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Editing your writing

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What is editing?

Editing is the final stage of the writing process. It takes place just before your work is due to be submitted. It involves the detailed inspection of your text with a view to regularising its spelling, punctuation, grammar, and even typographical layout.

In the world of publishing, this stage is called ‘proof-reading’. It is the point at which you check that all your details are correct, and you examine the document very closely for internal consistency prior to releasing it into public view.

Editing is a process of checking your work very carefully in order to –

  • remove any spelling mistakes
  • check your grammar
  • make your punctuation consistent
  • re-write any clumsy expressions
Editing methods

The degree to which your text needs to be closely edited will depend upon the nature of the of writing. A spelling mistake might be tolerated in a student essay, but in a report written for the public it would look very bad indeed.

The best way to edit your writing is to split the task into a number of separate stages. Edit for just one feature at a time. Go through the work checking your spelling, then go back again to check grammar – and so on. Use the list of features below as a guide.

This is because it is difficult (and very tiring) to hold all these issues in your head at the same time. You have a choice of doing this on a computer screen or on paper. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages.

Editing on screen

The major advantage of editing your work on screen is that you can make as many changes as you wish. The work is always up to date, in its very latest version. Another advantage is that you can see immediately the effect of any changes you make.

Spelling-checkers and even grammar-checkers are now built in to most text editors. You can use FIND and REPLACE to make global changes automatically. For instance, if you have spelled someone’s name ‘Murray’ throughout a document, then discovered it’s actually spelled ‘Murry’, use FIND/REPLACE, and select REPLACE ALL.

Don’t forget to SAVE your document after each change is made.

The only disadvantage of editing on screen is that you will loose earlier versions of your work unless you make a deliberate effort to save them separately.

Editing See more on Editing on screen and paper

Editing on paper

Some people prefer to edit on paper, for a number of very good reasons:

  • mistakes are easier to spot
  • it’s possible to have an overview
  • it looks more like the finished product
  • it creates a psychological distance from the text

Many people claim that there is a different between writing with a pen and with a keyboard. You can also see the original text, even after you have made an editing change.

The biggest disadvantage of editing on paper is that you have to re-type all changes into your original document.

Editing See more on Editing on screen and paper

Spelling

Mistakes in spelling are easy to spot, and they always create a very bad impression. Readers of your work are more likely to regard spelling mistakes as a sign of poor writing than any other feature.

It’s worth doing a spelling check twice during the editing process. Once before you begin editing, and then again after you have finished. The reason for this is that you might have introduced new typos and mistakes during the editing process.

You need to decide on alternative or English and American spellings of words such as analyze/analyse, judgement/judgment, and meter/metre. Make the spelling consistent throughout your document.

Check in particular on the spelling of names, places, foreign terms, and technical jargon.

Red button See more on spelling

Punctuation

Check that you have been consistent throughout your document in using the common marks of punctuation – the comma, semicolon, colon, and full stop.

If you are not sure about the use of the semicolon and the colon, leave them out. It’s possible to punctuate accurately using only the comma and the full stop.

What follows is an example of an entire paragraph which has been punctuated using only the comma and the full stop. [The subject is the structure of a paragraph.]

The central thought or main controlling idea of a paragraph is usually conveyed in what is called a topic sentence. This crucial sentence which states, summarises or clearly expresses the main theme, is the keystone of a well-built paragraph. The topic sentence may come anywhere in the paragraph, though most logically and in most cases it is the first sentence. This immediately tells readers what is coming, and leaves them in no doubt about the overall controlling idea. In a very long paragraph, the initial topic sentence may even be restated or given a more significant emphasis in its conclusion.

Red button See more on punctuation

Sentences

Make your sentences as short, simple, and direct as possible. This will always improve the quality of your writing. Follow the pattern Subject – Verb – Object

The table has metal legs.

Some people like raw vegetables.

My dissertation considers the biology of frogs.

Avoid starting sentences with conjunctions such as Although, Because, and Again. These often lead to grammatical problems of expression.

If any sentence in your document seems vague or problematical – re-write it, or split it up into two or more separate statements.

Avoid long sentences composed of one clause after another linked by and, commas, or conjunctions such as although, however, and because.

