Introduction
Despite being crucial for achieving high marks in GCSEs, essay writing remains oddly under-taught and overlooked. As an English, History and R.S tutor (all of which are essay based), one of the most common areas of weakness for my students is essay writing and structure. Having a great understanding of your course is only half of the battle; without knowing how to effectively put your ideas down on paper you will not be able to reach your true potential. This blog will go over the importance of essay writing and the basic skills of essay writing. Hopefully, you will find some helpful tips and things to watch out for the next time you are faced with a dreaded 20 marker.
Why is essay writing important?
Essay writing is not only essential for your GCSEs, but is also a vital skill at college and university. It is the first taste of higher education, and a skill that may come in useful in the future when you least expect it (just look at me!). Many jobs require good written communication skills, and this is equally important in everyday life. Have you ever found yourself unable to express your thoughts clearly during an argument or struggled to explain yourself in a tricky situation? It can be frustrating to have the right words but fail to effectively use them whilst writing. Practising your essay writing can help improve this skill.
Basic essay skills
There are some core principles with essay writing that if you stick to, will boost any piece of writing. Like any skill, practice always helps, so when you are revising make sure you are not just learning the content of your books, but also practising your essay writing skills.
Read and answer the question
This one may seem simple enough but it can be an easy one to get away from you. No matter what the question is, you will need to make sure that some of the same words used in the question are used in every single paragraph that you write. Obviously, a good rule of thumb for essay writing is: do not repeat yourself, but I like to think of the words in the questions as “free hits”, as you cannot use them enough in an essay. When the examiner is reading through the essay, if they keep seeing the buzz words come up they will know that you have been linking everything back to the question.
Planning and time management
The skill of planning an essay is one of the most important skills you will ever learn (in the context of GCSE essay writing). With my students, we will spend a lot of time just planning essays so they can do it properly in the exam. Planning helps you with two important areas: having a cohesive essay and managing your time. It may seem counterintuitive spending your precious essay time writing a “stupid” plan but in the long run it will massively help. Mental blocks are a killer; we’ve all been there when you sit down ready to write and you just keep thinking how the hell do I start this thing? Using a plan helps you get all of your ideas down and makes you a lot more confident when it comes to starting your essay. Making a good plan means you will not have to think at all while writing.
PEEB
Most of you have heard of PEE (Point, Example, Explain) or PEEL (Point, Example, Explain, Link) which are great tools for getting a solid structure in your paragraphs and making sure you are answering the question. The one that I like to teach my students is PEEB (Point, Example, Explain, Backup). By having the backup it allows you to talk about another point that keeps the flow of the paragraph. You would start a ‘Backup’ section with a sentence like; Another way in which this is shown or This can also be seen by and then go on to give another ‘Example’ and ‘Explanation’. Side note, the PEEB system does not have an L for Link but I think that to properly explain your point you have to link it to the question anyway, so the L is implied. Now then, it is all well and good knowing what PEE/L/B means but how do you use it properly? It is important to understand which bits get you what marks. Your points can be anything that makes sense and you feel that you can write about. This section does not really get you any marks, but if you have a poor point your remaining paragraph will likely fall short. The ‘Example’ bit however, will get you marks. If you get text from an extract or have to memorise it you need to make sure that it is 1: accurate and 2: relevant to your point. The ‘Explain’ section is where you will be getting most of the marks, so it needs to be worthy of getting marks. The amount of times that I see students’ essays and the explanation is the same length as the point is huge; this should be the overwhelming majority of your paragraph. It needs to show why your point is correct and then link it to questions. Lastly, the ‘Backup’ section is just a way for you to get as many marks as possible. You just repeat the ‘Example’ and ‘Explain’ sections while keeping the same point.
Have a good structure
This structure is more about the overall structure of your essay rather than the structure within the paragraph (that was covered enough in the PEEB section I think). General structure is just as important and can ensure that your essay is coherent and reads well. Basic structure for essays is generally: Introduction, 3-4 PEEBs, Conclusion. The amount of PEEBs can vary from essay to essay but a good introduction and conclusion is vital.
