Writing essays can be a bind particularly if you are not really sure how to get the grades that you need. They can also be time consuming when you don’t seem to have enough hours in a day to get everything done that is demanded of you. All too often, with these issues in mind, it is too easy to procrastinate and to leave writing an essay until the day before it is due in. This is not a good idea. If you follow the steps set out in this article and start as soon as you get your essay list, then you will easily produce a great gender equality essay.
In this article you will learn:
- How you should choose your topic or essay question.
- How to condense reading around the subject.
- How to plan your essay.
- How to write a compelling introduction.
- How to structure the main body of your essay.
- How to write a concise conclusion.
- What to do if you need help.
Choosing a topic is essentially a major part of writing an essay. The reason for this is that it is frustrating to start writing an essay and after three or four failed attempts decide that it is not the essay for you. This means that you have to start again and all the work that you have done is lost. This not only wastes your precious time but it dents your confidence. Once your confidence is wounded concerning essay writing, it makes it an awful chore.
This means that instead of rushing in to pick the first essay title that looks appealing, you should consider the list carefully. For instance, if you see a question that states ‘where is equality in the Labour Party if they have never had a female leader?’ You may think that is truly simple to answer because the fact that they haven’t had a female leader obviously means that there is no equality in the party. However, that in itself is not a critical analysis and you would need lots more evidence than that answer to write a full essay. Basically, if you are not au fait with politics, don’t attempt that question. Often the questions that seem to have simple answers can be the ones that are the most difficult to write and get the best grades at if you are not fascinated by the subject.
The best advice when choosing which question to answer for your gender equality essay is to pick out the ones which appeal to you and then mind map them one by one. All you need to do to follow this procedure is get a blank piece of paper and scribble down anything that you think is related to the subject. When you have lots of ideas down, you then try to make connections between your ideas. If you do this with three topics and one sheet is covered with writing and the other two have a couple of ideas down on them, you know which question you should choose. Always avoid essays questions where ideas do not flow.
Once you have chosen your essay question, it is tempting to procrastinate by reading everything that is connected to the subject. For instance, if you have chosen to answer the question ‘Did female playwrights of the 17th century have gender equality?’ you could spend the rest of your life reading about female playwrights and male playwrights of the 17th century and comparing them. This is why creating a hypothesis will help you to cut all that excess research right down. For instance, you might decide to develop evidence from one act in one play. For example, you might choose the play ‘She Ventures and He Wins’ by Ariadne. (This is a pseudonym.) Can you see how that would cut your reading time down now you have one piece of text to critically analyse? Furthermore, you have reduced how many critical essays and journals you need to read to add weight to your own theories.
Once you have read and analysed the text, you can develop your hypothesis. For instance, you may wish to demonstrate that there is an illusion that female playwrights in the 17th century had equality with male playwrights because they had their plays performed. However, they managed to get their plays performed because they had to write plays that appealed to the male sex’s image of itself whilst at the same time delivering a feminist message. Having a clear and focussed view of what you are writing about will help you to plan and write your essay.
The next stage to writing your essay is to make a plan. Don’t be tempted to leave this stage out as it is a vital one. At this point, you have written your hypothesis and done all your background reading so, therefore, you will have noticed some themes and patterns emerging. If you make a note of each pattern or theme, you will have the basis to make your points on. Depending, on the word count of your essay, choose in between three and five points that you wish to make. Write one sentence stating each point and this will be your plan. Under each point, make a note of all the evidence that you have to back up your point. This can include quotations from the text and critical theories of the text. It could also include historical evidence from the time.