Editing See more on sentences

Paragraphs

The definition of a paragraph is that it deals with just one topic. It introduces the topic, explains its relevance to the subject being discussed, then comes to some form of conclusion. It might end with a statement that links the argument to the next paragraph.

The following is an example of a successful paragraph.

John Skelton was an East Anglian: he was a poet, also a clergyman, and he was extremely strange. Partly strange because the age in which he flourished – that of the early Tudors – is remote from us, and difficult to interpret. But he was also a strange creature personally, and whatever you think of him when we’ve finished – and you will possibly think badly of him – you will agree that we have been in contact with someone unusual.

Check for long paragraphs in your writing. If any go beyond one topic, split them up into separate paragraphs.

Avoid very short paragraphs. These can be used for dramatic effect – but only in journalism and creative writing.

Editing See more on paragraphs

Titles and sub-titles

Make sure that any titles or sub-titles in your writing are explanatory and consistent. They should identify the subject as briefly as possible.

Check for consistent use of capital letters. You might wish to use the traditional convention of capitalising only the most important words:

The Analysis of Amino-acids with a Spectrometer

Alternatively, the modern convention is to capitalize only the first word:

The analysis of amino-acids with a spectrometer

Notice that there is no need to punctuate titles with a full stop at the end. These are titles, not complete grammatical sentences.

Structure

The structure of a document is closely related to its purpose. But the structure of some documents may not become apparent until you have finished writing. Be prepare to use CUT and PASTE to re-order your topics and arguments to produce the best arrangement of its parts.

The best structure will depend upon the type of document. Its parts could be arranged using –

  • logical progression
  • increasing significance
  • equal significance
  • chronological order
  • narrative sequence
  • category groupings

Editing See more about structure here

© Roy Johnson 2012

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Effective Writing and Speaking

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skills for speaking, writing, and presenting

John Seely is something of a specialist in writing guides to clear, efficient communication skills. This is one of a number of books he has published with Oxford University Press, and it’s a much-expanded version of his earlier Oxford Guide to Writing and Speaking. It covers how to structure a business letter and how to strike the right tone; how to format and follow the protocols of emailing; how to write a persuasive curriculum vitae, structure a job application, and prepare for the interview; how to prepare and deliver a PowerPoint presentation; how to organise and write a report; and how to prepare a press release when dealing with the media. Each chapter follows the same structure.

Effective Writing and SpeakingFirst there’s a summary of its main points; then the guidance is spelled out in short, clear paragraphs and bulleted lists. There are occasional self-assessment exercises; and then comes a numbered list of general guidance notes on the topic. After form, he deals withe the next two important features of efficient communication – audience and context. This involves adjusting your language and tone to suit your readership, plus keeping your subject and your purpose in mind. He also shows you how the same piece of information can be transmitted in a number of different ways.

The next part of the book focuses on the basics of English language – its vocabulary, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and even how it is spoken.

In the final section of the book he deals with writing as a process. This starts from the generation of ideas, goes through planning and writing drafts, then shows you how to revise and edit what you produce. The most valuable lesson which many people can learn is that writing is a process, not something you do at one pass.

If you want something shorter or pitched at a simpler level, try his other books on the same subject — Words, Writing Reports, or The A—Z of Grammar & Punctuation. This one will give you everything you need for everyday practical communication skills.

© Roy Johnson 2005

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John Seely, Oxford Guide to Effective Writing and Speaking, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.310. ISBN: 0192806130

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Endnotes in essays

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sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. When you use quotations or mention someone else’s work in an essay, the source of the information is most conveniently given in endnotes – a system of bibliographic references which appears at the end of the essay.

2. A bracketed number is placed in your text, as A.B. Smith suggests, ‘at the end of the statement or the sentence in which the reference is made’ (1), and successive references to this or other works are given the next higher number.

3. These endnotes are then listed ‘with bibliographic exactness’ (2) at the end of the essay as follows:

NOTES

1. A.B. Smith, How to Use Endnotes Correctly, Manchester: Imaginary Press: 1999, p.345.

2. Judith Butcher, Copy Editing: the Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors, and Publishers, 3rd edn, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p.234.

4. If you are using the Harvard system of referencing, the date of publication follows the author’s name.

5. If a direct quotation is being used, the information in the endnote should allow a reader (including you, at a later date) to trace the source of the quotation if necessary. That is, you should give details of author, title, publisher, and date of publication, then page number – as indicated here in the first endnote.