Introduction
The key to a good introduction is that it is small. All it needs to do is to introduce the points that you are going to be making in the essay (this is where planning comes in handy again). A good tip for an introduction is to write them last, as you will be able to accurately talk about what you have written. If the question you are answering is based around a certain topic or word, your introduction is a good place to define those topics/words so you do not need to repeat your definition in the essay and it also means you can link more points to match your definition.
Conclusion
Just as the introduction was used to explain the points you are going to talk about, the conclusion sums up the explanations you wrote in the essay. It is a place where all of the explanations are, so you can read them side by side to make your overall point. A good thing to keep in mind for the conclusion is that you should just be able to read the conclusion and get a good grasp of the overall essay, and understand your view.
Linking
This is a next level skill but when done effectively can look great. By hinting at the topic of your next paragraph at the end of the current one it can make the essay flow and be a lot more readable to the examiner. Linking also shows that you have planned out what you are going to write and you will pick up a few extra marks. However, make sure you only hint and do not go into a full explanation.
Different types of essays
During your GCSEs, English literature and language is something all of you will have to do. In these exams there will be at least 8 long essays that you will have to do. Luckily most of these can be approached with the same style, but there are lots of different types of essay that you will need to change your style for. The style of your essay can change based on these characteristics.
Purpose
The purpose of the essay will change a lot depending on the question and the subject. Some of the purposes could be:
Comparison questions
Comparison questions will normally take the form of having to analyse two or more materials and then looking at the differences/similarities of the materials. With these types of questions you do not need to form a bias (save that for debate) and it’s important to keep a level tone when analysing. With comparison questions it is also very important that you are comparing both of the sources all of the time. This sounds like a no-brainer, but it is very easy to fall into the trap of looking at the materials one at a time and not actually talking about the materials together. This is easy to fix just by making sure you start each paragraph with something like; ‘both sources’, ‘both texts’ etc. Your paragraphs should be about your point and how it applies to both texts.
Forming a debate
These questions normally take the form of having to agree or disagree with a statement, then using your own knowledge or source materials to back up your point. With these types of questions you can normally have a very biassed writing style. You are supposed to use your knowledge/source materials to back up the point you are making, and the opinion itself is somewhat irrelevant. By the end of reading your essay, the examiner should have no questions about which side you were on. One thing to keep in mind with these questions is; If your question is something like (Blank) was the most important factor in… then you need to be talking about the point in the question every paragraph even if you are disagreeing with the statements and then bring in other factors that were more important.
Answering using extract
It is rare that you will have a question that just relies on using an extract (unseen poetry is the only I can think of) but you will always always always (always) have to use the extract in every content paragraph. These types of questions are where the PEEB layout works well, as I like to tell students to use the first sections to talk about the extract and then you can use the backup to use your own knowledge. With extract questions, there will always be a number of different quotes you can pick out to answer the questions and you will get marked on picking out the right one, so be careful and read it properly.
Answering using own knowledge
For these questions you will still need to have facts or quotes in your answer and remembering them can be really tricky. With quotes, what you need to remember is that you do not get marked on the size of the quote, it is how you use it. A 10 word quote could get less marks than a 2 word quote; learn ones that you know you will be able to remember. If you have also forgotten dates or exact numbers it is better for your essay to say an “aroundabout” number than the wrong one. For example, saying World War 1 ended in the late 1910’s would be better than incorrectly saying it ended in 1919 (although, if you are doing history you should know when WW1 ended). But just like questions with an extract, you get marked on how relevant your information is, so you should avoid shoehorning facts and quotes if they do not fit the questions. You can actually get marked down for putting in irrelevant information.
Conclusion
By understanding how to write a good essay, you will find yourself picking up a lot of extra marks. Having the knowledge is half of the battle, but a good, solid, well-structured essay is the other. Depending on your subject choices, it is also a skill that leaks into multiple exams. So make sure when you revise you give a little love to essay skills, it just might get you a 9.