University Of Edinburgh Essay Writing Guideline

Academic Essay Writing: Some Guidelines

Based on an original document by Bethan Davies with revisions by John McKenna, D R Ladd and Ellen Bard

This guideline provides some info on preparing an article that engages the reader.

1. INTRODUCTION

Good essay writing is a skill acquired rather than learnt. Approaches vary from person to person and will depend on one's experience in essay writing, almost to the point where a style of writing will be as individual as a signature.

You may already be quite comfortable writing essays and if so, you will have a definite feel for what works for you. If, on the other hand, you are new at the game or don't seem to be getting the marks you feel your efforts deserve, then we encourage you to follow the advice in Section 2 on preparation and research. The same applies to Section 3 on structure and Section 4 on style, but the contents of these sections can also serve as a basis for self-assessment - even for the experienced - before that final draft is submitted. There is a checklist at the end - use it! You should pay special attention to Section 4.3 on stylistic conventions, as there is little scope for flexibility on these matters within a particular academic discipline.

Throughout this short guide we use the term "essay" to mean any sort of academic writing assignment that you hand in for a course. In linguistics you will be required to produce a variety of written assignments, and only some of them will be "essays" in the sense that the term might be used in a history or literature course. Others will be concise reports of experiments or descriptions of linguistic or other data. Others will be honours dissertations. However, they are all referred to here as "essays", and most of the principles of clarity, organisation and presentation apply to them all.