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Essays

Writing essays

After doing tutorials for a couple of years, I've got very fed up struggling through badly written essays. So I thought I'd put this up for anyone interested in writing scientific essays that don't make their tutors want to kill them. A well written essay with zero content is a bad essay, but at least it's one that's pleasant to read and doesn't give the reader a haemorrhage trying to understand what the hell you meant. An essay full of stupid mstakes, italics in the wrong places and sentences not well are structured and without grammar you have recognisable in it, really, really make me not want to give you an A.

The first part of this guide covers the simple stuff that any idiot can do, i.e. how to write essays that are correctly referenced, avoid muddy-thinking pitfalls, and are aesthetically acceptable. This is dull stuff, but will put your marker in a better frame of mind, and anything that pleases your marker is likely to get you better marks, no matter how trivial putting italics in the right place ultimately is. The second part is a how to approach actually writing an essay, so that you score on the scientific content as well as the trivialities.

Abbreviations

When you introduce abbreviations in your text, make sure that the first time you use them, you write out the full word: it's extremely irritating to read about UTP and not know if you're talking about uridine triphosphate or unshielded twisted pairs. Latin names can also be shortened, but only after using the full name first: Escherichia coli first, then later E. coli.

Genes and proteins

Gene names are usually written in small case italics (even at the start of sentences, despite what Word might think). Protein names are usually written in capitals or sentence case in normal Roman text. virA is a gene making the protein VirA, for example. There are exceptions though, so generally go with whatever your source material says is correct unless it looks dodgy.

Science words

There are some words to avoid like the plague when you are writing essays, and others to be very careful about. The worst words to avoid are:

Science grammar

Make sure your grammar is that of the language you are writing in. For whatever reason, posh grammar (featuring words like whom, in which, and thereby, and with apostrophes and the other bugbears of English) is used for writing science. I'm not that bothered about snotty grammar, but others are, and you'd be better off fighting the system from within, having got your first, and not a third.

Use the passive, as was said already. Use the past tense when writing up experiments.

I'm guessing you're thinking I'm some sort of reactionary old git who thinks that language is set in stone. This is not true. Like I said, posh grammar (the text-book, apostrophes-and-whom sort) tends to get used for science, but it doesn't bother me if you'd rather run the gauntlet of the real reactionary gits who hate innovation. However, what I get in essays is really ungrammatical crap, that doesn't make sense at all and just makes my brain bleed trying to work out what you meant to say. I'm not talking about this:

"The author who we are talking about said that he found himself in a difficult position"

which makes perfect sense, although this is arguably nicer:

"The author, about whom we were talking, said that he found himself in a difficult position"

What I'm talking about is this sort of eye-bleeder:

"The author was talked about said he finds him in a difficult positions"

This is the sort of thing I regularly have to smear with red pen.

Science plagiarism

Referencing the sources of the ideas you have quoted in your essays stops your tutor hating you, and others from suing you. It's boring as hell, but like the Latin names, just do it (Nike, 2002), OK?

URLs

There is, as yet, no standard form for these, and given the impermanence and bias of many websites, it is a good idea to get your information from other places if possible (that includes this one, with the exception of this page!). Be very wary of internet information: it has not been peer reviewed. That said, use the net to find sources of information (like books and papers), and reference if necessary the full URL, the author, the date you visited it, the page title, and the site's host. I'm happier with info from URLs ending in .edu or .ac.** than from other sites, but be aware that even these may be written by undergrads given space on the academic network rather than academics themselves.

Getting the content right

OK, so that's how to make the essay aesthetically pleasing, and how to avoid the shout of 'plagiarist!'. Now, how do you write essays that actually score well on content as well as presentation? Well, when marking essays, I look for the following qualities:

• Coherence: the essay should stand together well and nothing should look bolted-on as an afterthought. The flow of thought though the essay should be plain and clear: you are trying to take the reader on a journey through your thought processes: try to make this smooth and/or exciting, but not car-crash-esque. If you read the essay after you have written it, the protruding junk is often as plain to you as it will be to the marker, so be your own worst critic and revise your essay at least once before submitting it.
• Analysis: a good essay assesses ideas by breaking them down into their elements and examining their individual usefulness or truth, their inter-relationships, and their contribution to the idea as a whole. If you are arguing a point, break it into manageable bits, prod each one until you're sure the bits work individually, then build them back up into your (now tried and tested) idea.
• Criticism: at every point in your essay, ask 'does this make sense?', 'what assumptions am I making?' 'are there contrary viewpoints?', 'is this blatant rubbish?'. Don't dismiss the criticism, and merely write down the outcome of what you think: write down why you think it, and what is lacking in alternative explanations. The essay is the criticism, not the thing you eventually come to believe is true.
• Knowledge and originality: cover whatever you have learnt from lectures, but make sure you have done some background reading. There's nothing duller than reading a precis of your own lecture notes. See if you can teach your teacher something. If you are given the opportunity to be original (such as if you're told to write an essay on any topic in cell biology), go for something off the beaten track, either subject-wise ('The ribosome as an evolutionary milestone: the death of the ribozyme by its own proteinaceous hand'), or approach-wise (write something as though it were a court proceeding, discuss the political and social implications of cloning rather than the science, or write the essay entirely in iambic pentameter or haiku).

Everyone has a different approach to writing essays and every essay is different, so there are no hard-and-fast rules. However, below are a few things you might like to consider.