6. Successive quotations from the same source may be indicated by using the op. cit. and ibid. system. However, the short reference system which gives author and title is preferable as this makes the information easier to trace for the reader.

7. In a short essay which only refers to three or four different sources, successive references might be given as follows:

3. Butcher, op. cit., p.123.

8. In a longer essay, which might be drawing on a large number of sources, some of which may include different works by the same author, the short title system is to be preferred:

4. Smith, Endnotes, p.321.

9. The traditional referencing system using op. cit. and ibid. is gradually disappearing in favour of the much clearer short title and Harvard systems. However, it is worth knowing how it works, because so much academic writing has been produced using this system. You need to know how to trace other people’s references in older publications.

10. If you are quoting repeatedly from one particular work, give
full bibliographic details in your first endnote. Then add the statement All subsequent page references to this edition. After that, just give page references in the text of your essay.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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ePublishing and eBooks

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a selection of resources reviewed

One rapidly expanding opportunity for writers using the Internet is the creation of eBooks. These have the advantage that they can be written, stored, and sent electronically. ePublishing is available for whatever you wish; it doesn’t cost much; you can start small; there are no printing, storage, or postage costs; and you can control the whole process from your back bedroom.

eBooks can be read on desktop computers, but many people prefer to use laptops, eBook readers, or PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) such as the Palm Pilot. Other people print off the pages and read from the conventional page. So you’ve got to be prepared to supply your text in a number of different formats if you want to reach all audiences.

ePublishingCreating E-books
Chris Van Buren and Jeff Cogswell address all these issues, and provide you with all the information you need to make a start. They include a survey of the e-publishing business; planning and creating an e-book; getting the book published; finance and copyright; and a selection of personal success stories. One of the more interesting features of the advice they give is that it’s suitable either for individuals with just one book to market, or for people who might wish to set up as publishers, ready to promote several titles. As usual with the excellent Topfloor ‘Poor Richard’ series, every chapter is packed with recommendations for online resources – many of which are low-budget or free.

You can market your own eBooks, but a very popular alternative is to place titles with distributors like Fatbrain and split the proceeds. There are also electronic versions of conventional publishers who will pay you royalties up to fifty percent.

 

The Internet Writer's HandbookThe Internet Writer’s Handbook
This is a detailed guide to publishers of the two formats which are most digital – e-zines and e-books. It’s in the form of an international A-Z listing of the best websites for writers to target, with full contact details for all websites listed. It offers plenty of detail on how to submit your work , how much publishers will pay, and even how they are most likely to respond. The topics these publishers cover range from poetry and fiction, through non-fiction writing, to specialist publications.

 

eMail Publishing - Click for details at AmazonEmail Publishing
It’s quickly apparent to most writers that this system means that self-publication is an attractive option. In fact Chris Pirillo argues that email publishing can be much more effective than the Web. How is this? Well, he describes publishing via a web site as “like opening a hamburger stand in a dead-end street”. Not many people will pass by, and even fewer are likely to make a purchase.

On the other hand, almost everybody reads their e-mail, so why not use it as a vehicle for publishing instead? Some of the more popular e-mail newsletters have up to 400,000 regular subscribers. In he outlines all the possibilities – discussion groups, bulletins, and announcement lists – but it’s the free e-mail newsletter which is at the heart of this book. He takes you through all the technicalities of how to run one.

This can be used to promote your writing – or even as a hot and direct form of journalism if you are a non-fiction writer. And this guy knows whereof he speaks. He publishes several email newsletters every day, draws down revenue from advertisers, and earns a living from it.

return button Publish your writing

© Roy Johnson 2009

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Essay template

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the stages and process of writing an academic essay

What is an essay template?

An essay template is a list of steps to follow when writing an essay or a term paper. The list provides you with a ready-made structure for the essay and a series of instructions on what to write.

If you follow these instructions, all you need to do is fill in the details of your responses to the question you have been asked to answer, or the topic you have been asked to discuss.

The presentation style of essays and term papers varies from one subject to another. The suggestions that follow are generally suitable for subjects in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Essay template

Before you start

Writing the assignment is not the first part of the essay writing process. You only start writing after several stages of preparation. Before you start writing, you should have completed almost all of the following steps:

It is only in the final two stages — creating structure and a plan — that you will need to start using the essay template.

