ESSAY WRITING 101
ARGUMENT
- What does the essay-question ask for? Dissect the question, define the key words in the question
- Am I actually answering the question?
- Does each sentence help answer the question (directly or indirectly)? If not, take it out!
- How well am I supporting my argument? Is it convincing?
- Be precise! Check your facts! There’s nothing more annoying than faulty information.
- Make sure that you base your argument on academic sources.
STRUCTURE/WRITING
Is the structure logical?
Is there a logical flow in the essay?
Is there a logical flow between paragraphs?
Avoid using “I” and “We” etc. in an academic essay if at all possible.
Limit the amount of quotes to 2 or 3 for a 2000 word essay. More quotes than that and it is less and less your essay. Show that you understand the information and how to you use it by re-writing it into your own words.
SOURCES
Academic sources first and foremost!
The university library’s databases have millions of journal-articles. Find the relevant articles and use them in your essay to support your argument!
DO NOT USE WIKIPEDIA!!!
DO NOT USE LECTURE NOTES!!!
DO NOT GOOGLE!!! (There are a lot of dodgy websites out there…Avoid them like the plague).
Internet-sources can be used but be very, very careful with them. Please, please do not use sources like www.froggyfiles.com etc…Only credible websites to be used.
Newspaper articles and other sources can be used but preferably in support of an academic source.
There should be at least 6 academic sources in an essay of more than 1000 words (preferably on top of the textbook).
REFERENCING
Reference ANY information and/or ideas that you use in your essay!
An essay of about 2000 words should roughly contain 20-25 footnotes (and even possibly more)
Do not only reference quotes. All information need to be referenced,
Re-write the information from the source in to your own words. Simply moving the words around is not enough! And this is even if you reference the source where you find information. You still need to re-write it into your own words.
Do not list sources in the bibliography that you did not use in the essay. Only sources that were referenced (and thus used) should be listed in the bibliography. Alphabetical order in the bibliography please!
Provide page number for your references.
You need to provide the appropriate amount of information in your references. For example, an in-text reference should look like this (Eidenfalk, 2010:439), i.e. (Author, year:page number). A footnote should look like this: Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1979, p. 23

Senior officials informally concluded in August 1998 that a new, more direct approach was needed, one which would involve the East Timorese themselves in the process towards autonomy for East Timor.1 The head of DFAT, Ashton Calvert, suggested sending a letter directly from Howard to Habibie,