How to Write a First-Class Essay?

What characteristics define an essay as being of first-class quality? If you ask a university professor or other academic any question, you can be sure that they will respond with an answer that is very useless, evasive, or pompous in some other way. However, the answer to this question in particular consistently seems to be the least useful of all the replies. This is the case because the marking is largely subjective and is done based on an overall 'impression' of the work that they are reading. As a result, even the markers themselves are unable to lay out with any degree of precision the criteria that they mentally use when deciding what mark an essay should be given. As a result of this, several markers will often award different marks to the same piece of work, as is clear from the double marking technique that is used for dissertations.

There are a few broad guidelines that you need to stick to in order to achieve your goal of getting a first in your essays. The grade you earn will be primarily the consequence of the marker's perception of your work. Because of this, it is extremely crucial to plant the concept that your essay is pure brilliance in the mind of the marker. If you do this, you will receive a higher mark. However, how? In this article we will go through the fundamental elements that make up an excellent essay. A number of sample essays have also been provided in other posts so that you may have a better understanding of what constitutes a first class essay. 

Our recommendation for writing summative essays is to invest as much time and effort as is humanly feasible into the process. Students often put their reading and studying for examinations ahead of writing their summative essays because they erroneously assume that exams are more difficult than summative essays. Do not let yourself be misled. The challenge of writing a summative essay is not made any simpler by the fact that you are not required to generate the essay in forty-five minutes relying just on your recollection. The reader of your summative essay will have far greater expectations for it than those for an essay produced under the constraints of an exam since you have plenty of time to complete it and every resource you could possibly need is at your disposal. There is no justification for having misspelt words, improperly formatted documents, or insufficient amounts of research done.

In addition to this, we would recommend that you place an emphasis on your formative essays rather than your general reading or any other work. Even while these essays will not be included into your overall score, the comments and insights you get from them will be very helpful as you work to improve your essay writing. You will also be made aware of any faults that you may be doing on a consistent basis if you get feedback on your performance. You need to take the criticism to heart and figure out how to use it to your advantage. Do not allow negative feedback to demoralise you or convince you that you are unsuitable for pursuing a degree in law. It is more beneficial to have made mistakes in a formative than to have written a perfect essay because it means that you will receive much more useful feedback that you can then use to improve your future essays. For example, having written a perfect essay will prevent you from receiving any constructive feedback at all.

1. Research and Reading

When you are given the title of an essay, your very first step should be to determine the topic of the essay as well as its overall breadth. Although it may seem apparent, it is surprisingly simple to misunderstand the meaning of an essay's title or to view it as the question you wish you had been asked rather than the one you really are being asked. If you are ever confused about what the person is trying to ask you, you should always take the question and give it the most literal meaning possible by isolating the important terms and the command word. After you have determined the overarching subject, the following step is to locate the primary text and go through it. For instance, if the question asks you about unincorporated associations, you should be sure to study the chapter in our Equity & Trusts Core Series that is dedicated to these types of trusts. The Equity & Trusts Q&A Series may also contain a suggested answer.  Before you begin writing, it is essential that you have a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter of the essay as well as the many academic stances that have been taken about it. Additionally helpful is the fact that the primary text will direct you toward scholarly discussion and other reading material. This is the point in your essay that you should start doing research.

2. Further Reading

The examiner wants to know that you have read a variety of journal articles that have been published from a number of different points of view in order for you to get a good grade. You have to be able to analyse the relative strengths and weaknesses of each writer and then utilise that evaluation to put out the most important point in your essay. This is not as challenging as it may seem to be at first, as I will hopefully demonstrate to you in the next sections of this post. However, it is sufficient to state for the time being that making effective use of journal articles is significantly more essential than having read a large quantity of them in depth.

Every kind of essay should have the same goal, which is to convince the reader of a certain position. It is not to provide all of the points on a subject in an even or objective manner and then let the reader decide for themselves what they think about the issue. Which side you choose to take is highly unimportant. The only thing that really counts is that your position is supported by sound logic and contains evidence from scholarly sources. If you decide which side you are going to take after you have finished your background reading, it will make your subsequent reading a lot simpler, and you will be able to make notes that will be helpful while you are writing your essay if you do this. A modern textbook should point you in the direction of some important journal articles. You may find references to further articles by looking in the footnotes of the papers themselves or by searching for the articles using keywords on the websites of LexisNexis, Westlaw, or the website of your university library.

After you have located enough articles to get started, the following step is to have an understanding of what it is that you are searching for. You may skip any descriptive explanations of the legislation in issue and proceed right to the academic's argument if you already have a strong understanding of the broad subject, which you should have as a result of your study of the law textbook.   When you are bringing forth an argument in your essay, you will need to back it up with clear academic evidence. Because of this, you should try to seek for any arguments that are especially emotionally charged or expressed forcefully. You should copy any compelling statements or arguments from the article and paste them into a word document. You should also provide a quick summary of the article and your assessment of how convincing the argument is. Keep in mind that exercising judgement is essential in order to get the most out of scholarly papers. Do not let yourself get distracted by the prospect of reading an article that is one hundred pages long from beginning to end. Instead, focus on locating the sections of the article that are most pertinent to the topic of your essay and taking notes on those sections. You may locate the sections that are applicable to your needs by utilising the find tool and doing a search for relevant keywords. This will not only save you time, but it will also prevent you from receiving a worse grade for employing material that is extraneous to the topic at hand or for concentrating too much on a single article.

