If you’re currently working on your Summatives: I feel you!!! And for those who plan on doing an Exchange in Durham next year, I hope this blog will help you a bit 🙂
I’ve never had to write any essays at my home Uni, as we only have multiple choice exams. For me, exam period used to be the time where my room would turn into an advertisement for post-it notes and the coffee machine became my new best friend. Unfortunately though, the procedure of ‘6 months procrastination + 3 weeks of learning’ does not work if you have to write essays. So, here are my tips for writing an essay!
1. Useful resources
Depending on your subject, you may need different resources. As far as for social sciences, I find the following really helpful:
- JSTOR (various Journals and sometimes certain books)
- Google Scholar
- researchgate.net
- tandfonline.com
- Wiley online library
Some sites require your institutional login, but almost every Uni has purchased access to these sites.
2. Bibliography
Try to familiarise yourself with the guidelines for the correct citation before you start with your essay. I personally don’t like using footnotes, but certain departments may only allow you to use this style of referencing.
Many of my friends have asked me about how to write the name of an author in capitals (DON’T USE CAPS-LOCK!). If you use Word, you can switch to capitals by pressing CTRL+D.
3. Research
If I am reading through resources, I enter the source into a table and make sure I use the referencing style the lecturer/department wants me to use. Once I write the Bibliography for my essay, I will be able to just copy-paste the resources.
In a second row I enter the quote which may be useful for my essay.
The third row indicates the page number my quote refers to.
I usually structure my essay into different sections and colour-code them after reading through enough material. I then go over my table with useful quotes and materials and write down, where I plan on using my resources. Once I begin writing my essay, I will be able to just look for the right colour and don’t have to read thorugh each quote again.
4. Grammarly
I suck at punctuation. You may have noticed by now that I use a comma whenever it feels right to use one. Unfortunately, the examiners are usually not very fond of my punctuation-extravaganza. 🙂
Once I’ve written my essay and am more or less pleased with it, I upload it onto grammarly (the free version) and let the software check my punctuation. I find it very useful, as it gives me a little more confidence when submitting my essay.
But I’d rather wrap this post up before I bore you to death! The next one will be more interesting and less academic, I promise 😉
Stay safe,
Fanny
The Durham Exchange 