Starting to write an academic essay can seem daunting, but by breaking it up into manageable chunks, it can seem a bit more achievable. Most academic essays should contain the following 5 parts:

1. Title Page
2. Introduction
3. Main Body
4. Conclusion
5. References

 

1. Title Page

A title page should let the reader know who you are and what the document is. It’s mainly for use by the lecturer or college administration staff. There’s no point spending days writing an amazing essay and the lecturer not being able to tell who wrote it. What you include in this will vary depending on your college’s guidelines, but usually it is a good idea to include:

• Your name
• Your student number
• The date you are submitting it
• The name of the lecturer(s) you are submitting it to
• The name of the module this essay is for
• The question/title that you are answering

Introduction

• This should show how you are interpreting the question/title
• Briefly mention the issues/topics are you going to explore
• Explain what your aim of the essay is

Main Body

This is the main bulk of your content and will make up about 80% of your essay.

You will probably have 4 or 5 main topics. You may have more, you may have less, and it depends on the length and title of your essay.

For each paragraph, you should try answer these questions:

• What is your main point?
• How is this point relevant to the question/tile of the essay?
• What is your evidence to back up this point?

Each paragraph should link to the topic in the next paragraph. This means your essay will read like a cohesive piece.

Conclusion

• Do not introduce any new ideas or references in your conclusion!
• Summarise your ideas/argument
• State why you think your main points are of significant importance to this topic.
• In your last sentence: link your conclusions back to the title.

References

Any books, articles, websites, videos, journals, etc. that you reference or quote in your essay is listed here. This list isn’t included in your word count, but it is very important. To learn more about this, check out of page about Referencing and Plagiarism.