The title or question

The essay title or the question you have been asked to answer should be written out in full at the head of the essay.

Put the title in bold and as an optional extra you might wish to increase the font size very slightly. Do not underline the title. This makes the text harder to read and looks unsightly.

If the title is short, you might wish to capitalise the main words (Hobbes’ Leviathan and the Age of Reason).

If the title or question contains a quotation, put the quotation in single quotation marks. If the question contains a book title, remember that book titles are shown in italics.

The essay title or question should be followed by a double space.

The introduction

The introduction to an essay should be directly relevant to the question or topic(s) you have been asked to discuss. You should aim for a bright and crisp opening statement that will be interesting and seize the reader’s attention.

Do not merely restate the question, and avoid repeating the same terms in which it is posed. You may wish to translate the question into your own words, paraphrasing it as a demonstration that you understand what it calls for.

The introduction should not normally be more than five to ten percent of the total length of the essay. A paragraph of two hundred words on the first page should normally be enough.

Do not begin the essay by saying how hard it is to answer the question. Questions are set to pose problems: your task is to answer them. You can however name or outline any difficulties – so long as you go on to tackle them.

Many people find introductions difficult to write. The reason is likely to be one or all of the following:

  • you are not sure what you are going to say
  • you may not be sure what it is you are introducing
  • you can’t summarise an argument which doesn’t yet exist

There is a simple solution. Write the introduction last of all, when you have finished the first draft of the assignment.

The body of the essay

The body of the essay should be constructed from a number of arguments or topics related directly to the subject under consideration. These might be topics, ideas, observations, or instances from your study materials.

Each of these topics or arguments should be dealt with separately in its own paragraph (see below). Arrange the points so that they form a persuasive and coherent argument. This will help you to create a clear structure.

The order of the parts is often determined by the nature of the subject in question. This order might be created by any of the following:

  • logical progression
  • increasing significance
  • equal significance
  • chronological order
  • narrative sequence
  • category groupings
The paragraph

A paragraph should deal with just one topic or major point of argument. That topic should normally be announced in the opening sentence, which is sometimes called a ‘topic sentence’.

The sentences which immediately follow the topic sentence should expand and develop the statement, explaining and relating its relevance to the question in general.

This opening should then be followed by evidence to support the argument being made. You should provide illustrative examples which are discussed as an explanation of the central idea.

The recommended structure of a typical paragraph in academic writing is as follows. It is rather like a smaller version of the structure of a complete essay.

  • The opening topic sentence
  • A fuller explanation of the topic sentence
  • A discussion of its significance
  • Consideration of examples or evidence
  • A concluding sentence

Put double spaces between each paragraph.

Conclusion

The conclusion of an essay should draw together all the previous points of your argument into one general statement which is then directly related to the essay topic or the question you have been answering.

The conclusion should not normally occupy more than five to ten per cent of the total length of the essay – rather like the introduction.

Try to end the essay on a crisp note. This can sometimes be done with an appropriate phrase or a quotation. It should illustrate your argument and be directly related to the topic(s) in question.

Do not simply re-state the original question, and if possible try to avoid using the same terms as those in which it is posed. Avoid repeating any of the statements you have already made in your introduction.

Endnotes and footnotes

When you use quotations or mention someone else’s work in an essay, the source of the information is most conveniently given in endnotes or footnotes. Footnotes are more convenient for the reader, but much more difficult to control, even with the help of a word-processor.

A bracketed number is placed in your text, as A.B. Smith suggests, ‘at the end of the statement or the sentence in which the reference is made’ (1), and successive references to this or other works are given the next higher number.

These endnotes are then listed ‘with bibliographic exactness’ (2) at the end of the essay as follows:

Notes

1. A.B. Smith, How to Use Endnotes Correctly, Manchester: The Imaginary Press, 1999, p.345.

Judith Butcher, Copy Editing: the Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors, and Publishers, 3rd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p.234.

There are several systems of academic referencing and citation in current use – for instance the Harvard System, MLA System, and MHRA System.

If you are quoting repeatedly from one particular work, give full bibliographic details in your first note. Then add the statement All subsequent page references to this edition. After that, just give page references in the text of your essay.