Planning and research

Some people like writing down essay plans, others (such as me) can work out the general plan in their heads. Either way, don't launch into an essay without thought as to how you will structure it. Almost without exception however, you will need to provide the following:

• Introduction, in which the gist, rationale, background or point of the essay is noted.
• Body, preferably broken up into 'chapters', or at least internally coherent paragraphs. Big essays and dissertation will need breaking into sub-chapters too.
• Conclusions, in which you summarise the important points.
• References, in which you provide your sources.
• For really big things, you may need the following too, which aid the reader in finding their way round a big tome: an abstract (a summary of the entire thing that will stand alone), a contents page, a glossary, an index, etc.

Gathering the information for the essay is usually just a matter of immersing yourself in the literature: find out where to find the physical books and papers (i.e. find the library and find out roughly where books on different subjects live), get the relevant passwords to use virtual information like citation databases, CD libraries, and online journals, and learn how to use Google and other search engines effectively. Once you've got a big pile of relevant information, read through it and make a list of the important points you find as you go along, and the sources in which you found them.

The structure of the body of the essay is very much up to you, but you will need to find a way of coherently structuring the information you have gathered. Think of ways in which you can chop up the information rationally: can it be broken up in any of the following ways:

• Temporally: can you tell a story that literally has a historical beginning, middle and end? e.g. Describe scientific models of magnetism: start with prehistoric uses of lodestones, work up through early models of magnetism (divert onto the non-existence of monopoles), then onto later models in which magnetism is united with electricity and light (divert onto motors and dynamos), describe the relativistic problems solved by the special theory of relativity, finish with current ideas about the unification of EM with the weak force.
• Spatially: is the information describing things from the large to the small? e.g. Compare and contrast prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells: start from the bottom (biochemical differences), work up through the differences in cellular machinery (like polymerases), then up to structural differences (nuclei, organelles, etc), and finish with multicellularity, or lack thereof.
• Structurally: is the information divisible into different levels of organisation or complexity? e.g. Write an essay on how to write essays: start from the simple things, like getting fonts, words and grammar correct, move onto the more complex things like getting referencing right, and finish with how to get the structure and content of the essay right ☺
• Functionally: does the information describe different spheres of application? e.g. Discuss the impact of the theory of natural selection: you can divide this into its effects on biology (and subdivide this into palaeontology, genetics and phylogeny), evolutionary psychology and sociobiology, politics (social Darwinism and eugenics), religion, etc.

What have you been asked to do?

If you have been set a specific essay title, please read it, and make sure you answer the bloody question. I have read essays that either fail to address the question asked, or go so off-topic as to be laughable: although interesting and original, an essay on the vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizae of cacao trees and the colonic benefits of live culture yoghurt is not really the answer to a question about the role of micro-organisms in food production, especially when you specifically mention beer, bread and soy sauce to the tutor group. 10 out of 10 for initiative, 2 out of 10 for pertinence.

Also be aware of how you have been asked to write the essay: here are three common essay styles and how to approach them:

• Compare and contrast X and Y. The worst thing you can do for a C&C essay is write one half of the essay describing X and the other half describing Y. This fails to do what is asked. One way to get good marks on a C&C essay is to draw a table with three columns. In the first, list the points you wish to discuss, e.g. for "C&C chromosome aberrations in plants and humans", you might want to list the various types of aberration, with a brief description: monoploidy, aneuploidy, etc. In the next column, compare X and Y, i.e. point out their similarities: for aneuploidy, both plant and human aneuploids tend to have reduced fertility, and are both produced by non-disjunction at meiosis. In the final column, compare X & Y, i.e. point out their differences: in humans autosomal aneuploids are almost always prenatally fatal (only three - Down, Patau, and Edward syndromes - go full term), but in plants, aneuploids may be viable, as in Datura and hyacinths. Speculate on why this may be so: we are comparing one species with 250 000 species, so we're bound to find some differences; plants can reproduce asexually, so sterility may not be the barrier it is in humans. It's then a simple matter of bulking the table out into sentences and wedging it between an introduction and a summary.
• Describe or discuss X and Y. / Argue for model X against model Y. Find out everything you can about X and Y and try to organise it into some coherent whole, as noted above. See if there is any way to argue a specific point of view through the information. There may be competing descriptions or models of the data, one of which is more convincing to you. You must try to gather the elements for an argument: you will need examples, counter-examples and counter-counter-examples to write a convincing argument, and as I said before, make sure the argument is coherent (see if you can express it in a single sentence), well analysed, and fully criticised. Talk about the essay with others, get feedback and see if any of your arguments fail the simple scrutiny of your best mate's ear.
• Brief notes on X. If you're only asked for brief notes, or bullet pointed lists, don't write an essay, just neatly conflate your plan and the notes from the literature. These are the sorts of notes you might provide for a lecture: they're supposed to be more of an aide memoir than a beautifully crafted argument. If you're asked to do this, then do it! Don't waste your time writing a fifty page essay in full sentences.

And, of course, conclusions…

Avoid introducing new information in conclusions: for example, here is not the place to say that you should make your essays pleasant to read: chose a font, size and spacing that doesn't hurt to read, and try to be as concise as possible: a rambling essay is extremely annoying. However, here is the place to summarise the point of it all: writing essays is a combination of using the data well to argue or describe an idea, and simple good style. The first comes only with practice, but anyone can do the second almost immediately.

It's also good to give one final point that summarises the whole shebang, or gives some useful take home message: read through your essays when you finish them: be the one to pick up the glaring cock ups, rather than your tutor.