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Types of Essay

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There are a range of essay types, and each of these types requires you to do different things. An important first skill, then, in preparing your essay is to identify what sort of essay you are being asked to write, and what this requires you to do.
In general essays fall along a continuum between those that ask you to describe a particular phenomenon, and those that ask to discuss, analyse, criticize and debate particular issues.
At university essays increasingly tend to fall into the latter discussion type. These types of essay require you to go beyond simply repeating what you have been told towards thinking about the information you have found and knitting it into an argument.
TIP: If you are not sure what the essay requires you to do, ask the person setting the question about what they want.
Analysing the Question: Answering the Question
A key point to remember as you prepare you essay is that no matter how well you write the essay, if you do not actually answer the question you will not do well. This seems an obvious point, but in the heat of the moment it is often neglected.
To help you stay on track you can do two simple tasks: first, have a close look at the essay question; second, as you prepare and write your essay continue to look at the question and think if what you are doing matches what the question requires.
Essay Writing and Format Guide
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It is important to pay close attention to the essay question because the way in which the question is worded often gives clues to the way in which the question is designed to be answered. To help you understand an essay question a simple step is to divide the question up between content words, and command words (Kneale, 1999). Content words are those words in a question that frame the topic; whilst command words are those words that actually indicate what needs to be done with the topic.
Two examples

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