The bibliography

A bibliography is a list of sources placed at the end of essays. It is a compilation of any works from which you have quoted or you have consulted during the composition of the essay.

Put book titles in italics. The traditional manner of recording this information is to use the following sequence:

Author – Title – Place of publication — Publisher – Date

Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.

In more scholarly works, such as dissertations and theses, this information may be given with the author’s surname listed first – as follows:

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.

List the items of a bibliography in alphabetical order of the author’s or the editor’s surname. Do not list works you have not consulted or from which you have not quoted.

You might find that your bibliography repeats much of the information given in your endnotes or footnotes. Don’t worry about this: your bibliography may contain works from which you have not directly quoted.

Presentation
  • Use A4 size paper, and word-process your work
  • Use wide margins (1.5 inches)
  • Select a serifed font at size 12
  • Choose 1.5 or double line spacing
  • Leave double spaces between paragraphs
  • print only on one side of paper

© Roy Johnson 2014

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Essays and Dissertations

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the basics of academic planning and writing skills

Oxford University Press have just brought out a series of short beginners’ manuals on communication skills. Their emphasis is on compact, no-nonsense advice directly related to issues of everyday life. Chris Mounsey’s Essays and Dissertations tackles the essentials of academic writing in a systematic manner. He begins with understanding and interpreting essay questions, then moves on to the research you might have to do to answer them.

Essays and Dissertations This involves selecting books, finding quotes, and developing the outline of your own arguments. This is followed by the central point of almost all successful writing – planning. Next comes editing and writing drafts, then how to present your results, using a word processor.

Having covered these basics, he then moves up a notch to cover the more advanced skills of time management, Internet research, and alternative strategies for writing essays. This leads into the special problems posed by dissertations, then exams.

The book ends with a series of writing checklists, guidance on common mistakes, how to deal with footnotes and bibliography, and suggestions for further reading.

The chapters are short; almost every page has hints, tips, and quotes in call-out boxes, there are checklists and suggestions for further reading. The strength of this approach is that it avoids the encyclopedic volume of advice which in some writing guides can be quite frightening.

This book provides students at all levels with easy-to-follow guidance on how to structure an essay and how to select and research the most appropriate subject to write on. You will need more guidance when it comes to writing a long dissertation, but this book will certainly help you to reach that point.

© Roy Johnson 2002

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Chris Mounsey, Essays and Dissertations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp.128, ISBN: 0198605056

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Essential Blogging

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writing for the Web – a popular revolution

Blogs (it’s a contraction of Web Logs) are a form of personal diary kept as Web pages. They can record anything from the trivial details of your own life to online political manifestos. But why would anybody want to read them? Well, some people have transformed the personal diary into an art form, most sprinkle their pages with useful links, others develop what amounts to a one-person daily newspaper, and a few manage to spin out an entirely new form of instant journalism.

Essential Blogging It’s so easy, you see. All you need to do is register with a Blogging site, type your thoughts into the templates they provide, and press the Go button. A few seconds later, you’re published on the Web. Of course there’s a little more to it than that – but not much. This book offers a tour of the best blogging sites, how to upload and maintain your pages, and how to configure the options to get the best effects.

A series of chapters, clearly written by enthusiasts, takes you through which Blog sites and software are available – from Blogger, Radio Userland (free software), Moveable Type, and WordPress. Some of these have developed rapidly beyond mere blogging tools into small-scale content management systems.

All this is expanding at a breathtaking rate. Some people even have blogs running alongside serious Web sites. When you come to look at the thousands upon thousands of blogs, you will be amazed at the variety and the skill of the best.

There’s an element of evangelical fervour in all this. Many bloggers seem like techno-Hippies, but the most thoughtful, such as Meg Hourihan, have made claims for blogging as a new form of writing:

Freed from the constraints of the printed page (or any concept of ‘page’), an author can now blog a short thought that previously would have gone unwritten. The weblog’s post unit liberates the writer from word count.

And just in case you think this might all be a little trivial, these blogs are real Web pages. So they are tracked by search engines – and if enough people read them, they might therefore become ‘famous’. Many are already joining affiliate programmes and even attracting advertising.