3. The Write Up

When it comes to producing an excellent essay, there are a few crucial principles that stand out. The principle of simplicity is the most important one. Your essay will be easier to comprehend and will come across as more convincing if you keep its organisation and its substance as straightforward as possible. Avoid skipping about from one point to the next and back again; instead, provide a comprehensive summary of every argument you want to provide before going on to any rebuttals. This will guarantee that your response is logical, and it will give the impression to the marker that you have given enough care to the organisation of your essay.

If you want to show how another argument that you have not explained yet is related to the point that you are talking about, you should generally avoid doing this, even though it can be difficult to follow this rule because arguments are often interrelated. On the other hand, you may want to demonstrate how the point that you are talking about is related to another factor that you have not explained yet. Writing your essay in short phrases will not only make it much simpler to read, but it will also give the impression that you have a complete understanding of the topic. When students employ wordy descriptions and lengthy, complicated sentences that comprise three or four clauses, it gives the impression to the examiner that they have not mastered the material well enough to be able to express it in a way that is easily understood by the general public.

When you write clearly and concisely, you will be able to include much more information in your essays, which, one again, will make your argument more compelling. Students who write in an excessively wordy approach frequently find that they run out of room to speak about all of the points they intended to make in their essays, but this will provide you with the chance to show that you have done a significant amount of research. You should also take into consideration the fact that the majority of law students have a tendency to write in a very wordy and drawn-out manner; hence, if you have the ability to write simply and load your essay full of compelling points, your essay will stand out from the crowd. The reader will be impressed by the amount of information that a student is able to include in the essay without compromising the quality of the analysis and assessment. 

If you just cover one point at a time, then after each point you may provide the opposing position and back it up with academic evidence without the reader becoming confused in the process. Writing succinctly will also make it easy to explain counterarguments that are immediately pertinent. When writing essays about law, it is essential to be able to give two opposing views and analyse each of them. This may be accomplished in one of two ways: first, by offering two opposing sides of an argument and proposing which is stronger, and second, by giving two reasons for the same side (the side you're supporting) and claiming which is stronger. Both of these approaches are valid. The latter will help your case since it will indicate that you are not a fanatical supporter of your point of view; rather, you feel it is the preferable viewpoint, but you recognise that some of the traditional arguments in favour of it are weak. This will demonstrate that you are not an ardent advocate for your point of view. This will provide credence to the points you make in your essay.

One last suggestion for writing essays is to make intelligent use of the research you do. You do not always need to cite directly from an academic when presenting a point and backing it it with academic support, nor do you always need to mention the academics in the body of your essay when doing so. In some situations, a summary of a single academic viewpoint, followed by the addition of a footnote that points the reader in the direction of numerous more academics who agree with that viewpoint, is all that is required. Without having to go into depth on each and every item that you've come across, this is a simple method to demonstrate to the marker that you have done a significant amount of research. It is important to keep in mind that the main emphasis of your essay should not be the academic commentary that you provide, but rather the ideas and arguments that you provide, with the academic commentary serving only as support for those points. If you merely write what some academics say, you won't receive as many points as if you use elements of the academic opinion in a manner that compliments your argument and use specific passages from the academic discussion.

4. Formatting And Referencing

You need to make sure that you have thoroughly reviewed the criteria for formatting assignments at your institution and that your essay adheres to those standards. In most circumstances, you will be expected to reference sources using OSCOLA format throughout the whole of your essay and to conclude it with a table of cases and a bibliography. If it is not done properly, it is quite simple to get more points, but if it is, it is also very simple to lose those points. When it comes to properly citing their sources in their writings, a significant number of students struggle mightily. On the other hand, if you have a moment to peruse the OSCOLA reference guide, you will discover the solutions to all of your problems. If you want to make a reference to a newspaper, for instance, all you have to do is open the book and use the find function to locate the section devoted to newspapers.

In most cases, the referencing came towards the end of the process; nevertheless, some individuals find it more convenient to do so while they are writing their essays. Either method may be used successfully; however, you must remember to keep track of the page number and the location where you located each source that you are going to utilise. This is how it is done properly and you will be happier in the future, if you need to refer back. 

The Essay Structure

Here's the fundamental essay format. This format ensures your essay makes a convincing argument by 1) explaining your position and 2) rebutting counterarguments. First, compose the essay's body. This section includes your arguments, evidence, and counterarguments. Then compose the introduction and conclusion.

Introduction

1. Give an explanation as to why some people (incorrectly) favour the opposing perspective. Make sure you answer the question using the language it was asked in so the grader can follow along.

2. Inform the reader that the previously described concept is out of date and that the content of this essay will demonstrate that the opposite is true.

3. Provide the reader with a road map of your thoughts by outlining the specific steps your essay will take to demonstrate this concept.

4. Define any vocabulary that is relevant to the essay issue. If there is a lot of room for interpretation in the question, narrow down the focus of your essay.

Main body:

In the main body of your essay, you should provide any counterarguments and explain why they are incorrect, in addition to presenting the argument that you are supporting and explaining why it is correct. Again, make frequent references to the language of the question in order to demonstrate how the argument you are making is pertinent to the discussion.

When you are organising the main body of your essay, you should break up the conversation you are going to have into a number of different topics or ideas and then utilise subheadings for each of them. The essay about mortgages that follows displays one way to partition off an essay and give it a clear structure.

Conclusion

1. Remind the reader of the most important part of your argument. Please repeat after me: utilise the language of the question that has been posed to you.

2. In about one line for each of the arguments you made in the main body of your essay, briefly summarise each of those points.

3. You should not bring up any fresh information that isn't included in the essay that you've written.