1. Ensure you conduct sufficient background research in the library and additional resource points: the list reflects your breadth and depth of reading and research capability. Remember, this is also about developing ‘skills’ – and a major skill is the demonstrable ability to identity, collect, evaluate information and then use it appropriately in your essay.
2. Obviously a paper with limited citations is not going to do well because there is not a great deal of information available to build your study. Also, the frequent use of one or two cited works rather than the breadth of cited works suggest an over-reliance on these and need for wider corroboration.
3. Showing you have a grasp of the key debates and issues, setting the context,
4. It is also important to use theory and methodology. Identify an appropriate conceptual approach and then apply it through a methodological framework for analysis.
5. There must be a coherent structure to the paper. It must hang together and your conceptual and analytical approaches will help to do this. Try and avoid your paper being fragmented, rather aim for a flow through the paper from your initial questions through analysis to conclusion.
6. You must avoid simple historical narratives – often essays are chronological – ‘this happened then this was followed by …’ – this might be useful for you as you get to grips with what happened but not really a big part of your essay.
7. A central argument is also helpful. Try toargue a case.
8. Referencing: make sure that where you refer to information; authors, statistics, reports, etc. that you make sure these are referenced with either an endnote in the Harvard System– if not then they stand merely as assertions/opinions rather than substantiated points of argument.
9. Presentation and style – essays must be double-spaced; have margins running down both sides of text; the bibliographycan begin on a separate page following the end of the essay and endnotes.
