The shortest essay guide you’ll ever need

Most essay advice is too long to use. Nobody sitting a timed paper can recall twelve pages of it, so here is the short version: the seven things that decide most of the marks, in the order you need them.

1. IAnswer the question in your first sentence.Not a definition, not a biography of the author, not ‘In this essay I will…’. The examiner should know your answer before they reach the second line.
2. IIMake a claim someone could disagree with.‘Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as powerful’ is a description. ‘Lady Macbeth’s power is a performance that she cannot keep up’ is an argument. Only arguments reach the top band.
3. IIIOne paragraph, one idea, and the first sentence says it.If you cannot say what a paragraph is for in one sentence, it is two paragraphs, or none.
4. IVQuote less, say more.Three well-chosen words, woven into your own sentence, beat three lines copied out. The marks are for what you do with a quotation, not for finding it.
5. VSay what the writer does, then why it matters.Name the method, show its effect, and connect it to meaning. ‘The metaphor shows…’ is the start of a point, not the end of one.
6. VIContext is evidence, not decoration.A paragraph of history bolted on at the end earns nothing. One sentence of context that explains a choice the writer made earns a great deal.
7. VIIEnd further than you began.A conclusion that repeats the introduction wastes the last minutes of the exam. Say the thing your argument has earned the right to say.

Two habits to break today

• —Stop writing ‘this shows’. It is the sound of a sentence that has run out of ideas. Say what it shows, and why that matters, in a single sentence of your own.
• —Stop starting without a plan. Five minutes of planning is the only time in the exam you get back with interest.

In French and Spanish too

Every rule above applies to an A-Level essay on a novel or a film written in French or Spanish. The language is the medium; the marks are for the argument. Accuracy matters as well, so the eighth rule for linguists is to write the sentence you can get right, not the one you nearly can.

Leah