SOME ADVICE ON WRITING ESSAYS

(Adapted from The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White [a book I recommend to anyone interested in writing better] and course handouts by David Drews at Juniata College)

1. Be Concise. An essay does not need to be long to be good. In fact, long essays are often poorer than short ones because they include unnecessary information or arguments, and quite frequently unnecessary words. Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives, and avoid overstating or overexplaining your points.
2. Write in a way that comes naturally. Writing is a way to convey your thoughts to another person, so write the way you think, particularly the first draft. Once you have your thoughts on paper you can shape, revise, and polish them into a suitable scholarly style, but you should begin any essay by simply writing what comes to mind.
3. Stay focused on the question that has been asked. Be complete, making sure that you answer all parts of the question that has been asked, but don't go off on tangential issues. This is a little tricky, because one of the characteristics of a good answer is that it is aware of connections between the topic at hand and others that are related. One smart approach is to try to acknowledge important related issues but not be sucked into extended discussions of them. Sometimes, a helpful strategy is to explicitly lay out your understanding of the question. eg. "If the question is about. . ., then. . . However, if the question is about. . ., then. . ."
4. Build a strong argument. Your main obligation as an essay writer is to build an argument that leads the reader through the concepts and evidence relevant to the conclusion you would like the reader to agree to. More specifically, it helps to. . .
   • Organize your thoughts. A reader is much more impressed with an argument that they can follow easily than one that they have to struggle to make sense of. Advance preparation will be helpful. If you have the essays beforehand, it is wise to at least lay out a good outline so that you know the main concepts and pieces of evidence that you need. Equally important is to think about the order you want to arrange them in. A smart alternative would be to make a list of all the concepts and pieces of evidence that might be related to your answer and make a map of those relations.
   • Avoid confusing conclusions with evidence. A good argument will have a conclusion and a set of reasons why a reader ought to believe the conclusion. At the end of writing your essay, you ought to be able to underline the sentence that holds your conclusion and then do something else to note the sentences that contain the evidence that supports your conclusion. If you (or I) can't do that, your answer is a poor one. If you do that and there are many sentences left over, that's not so good either.
   • Recognize that some kinds of evidence are more important than others. In making arguments in anthropology courses, the most impressive kind of evidence is ethnographic, archaeological, or other empirical data, because it (usually) has been gathered in such a way as to rule out a number of alternative explanations. Such data are never "wrong," "misleading," "naive," or the like--they just "are." However, interpretations of such data often are "wrong," "misleading," "naive," and the like. Be careful that you don't confuse data with interpretations of them, as the two are very different sources of evidence. Data are subject to various interpretations, some better than others, and it is important to be aware of those various interpretations as you report and use data to support a conclusion. Theory is somewhat less compelling as support for a conclusion because theories are more often wrong than interpretations of empirical data. Examples from life are often helpful in illustrating a point but are also not as compelling as data from experiments or collected in formal research settings. Finally, your personal experience, though it might help illuminate your answer, is almost never convincing evidence.
5. Use the technical language of the discipline. . .appropriately. Part of what any reader of a graded essay is looking for is evidence that you have understood the important concepts of the discipline. One of the best indications of this is that you are able to use its technical language appropriately. Using such language inappropriately does not make a particularly good impression. At best, it suggests that you're making an effort. At worst, it looks as though you're trying to "snow" your way through.
6. Be appropriately tentative/confident. Arguments in anthropology courses always have boundary conditions; that is, they apply under some circumstances and not under others. A good essay is sensitive to the limits of our understanding. Do not ignore information so that you can reach a strong conclusion Remember that you are trying to impress a reader with the fact that you understand the material at hand and what it allows you to say about a particular issue. You are well advised to never use the word "prove" in any anthropology course. It is a pretty clear indication that you don't understand the limits of our knowledge.
7. Revise and rewrite. Scholarly writing does not come naturally to anyone, and it is therefore not easy for anyone (even me). The only way to create a good piece of scholarly writing is to work on it, shaping what does come naturally into an appropriate scholarly style, and the only way to do that is to revise and rewrite at least once.
8. Proofread, proofread, proofread. Careful writing reflects careful thought, careless writing reflects careless thought. An essential aspect of careful writing is accurate grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Nothing can more easily ruin an otherwise good essay than careless errors, so please take the time to proofread.

One final point. Reading your essays is a way for someone else to read your mind. If you want the reader to think your mind is a cluttered, unfocused, messy place, then write that way. If you want the reader to think your mind is razor-sharp, then write that way. The latter is impossible without a lot of hard work, but it will be rewarded.