Essay Writing Guide

On this page you will find a range of guidelines and advice on essay writing. Topics include:

• Essay Presentation
• Essay Writing Tips
• Grammar and Style Examples
• Punctuation Examples
• Checklist for the Final Stage of Essay Writing
• Feedback you might expect from your markers
• Resources on Grammar, Style and Punctuation

Other pages pertaining to essay writing contain information about Referencing and Plagiarism. All pages are specifically directed to students studying English. However, many of these skills are likely to be of use to you in other courses. It is also important to note that some subjects may require specific kinds of writing from you. Your tutor will give guidance in class when this is the case.

Essay Presentation

Presentation of Written Work

Essays should be typed or printed in double-spacing or written legibly in ink, on one side of the paper only. Leave a margin of 4 cm on the left. Number the pages consecutively, including the page on which your list of Works Cited appears. On the cover sheet provided by the Department give your name, year, tutor's name, day and time of tutorial and the title of your essay. Fasten the pages securely at the top left-hand corner and avoid folding your essay, as this makes it difficult to read. A copy should be kept by the student against the unlikely event of the original being lost.

Essay Cover Sheet

Copies of the essay cover sheet are available outside the School of Humanities Office.

Facilities for Word-processing and Typing

You are strongly urged to develop typing or word-processing skills to facilitate your own editing and revision of work for assessment. There are various computing facilities on campus, including the
following (some of which run courses on using their facilities):

• The Union Resource Centre computing facilities and support at Level 3, Union Building.
• The Faculty ITS laboratories at Level 1, Napier Building.
• Barr Smith Library, Level 3 South.

Essay Writing Tips

• Reread the primary text/s after researching your topic and before writing your first draft
• Aim to finish your first draft at least three days before the due date
• If you are a single draft night-before writer, try out the three stage essay writing process
  (see Colin Norman’s Essay Writing Guide)

Grammar and Style Examples

These are self-diagnostic checks. Give yourself one point if you can see straight away that there is a
grammar, style or punctuation fault; give yourself two if you can say what it is.

1.   If Jane had of married St John she would of been very unhappy.
2. She closed the blinds while her cat miaowed, hoping the weather would break.
3. Being a romance novel, the hero is dark and handsome.
4. Feeling very afraid, Jane's hands tremble as she tests the door handle.
5. By running away, it is clear that Jane is unhappy.
6. Working far into the night in an effort to finish her essay.
7. Even though he had the better arguments and was by far the more proficient writer.
8. Becoming a critical reader of your own work. This is essential to developing good essay writing skills.
9. This poem has a cosmo-spacious impact.
10. Ligeia is emancipated to the point of being skeletal.
11. ‘Let the master race begin,’ he yelled, and fired the starter pistol.

How did you go?

1.   If Jane had married St John she would have been very unhappy.
   (should read)
2. She closed the blinds while her cat miaowed, hoping the weather would break.
   (rephrase: the final clause refers ambiguously back to subject of both previous clauses)
3. Being a romance novel, the hero is dark and handsome.
   (rephrase: the hero is not a romance novel)
4. Feeling very afraid, Jane's hands tremble as she tests the door handle.
   (rephrase: Jane’s hands do not feel very afraid)
5. By running away, it is clear that Jane is unhappy.
   (rephrase: By/it constructions are often nonsensical in grammatical terms. )
6. Working far into the night in an effort to finish her essay.
   (sentence fragment: no subject)
7. Even though he had the better arguments and was by far the more proficient writer.
   (sentence fragment: ‘Even though’ turns this into a dependent clause)
8. Becoming a critical reader of your own work. This is essential to developing good essay writing skills.
   (rephrase. Sentence fragment and sentence should either be two whole sentences or one.)
9. This poem has a cosmo-spacious impact.
   (invented word: cosmo-spacious)
10. Ligeia is emancipated to the point of being skeletal.
    (mix-up of like sounding words: emaciated/emancipated)
11. ‘Let the master race begin,’ he yelled, and fired the starter pistol.
    (muddled metaphor/cliché)

Punctuation Examples

1.   Wide Sargasso Sea owes elements of it's storyline to Jane Eyre.
2. The inhabitant's of the island are the descendants of mutineers.
3. All the boutiques closed on Salt street, it was wartime.
4. The cat with the orange markings, always chased chihuahuas.
5. That cat chased dogs, but not birds.
6. The Centenary of Federation which marks 100 years of nationhood will be a big celebration in Adelaide.
7. He took the house, she kept the beach shack.

These have been corrected:

1. Wide Sargasso Sea owes elements of its storyline to Jane Eyre.
   (incorrect apostrophe)
2. The inhabitants of the island are the descendants of mutineers.
   (incorrect apostrophe)
3. All the boutiques closed on Salt street; it was wartime.
   (incorrect comma for semi-colon)
4. The cat with the orange markings always chased chihuahuas.
   (incorrect comma between subject and verb)
5. That cat chased dogs but not birds.
   (incorrect comma before simple conjunction)
6. The Centenary of Federation, which marks 100 years of nationhood, will be a big celebration in Adelaide.
   (incorrect missing commas around non-defining relative clause)
7. He took the house; she kept the beach shack.
   (incorrect comma for semi-colon)

If you found any category of error which you could not identify or correct, do some research on grammar and add the method for correction to your essay checklist. You can customise your own checklist or follow the example below:

Checklist for the Final Stage of Essay Writing

• Avoid overusing weak first person assertions in academic writing.
• Have you used I think/I believe etc at the beginning of sentences? Just cut them.
• Do not use note form. Check that you have written in whole sentences.
• Writing in inadvertent sentence fragments is a major impediment to effective communication.
• Colons and semicolons are very useful tools but must be used correctly.
• Be careful not to put commas in the place of colons and semicolons.
• Any sentence phrased as a question must have a question mark.
• Check all apostrophes. Have you put one on a plural or pronoun incorrectly?
• Avoid too colloquial or chatty a tone.
• Make sure that if you have a plural subject you use a plural verb.
• Rephrase all by/it constructions
• Check for and correct half-punctuated non-defining relative clauses, punctuated defining relative clauses, unpunctuated non-defining relative clauses etc.
• Break up long sentences, especially if the subject slides. A sliding subject makes for incoherent prose.
• Check all clauses beginning with -ing verbs (gerunds and participles): do they relate to what follows or what precedes them properly?
• Check all quotes. Are they accurate? Do they illustrate the argument? Do they make sense in the sentence?

Feedback

Resources on Grammar, Style and Punctuation

Strunk and White online: http://www.bartleby.com/141/index.htmll

Books

Strunk and White, Elements of Style

F H Fowler, Modern English Usage