what makes a good english essay? besides the quality of what you say to show your understanding of the topic, which is very important, the other main influencing factor on your gcse grade is essay structure. Obviously there are various types of gcse english exam questions, such as responses to english literature novels or poetry, or written analyses of non fiction texts, such as media texts like magazine articles and advertising leaflets. And yes, one could argue that there are as many different essay structures as there are exam essay questions and topics. but in order to simplify the process of how to write a good english essay. We are going to break down the structure of an essay into its key component parts. To enable you to use this knowledge to put together good essays, no matter what the topic.

Explain, evaluate , or words or phrases that refer to the topic of this question. Often, but not always, questions give you clues as to how to structure your essay. For example, after the main question on whether an article is effective or not, the question might also ask discuss the effectiveness in terms of the layout, language and presentation of the article. If the question gives you these additional clues, imagine each item mentioned as a separate paragraph or series of paragraphs in the main body of your essay. if you hate planning for your writing, then youre not doing it right! a plan should be a quick scribbled draft of keywords and ideas for the structure and main points of your final essay.

It should not contain full sentences, and nor should it take longer than 5 or 10 minutes to do. A plan should help you write a better essay, and be referred to constantly as you write, to remind you of what to write, and where to write it. A plan is for you, not for your teacher! do a plan in the way most useful and sensible to you some people draw circles for each planned paragraph with keywords inside each, which act as prompts when you write the final essay. Other people jot down points more or less in chronological order on the planning sheet, to remind them of the sequence of points/paragraphs to follow in the final essay. Your plan should contain the following broad sections: an introduction paragraph section, separate spaces for each key paragraph/topic/idea, and a conclusion paragraph section. And write down the main points you need to make in the final essay, one per paragraph space on your plan. Then use the peel approach to jot down some key ideas/quotes per paragraph point.

High School Research Papers on Careers

Peel stands for: point make your point , evidence give some evidence, usually a quote, to support it , explain explain your point in more detail , and link link your point back to the question asked. Write down some keywords or phrases of things you might use when it comes to actually writing the complete essay. Your plan will help keep you focussed on the question topic and the points you need to make.

Remember that you have a relatively short time to write a complete essay in, and the plan will help you keep to the timing, and to finish your essay. if you cant think of a creative and engaging way to start your essay for example, ask a rhetorical question related to the topic or literature , then simply state what you are going to do in this essay. However make sure that you use appropriate language in your introduction, which shows you have a good understanding of what its all about. For example in this essay im going to explore and analyse key concepts of the poem digging by seamus heaney in terms of the metaphors, meaning and themes is better than im going to show my understanding of digging by seamus heaney. Then move on after all, the introduction is unlikely to give you many extra marks.

each of the paragraphs in the main body of your essay should then address a separate topic/theme/issue that you feel is relevant to the question, and needs to be discussed. You do not have to keep mentioning how it ties to the question, but its a good idea to keep the question asked in your mind as you go, so that you dont veer off topic, waffle and waste your time. As for the introduction, if you cannot think of anything innovative, personal or evaluative to say at this point, then simply tie up and summarise what you have written in the essay. However a well thought out conclusion, offering some insight or personal thoughts, and linked to the topic/poem/article and question, will gain more marks than simply stating what you have done.