Strategy for Writing Essay

1. Writing Essay
Strategies

2. Analyse the question
Essays are responses to specific questions. As an essay must address the question
directly, your first step should be to analyze the question. Make sure you know
exactly what is being asked of you.
Generally, essay questions contain three component parts:
•Content terms: Key concepts that are specific to the task
•Limiting terms: The scope that the topic focuses on
•Directive terms: What you need to do in relation to the content, e.g. discuss,
analyse, define, compare, evaluate.

3. Define your argument
As you plan and prepare to write the essay, you must consider what
your argument is going to be. This means taking an informed
position or point of view on the topic presented in the question,
then defining and presenting a specific argument.

4. Use evidence, reasoning and
scholarship
To convince your audience of your argument, you must use
evidence and reasoning, which involves referring to and evaluating
relevant scholarship.
•Evidence provides concrete information to support your claim. It
typically consists of specific examples, facts, quotations, statistics
and illustrations.
•Reasoning connects the evidence to your argument. Rather than
citing evidence like a shopping list, you need to evaluate the
evidence and show how it supports your argument.
•Scholarship is used to show how your argument relates to what has
has been written on the topic (citing specific works). Scholarship can