. Don’t forget to save the source document, preferably with a name that will allow you to find it again. “[course name] essay sources” usually works fine for me. You have read the primary source(s), you have looked at what other people think. Now it’s time to formulate what you think. What is your interpretation of the text? How do you think xyz concept is used in it? What does that add to the text? Which specific arguments can you use to support this opinion? And, very importantly, is your opinion different from what you’ve read? Are you contributing to the research, or just parroting what other people have said? Because if it’s the latter, you are going to have to return to step two and adjust your research question/topic.
STEP 6 - BULLET POINT ARGUMENTS
You have an opinion! YAY! Look at you, engaging with your chosen discipline. I’m so proud. Now it’s time to convince other people your opinion is correct. And to do that, you’re going to have to bring proof to the table. So it’s time to make a rough outline of what your essay is going to be. For a proper literary essay, the format will usually be
One main thesis • Mini thesis that proves main thesis • Mini thesis that proves main thesis • Mini thesis that proves main thesis • Mini thesis that proves main thesis • etc Conclusion
The structure you learned in high school, of
• Argument in favour • Argument in favour • Argument in favour • Argument against • Rebuttal
works great in high school and is a wonderful tool to teach you how to formulate your opinions and deal with counter-arguments, but does not work in an academic setting. It’s a very useful stepping stone to master, but not an end goal to stay stuck at.
QUIBBLER EDUCATION In this step, write down your hypothesis, and, with bullet points underneath, quickly summarise what the point of each of your arguments will be, with a general idea of which proof you are going to use. This doesn’t have to be in the exact correct order, nor does it have to be fully complete, you can use ‘??’ as placeholders. Again, an example from one of my essays is
• Monster Slayers in Letter of Alexander to
Aristotle and Beowulf Intr
• Beowulf Monsters humanised Line 276 Grendel’s mother l. 1330 etc Grendel l. 86-94 Dragland 611 Beo monseristed Becomes 1 with monster blah Flawed person But sole hero?
• Alexyboi Monsters in human mastery Joy source p Lexyboi is prideful not sole hero
• Concl. Additionally, consider the order of your arguments. ‘General to specific’, like a triangle on its point. works nicely: You start with a broader overview, and then narrow in on the details you want to touch on. Of course, this triangle can be really small for shorter essays, and a bit longer for longer essays. But at least somewhat ease your reader into the topic.
STEP 7 - WRITE
Not extremely well-worded, and definitely not fleshed out, but it does the job to get an overview of the goal of my essay. I highly recommend doing this by hand, with a physical pen(cil) on physical paper. This’ll allow you to later quickly note down added arguments, proof, sources etc. without having to find the document you originally typed this in, and without needing the linear structure word provides. Those line numbers neatly listed above? In my notes, they’re written halfway across the page with a huge arrow leading back to ‘monsters humanised’. It can also help if you write down how many words you want to spend on each argument. A 1000word essay with 3 arguments, will usually result in about 300 words per argument, leaving You’ve done your research, you’ve formed an opinion. You know roughly what you’re going to say. Fantastic! Now it’s time to actually start writing.
The best way to start writing is, well, to start. It’s very easy to stay in your research-rabbit hole and have fun there, but the essay does have to be written. Don’t start with the introduction or conclusion. Either start with the first argument in your list of arguments, or the argument you like best. I personally prefer to write my essays ‘chronologically’, so aside from the introduction and conclusion I do write the arguments in the order that they will appear in my essay eventually, but I’ve also written some very successful essays backwards (final argument first), in the original correct order but later changed the order, and in completely random orders. Whichever method works for you is fine. Unless you truly know a killer opening line or have the entire introduction thought out, it’s wiser to leave the introduction and conclusion till last. The body of your essay, whilst writing, is still very much subject to change, which will influence the content of your introduction and conclusion. It’s a waste of time and energy to write those first and then being forced to rewrite them.
But how exactly do you write a body paragraph of your essay? Well, it is exactly this question that we discussed in those aforementioned 1.5 years of mandatory ‘how to write an essay’-courses. The trick is to use PPS. For the sake of explaining this system, let’s say you’re
writing a 2000-word essay with the thesis “The Quibbler falls outside of any one genre.” You have split your essay up into two main parts. Your supporting arguments are as follows:
• The Quibbler contains fiction The Quibbler contains poetry The Quibbler contains short stories The Quibbler contains movie scripts
• The quibbler contains non-fiction The Quibbler provides educational content The Quibbler reports on real-life news stories
The Quibbler contains recipes
The paragraph you’re working on is “The Quibbler provides educational content.”
Point
Each paragraph is its own mini-essay. It starts with your point, your thesis statement for this part of the essay. In this case, “The Quibbler provides educational content.” You can very easily start your essay with this exact sentence, and I even highly recommend you do, especially if you don't have much practice writing academic essays yet. Your first, or one of your first two, sentences in your paragraph must make it absolutely, abundantly clear what the point, or message, of the rest of that paragraph is going to be.
