Essay writing strategies

Eleanor has raised some interesting questions about how to handle your introduction (you can see her whole comment after the last post if you like). I thought it would be worth making this the subject of a new post, as I suspect others may have similar questions. Her first example of an introduction goes like this:

'Many of the characters are lonely, in particular George, Candy and Curley's wife'

This is ok, but that is the sort of answer that lots of students will give. I think that it's better to give a lot more detail, so that the examiner knows where you are heading with your answer. Her alternative opening goes like this:


'Many of the characters are lonely, but all in different ways - Curley's wife is married to a man she doesn't love, Candy is crippled and relies on an old dog for company, and George must keep moving, giving up jobs to look after Lennie, and never making other friends'

I think that is a much stronger opening, because it is more precise and detailed.

Eleanor's concern, which I am sure some of the rest of you share is that

I sometimes feel that if I put all my ideas into the introduction, I won't have anything new to say in the rest of my essay, and will just repeat myself.

Please DON'T worry about this. You certainly won't be using up your best ideas by writing a clear introduction. Remember always that you are simply laying out your stall in the opening paragraphs--explaining the area of your interest, and that doing this will make it easier for the examiners to follow your closer analysis in the next sections.

Another issue Eleanor raises is that of how to quote smoothly.

Can you change quotes to fit them into your sentence, as sometimes they don't make sense, if you want to embed them, but the verb isn't conjugated right, as you're saying, 'he does this' but the book says 'I do this'. Do you just split the quote up around the verb, or put it in brackets or something like that?

This is really important if you want to embed your quotations. ALWAYS make the syntax work. If it doesn't, then don't quote, just refer--in Eleanor's example, imagine that the novel says

"'I do this every day' said George". and you want to say that this quotation shows his exasperation.

You then have various alternatives, if the syntax desn't fit smoothly into your planned sentence. You could use the quotation by framing it as reported speech rather than direct speech: 'George's comment that he does this every day shows his exasperation'

OR, if it is especially dear to your heart that you quote, then just use the words that will fit: 'When George says that he does this "every day", it shows his exasperation'

OR rephrase your own sentence: 'When George says "I do this every day", we see his exasperation'

In the last resort, if you want to change part of a word, you can do this, and indicate it by square brackets. So:

'When George comments how he "do[es] this every day" we sympathise with his exasperation'

This last solution should be used with caution, as it can look inelegant if you are not careful.

Hope this helps.