How to use this guide

This guide has been designed so that you can use it in a number of different ways.

• You can start at the beginning of the guide and work your way through all of the advice and examples by clicking on the forward arrow that appears at the bottom of the screen.
  
  

  The arrow that takes you forward to the next section looks like this:
  The arrow that takes you back to the previous section looks like this:

  
  

  If you move through the guide in this way, you will receive advice on all aspects of writing the literary studies essay.

If you would like to start at the beginning of the guide, please click here

• Alternatively, you can just look at the sections of the guide which cover issues that are relevant to you at the moment. For example, if the feedback that a tutor gave you on your essay said "you need to refer more closely to the texts you're writing about", you might want to look at the section "Use of close/detailed textual reference".
  
  
• If you are confident in your essay writing skills, you might want to read through the essay checklist. This briefly outlines what it is that tutors are looking for in undergraduate literary studies essays.

Accessing the different sections of the guide

The frame on the left hand side of the screeen allows you to move quickly around the guide.

• Click on the heading "Main page" to return to the start of the guide.
  
  
• Click on the heading "The essay checklist" for a short summary of what tutors consider when marking literary studies essays. This is presented in the form of key questions to ask yourself when you are writing and re-drafting your essay.
  
  
• The main advice sections of the guide are listed (e.g. interpretation of the essay question; essay structure; persuasiveness of interpretation, etc). Click on the appropriate heading to go to that section of the guide.
  
  
• Click on the heading "Sample essays" to view the three complete student essays which are referred to in the advice sections of the guide.
  
  
• Click on the heading "Full list of contents" to see a detailed list of everything that is in the guide.
  

The examples

This guide makes extensive reference to three essays written by first year undergraduate students in order to provide examples of good and not so good ways of going about putting into practice the things listed. These essays are reproduced in full (with tutor's comments) at the end of the guide. All of the examples of student work in the guide are taken from first year undergraduate units on poetry (1550-1750), drama (1550-1750) and prose fiction (1690-1830). The three complete essays were all written in the students' first term at university.

• If you are just about to write your first essay for the degree programme you may want to read the complete essays first, before reading through the guidance sections. Here, advice is combined with annotated excerpts from actual student essays which illustrate more and less effective approaches to different aspects of essay writing.

  Click here if you'd like to look at the complete student essays now

• If you have already completed an essay we suggest you look closely at the feedback that the tutor has given you on your work, and then refer to the relevant sections of the guide to see how you might improve these aspects of your essay writing. Each section of the guide includes questions to help you to do this, in the section marked "Activity".
  
  Note
  
  The essays which are presented in this guide are not being offered as models of excellent critical performance, as is clear from the tutor's critical comments: each has certain strengths and also shortcomings. They have been selected for inclusion in this guide on the grounds that they usefully illustrate more and less effective approaches to the process of writing the essay.

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