Essay Writing Short Guide

UNIVERSITY OF GÄVLE
English/Department of Humanities
Tore Nilsson
Iulian Cananau
Essay Writing: Short Guidelines
Title
Always give your title an essay, but it might be a good idea to wait with the title until you
have finished the essay; then you really know what it is about and you can formulate a
suitable title. Capitalize all title words, except for articles, prepositions, and conjunctions.
Introduction
The introduction of any essay should prepare the ground for the reader. The introduction can
also include background facts. State clearly what the essay will be about. It may be a good
idea to repeat some of the key terms used in the title. Use a fairly impersonal tone, e.g. “This
essay will discuss the question of abortion”. Never refer implicitly to the title, e.g. by writing
“This question has always fascinated me”.
Paragraphing
A good way to divide your text into paragraphs is to use a key-word method. Each paragraph
should contain one main idea or argument and the first sentence of the paragraph (topic
sentence) should encapsulate this idea, which is then expanded in the paragraph. When you
have written your draft essay, go back and check each paragraph by underlining or writing
down the key concept for each paragraph in the margin. If you find that you have more than
one key concept in a paragraph you should consider one of two courses of action: either
divide the paragraph up into two (or more) shorter paragraphs, or rephrase the topic sentence
so as to include all the ideas. Avoid one-sentence paragraphs!
Style
Stylistic issues are difficult to outline in a few words, but here are some major points:
- Avoid too informal expressions in ordinary expository writing. If you are at all
uncertain about the stylistic value of a word or an expression, look it up in one of the
standard dictionaries. If it is labelled informal, colloquial, slang or a similar
expression that suggests that the word in question is more often used in ordinary
conversation, look for another word!
- The same caution should be applied to words that are too technical (in which case you
should explain the concept to your reader), or archaic (which can give your text an
unwanted pompous flavour).
- Avoid contracted forms in regular expository writing. You can see contracted forms
in, for instance, newspaper articles and so on, nowadays, but in academic or
expository writing, they are still very rare.
- Avoid “empty” words like nice and thing. Be specific!
- Avoid direct questions. Do not write “What are then the causes of this?” Instead, you
should work your question into a statement or a rhetorical question: “We can ask
ourselves what the causes of this are.” Or, quite simply: “The causes of this are…”
- Be careful in your use of this and that (and, of course, their plural equivalents). These
pronouns always depend on a context for their meaning and in a complex text it is
easy to create ambiguity in the eyes of the reader if the reference of a this or that is not
absolutely clear (although it is most likely absolutely clear to you). Instead, be more
explicit and write “this problem”, “this argument”, etc.
Citing sources
- Always refer to textual evidence when you argue your case. You may support your
argument by giving specific references to parts of the literary text. That text is your
primary source. Texts about the literary work or its author are called secondary
sources. They can be published as critical essays, reviews, interviews, and/or prefaces
to the literary text in question.
- Book titles should be given in italics: e.g. Heart of Darkness. By contrast, the titles of
shorter texts (such as a short story, an essay, or an interview) must be written with
normal fonts, within quotation marks: e.g. “Scholar and Gypsy”.
- Whatever the form, make sure your secondary sources are academic (scholarly). This
means that they were published in monographs or academic journals, or, in the case of
reviews, in international, prestigious newspapers or magazines (e.g. The New York
Review of Books, The Guardian, The Times, The New York Times, The Atlantic etc.).
Wikipedia, Sparknotes, Shmoop, freebooksummary.com, and others like them are not
scholarly sources and they should not be cited as evidence.
- You may cite a source in three ways: by quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. You
must indicate your source with a parenthetical in-text citation every time you cite a
source. However, if you have already identified your source in your own
text/paragraph, and it is clear for the reader that you cite that source, you should only
indicate the page number(s) in the parenthetical citation. Check the MLA citation style
guide on how to write in-text citations for e-texts, internet sources, and
lectures/classes.
- Never italicize your quotations! Check the MLA citation style guide on how to format
long and short quotations. Special rules apply!
- The quotes should be properly introduced and commented on. Never imagine that they
speak for themselves. Make the reader understand why this particular quote is chosen
and demonstrate how it clarifies your unique argument. Considering the relative
briefness of the assignment, it is best to avoid long quotes. For this reason you should
select your quotes with great care.
Essay checklist to be used before you hand in an essay

- Does your essay have an appropriate title?
- Does the introduction state clearly what you are going to do in the essay?
- Can you identify one main idea for each paragraph?
- Have you summarized your essay in a clear way?
- Go through every sentence with regard to the following language aspects:
o subject – verb agreement
o spelling including genitive apostrophes
o pronoun reference: check particularly that a singular pronoun has a singular
referent, and that the demonstrative pronouns this, that, these, those have clear
referents that cannot be misunderstood
o no definite article before uncountable nouns used in a general sense, for
instance, Society cannot be blamed for everything.
o adjectives and adverbs: adjectives modify nouns and adverbs modify verbs,
adjectives and other adverbs
o word order: English basically has the word order Subject – Verb –
Complement/Object.
o placement of adverbials: A good rule of thumb is that adverbials that consist of
more than one word are restricted to the “end positions” in an English
sentence, whereas one-word adverbials can (and often have to) be placed
inside the sentence: I would never have believed it but I have done this on
several occasions.

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UNIVERSITY OF GÄVLE

Essay Writing: Short Guidelines

Essay checklist to be used before you hand in an essay

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