Proof
You have stated your argument. Now you have to convince people you are correct. Anyone can just yell that the Quibbler contains educational content, but is that true? Here, you provide the proof that your first statement is indeed correct. For our “educational content” claim, you can use “Hair Care”(pp. 54-7, Summer 2021), “Sinterklaas: The Dutch Santa” (pp.48-9, Winter 2021), “Halloween: Past and Present” (p. 58, Fall 2020), “Harry Potter, A Case Study of Social Class in British Literature” (pp. 40-1, Spring 2020), “Exam Stress” (pp. 26-7, Summer 2018) and the article you’re reading right now as proof that the Quibbler indeed contains educational con-
EDUCATION QUIBBLER tent. This is the main body of your paragraph. Explain, as thoroughly as you can, why your point is indeed true.
Significance
Now, I can talk about those articles, but why does it matter? How does your proof, well, prove your point? This bit functions as the conclusion to your argument. A sentence like “Each of these articles aim to provide information to the reader, making them educational content” would show the significance of the proof you have provided.
The Quibbler provides educational content. In their Summer 2018 issue, Silvestress writes about methods to curb stress surrounding exams. The Quibbler here provides six easy steps, explaining, in simple language, why each step is necessary. The article “Harry Potter, A Case Study of Social Class in British Literature”, explores how ‘to discover what social issues are important to or engrained into a culture’ through its literature. It talks about the NRS social grades, which outlines the modern-day state of social class in the United Kingdom, and goes on to elaborate how these contemporary realities of inequality are reflected within the hugely popular Harry Potter series. The same contributor, in the Winter 2021 edition of the Quibbler, explains the history behind the Dutch feast of ‘Sinterklaas’, a precursor to the American Santa. The article details the origins of the feast. It discusses the saint it was based on, the feast’s start in the 15th century and the modern-day political debate surrounding some elements of its celebration. A similar history, but this time about Halloween, is given by /u/crippling_depression. This article examines the feast’s Celtic origins, Christian changes and arrival in the United States, outlining the origin of trick-or-treating and giving data on how much candy is bought for Halloween in the US alone. As of writing, the Quibbler’s most recent issue contains a four-page article on how to take proper care of your hair, describing hair’s biological nature, its growth and its behaviour when exposed to liquid, heat and cold. Each of these articles aims to provide information to the reader, making them educational content.
Of course, you will need to include proper source formatting.
This PPS format is also known as PEE (Point, Evidence, Explanation) or PIE (Point, Illustration, Explanation). They all mean the same thing, but one of the acronyms might be easier to remember for you. Follow this PPS format for each paragraph in your essay. Since you are using a ‘general to specific’ format, the overarching argument-structure of your essay will also be PPS: it’s applicable at a micro(paragraph)level and macro(entire essay)level.
Then, it’s time for your conclusion and introduction. You can write these in whichever order works best for you.
Your introduction must, well, introduce your topic. What are you talking about? And why is it relevant? Why should anyone read this essay? The opening line has to be gripping, and it is helpful for your introduction to follow a general-to-specific format. For our hypothetical essay, you can first briefly discuss online magazines and genres in general, before speaking about the Quibbler and its genres specifically.
In your conclusion, you quickly summarise what you have said in the essay. This is not the place to introduce new arguments or new proof. It’s the closing statement, where you briefly paraphrase each of your arguments. If your professor requires it of you, this is also where you can propose further research. For our hypothetical Quibbler-genre essay, you can mention that “The Quibbler publishes both fiction and non-fiction. Its submissions range from short stories to recipes, and from news stories to film scripts.” Finish off with a good sentence that properly marks the end of your entire essay, and that preferably calls back to your introduction.
As far as titles go, I personally prefer a main title with either alliteration (Qualifying the Quibbler/Genres Galore), a pun or an appropriate quote from the primary source. The subtitle can then be a straight-forward title of what happens in the essay. "Genres Galore: Exploring the Genre of Reddit's The Quibbler".
Once you’ve finished the entire body of your text, it’s time for proofreading! Go through your entire essay to spell check. Does the grammar match up? Did you, when you moved sentences around, properly adjust the grammar? Have you properly spelt out all words, rather than use contractions (in academic contexts, always write ‘do not’, ‘it is’, ‘you are’ rather than ‘don’t’, ‘it’s’ ‘you’re’)? Use various different spellcheckers provided by whatever you write on to help you out, or maybe ask a friend! Grammarly or similar downloadable spell checkers are also absolutely amazing at catching the things you didn’t see, but do not hesitate in dismissing their suggestions when you know better.
