- Think of your reader as someone who needs your help. Your essay will serve as a tutorial:
- Describe important concepts and lines of reasoning, e.g., ‘He says this, he argues that.’
- Explain important concepts and lines of reasoning, e.g., ‘This is what he means by this and that.’
- Connect important concepts and lines of reasoning to your thesis, e.g., ‘So, this is why…’
- Be sure your essay is fully formed, i.e., introductory remarks, summaries, and analyses. When formulating your position, be sure to make your argument clear.
- Organize your thoughts so they are expressed on paper as a coherent whole. Given the constraints of the exam format, you’ll probably write a minimum of four, and a maximum of six paragraphs. These should ‘hang together’ in a way that’s easy to follow; there is a clear progression of ideas.
- Write intelligibly: sentences must be grammatical and cohesive.
- Choose your words carefully. Remember, you’re constructing ideas for your reader.
- Orient your essay around a single point you want to make, using your thinker(s) concepts and argument(s) as evidence.
- Be sure to present, describe, and explain significant concepts and their relations:
- In addition, do not use material from any outside (i.e., secondary) sources, and do not use quotes from the primary source material longer than several words; I want to read what you have to say about the text. When you do quote the text, however, be sure to enlist the appropriate punctuation.
- Your essay should run between (no fewer than) 500 and (approximately) 800 words.
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