Enhance your essay grades – quality NOT quantity! 

Go around your university campus and ask your peers… What do you think of essays? And you can probably expect a pretty negative response. Essays are, to many,the bane of their university lives.

I was no exception prior to my degree, to the point where even the thought of writing a dissertation was enough to put me off going to university. But, to my shock, I actually ended up enjoying writing essays and managed
to achieve a First Class honours degree (may I add),

So here’s the advice I’d give in relation to good essay writing…


K.I.S.S – (keep it simple stupid)

You’ve gotta kiss your essays (I feel like every uni student needs a poster of this in meme form hung up in their bedroom). Why write 20 words when only 10 will do? Quality not quantity, as the title of this article says, is the essence of this point. The only type of waffle that your marker enjoys is the type they stick in the toaster in the morning.

Figure out how to satisfy your marker

Nothing naughty here. What I mean by this is that your markers are usually your university lecturers, and each lecturer has a different style when it comes to essays and marking. It may take a little bit of time, but try to learn what your marker wants to read and tailor your essays to satisfy what they want.

Ask your tutor for a marking criteria break down

Some sections of the marking criteria will require more research, time and words than others. In this instance, ask your tutor to break down the marking criteria into an approximate amount of words and factor this into your essay planning. This way you know how to exactly break down those few thousand words into mini-essays of a few hundred words each, effectively.

Organise your references as you go

The last thing you want to do when you’re rushing to submit your essay on deadline day is to have to spend hours crawling through books, websites and journals so that you can collate them by alphabetical order for referencing.
Yes, referencing is a [insert expletive here], but it has to be done and it can be so much simpler if you make a note of each reference as you go along.

Proof read, proof read, proof read… And proof read again!

Also, get your friends and/or family to proof read it for you. You’ll find that you’ll be changing things (spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, double words, etc.) every time you re-read your work. Remember that poor spelling, punctuation and grammar can lose you marks, and 1% is the difference between a 2:1 and a 1st.
I really hope I proof read this article enough times before it’s published…

Words by : Tim Steadman