STEP 9 - READ OUT LOUD
Read your entire essay out loud. Yes. The full thing. You’ve been staring yourself blind at this for quite some time, so you’re not going to see the weirdly phrased bits, the overly long sentences or the repeated words. In my third sentence of the example paragraph above, I originally used ‘simple’ twice. I overused the word ‘issue’, and the ‘A similar history….in the US alone’ bit was originally one ridiculously long sentence. I had a couple more sentences that didn’t flow and I needed more diversity in the ‘article discusses/elaborates/explains’-sections of the article. I wouldn’t have caught the convoluted syntax and those repetitions if I hadn’t read the article out loud. If you change bits to adjust for flow, don’t forget to re-spell check!
EDUCATION QUIBBLER These in-text citations, like MLA or APA, follow a very simple format. For Chicago, you can, for the time being, just do a simple ‘[(shortened) title/author’s name] [page nr]’, and format it properly when you arrive at this step. This is also the step where you write your Works Cited or Bibliography.
For Chicago, you can ctrl+a and copy all of your footnotes, and paste those under ‘Bibliography’. From there you can easily edit them, since footnotes and bibliography in Chicago are formatted quite similarly. For MLA and APA, go through your essay and write down each source you used. Check them off after writing them in your Works Cited bit. Double-check all your commas, full stops and italics, and make sure the Works Cited/Bibliography is properly alphabetized. Quadruple-check that you provide the source for each of your in-text citations. If you leave out the author’s name when the source is the same as the previous citation, make sure that indeed properly lines up.
Most citation manuals will also specify which way to format your essay. The standard ones are mostly ‘Times New Roman, 12 pt, double-spaced’, but they elaborate on how to format headings, titles etc as well. Make sure all book titles you mention in your text are properly italicised. Making sure all of this lines up is a very easy way to make your essay look professional. Before your lecturer has even read a single word, the way your essay is formatted already gives them an opinion or idea of its quality. Make sure this first impression is a good one.
STEP 10 - CHECK FORMATTING
As I mentioned briefly before, you need to cite your sources according to the format your teacher has specified. Do this whilst writing!!! You’re not going to know where you got that quote from by the time you’ve finished your essay. If you have to use footnotes, it’s okay to not fully format the sources yet. For style formats that require in-text, parenthetical citations, it’s easier to just do it right immediately.
STEP 12 - REREAD THE ASSIGNMENT’S REQUIREMENTS
Have you included everything your lecturer told you to? Did you add those images? Format it the way it was specified? Do you have to add an abstract? Did you answer each of the questions the lecturer asked? Are you sure? Are you really sure? Very carefully reread the instructions, and then reread them again, es-
QUIBBLER EDUCATION pecially if you aren’t familiar with the professor and their wishes. Adjust your essay if necessary, and if you do, don’t forget to go through steps 8 and 10 again. Also note if you have to hand in your essay on paper only, or via the hand-in programme of your institution, and does it have to be .pdf or .doc? able as an ebook. Since digitising books and articles is expensive and time-consuming, only using electronic sources will introduce a bias in your essay. Use alignment justify. It’s literally one click of a button and it makes your essay look so much more professional.
JSTOR Understanding Series is SO HELPFUL when it comes to many, many things. For the Shakespeare plays, you can go to any one line in a play and see all of the academic articles that cite that specific line! It has similar helpful links for the AKJV, the US Constitution, Frankenstein, The Importance of Being Earnest and much more British and American literature.
STEP 13 - HAND IN!!!
Congrats!!! You have finished your essay! You have checked everything, converted the essay to the proper file type and checked if that conversion went correctly. Now you can hand in your essay and take some rest. Or write on that other essay for that other course. If I know one thing about studying literature, it is that there’s always another essay to write. Good luck!!!
PRO TIPS
Find an interesting source that is not at all relevant to the topic you’re researching? Bookmark it for later reading, stay on track with your research now!
I know it can be a bother, and it’s less relevant when you’re still an undergrad, but don’t discount the books that are in the university library! They’re a wonderfully helpful resource, and not all books are digitised/availUse ctrl+f to find words you KNOW you use often. I do this all the time with words like ‘however’. This way, you can visually see how spread-out those words are, and if you have to replace some of them for variation. https:// www.onelook.com/thesaurus/beta/ is a helpful website to find synonyms.
Use ctrl+f ‘replace all’ to replace all double spaces with single spaces. Sometimes you accidentally press the spacebar twice, or you get a double space after moving sentences around. This clears that problem up nicely! Make sure it actually replace ‘ ’ with ‘ ’, not with nothing.
Pages Wordcount MLA* Wordcount Chicago incl. footnotes* Wordcount Chicago excl. footnotes*
350 720 370 685
1115 1025
1500 1885 2260 2640 3006 3355 3710 1340 1710 2020 2340 2670 2970 3245 180 440 665
870 1185 1455 1750 2050 2340 2600