If you want to join in this frenzy of personal expression, build your own soap box, or develop your own one-person newspaper – everything you need by way of instructions is in this one book.

© Roy Johnson 2002

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Cory Doctorow et al, Essential Blogging, Sebastopol (CA): O’Reilly, 2002, pp.244, ISBN: 0596003889

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Essential English for Journalists

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guidance on good writing and editing techniques

Harold Evans was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981 and then of The Times for a year. [He’s now a New York celebrity with a famous wife]. His earlier publication Newsman’s English was written in the 1970s and has now been revised and updated. Essential English for Journalists is a guide to improving the efficiency of your writing by a method which he announces at the outset as ‘a process of editorial selection, text editing, and presentation’.

Essential English for JournalistsIn fact he gets off to a slightly shambolic start by describing the various responsibilities for writing in the newsroom, but then settles down to his main subject – the crafting of good prose – where he is quite clearly at home. There’s plenty of good advice on sentence construction, editing for clarity, choice of vocabulary, avoiding obscurity and abstraction, plus eliminating vagueness and cliche. He also includes explanations of words commonly misunderstood – such as chronic, disinterested, and viable (to which he might have added aggravate, which is mistakenly used in the text as a synonym for annoy) – plus some interesting comments on how speeches can be economically digested and reported.

The general tendency of his advice is to prefer the shorter, concrete, and Anglo-Saxon term to the longer, abstract, and Latinate expression which is all-too-prevalent: fire not conflagration, try not endeavour, end not terminate.

He also offers a long and entertaining list of common expressions which roll out of literary-cum-oral usage whose redundancies can be edited to produce a tighter result – ‘blue coloured car’, ‘crisis situation‘, and ‘in the city of Manchester’

Evans gives detailed advice on the structure of good writing. His pages on how to write an introduction will be useful to anybody who wants to make their writing more effective. [In fact I would urge the strategy on those who would like to make the arguments of academic writing stand more clear.] The basic rule is to strike out anything which is not absolutely necessary.

In the centre of the book there is a detailed exposition of how newspaper reports should be written – with critical comments on their structure and narrative strategy. Evans shows how the same basic facts can be arranged to create different emphases. This is an exemplary tutorial for anyone who wishes to acquire the skills of reporting and successful composition.

For all its subject, it’s written in a slightly inflated style which combines the short journalist’s sentence with the vocabulary of an Edwardian litterateur – very self-conscious and aware of its own rhetorical devices.

Readers have not the time and newspapers have not the space for elaborate reiteration. This imposes decisive requirements.

But the advice is sound, and it’s likely to make you look more closely at your own prose. In fact the book has at least three possible readers. It would be an excellent textbook for trainee journalists, especially given the number of clumsy examples Evans quotes and then rewrites as demonstration pieces. Second, it has plenty of tips for experienced journalists and editors trying to write more efficiently. Third, it is full of useful guidance for anyone – beyond the media – who wants to write more coherently.

Evans’ fellow journalist Keith Waterhouse wrote a similar and very amusing guide called Waterhouse on Newspaper Style which unfortunately often seems to be out of print. The two books would make an excellent pairing on any writer’s desk. It would be wise to grab Evans whilst he’s back in re-issue.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Harold Evans, Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers, London: Random House, 2nd revised edn 2000, pp.256, ISBN: 0712664475

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Evaluating online sources for essays

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sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. The Internet is the biggest library in the world, and tens of thousands of documents are added to it – every day. Evaluating the online sources of any information you download is a vital part of making sure it is relevant to your needs.

2. You also need to be sure about the accuracy, reliability, and value of any information you use. For instance, there is a big difference between a web site run by an amateur enthusiast and the official site of a big organisation.

3. Even the world’s largest encyclopedia — WIKIPEDIA — has its limitations. It is written by amateur volunteers and then edited by self-appointed experts, but it might contain mistakes or information which contains personal bias.

4. The following articles are designed to help you in the task of evaluating the information your retrieve from online sources.

5. You can print out this page for reference, or if you are connected to the Internet, just click the URL to go straight to the site named.

6. Documents are sometimes moved from one location to another on the Internet. If you receive a ‘Document not found’ message, try progressively removing the last section of the URL [ / this-bit] in your browser. Re-submit your search each time.

7. If you are reading this whilst connected to the Internet, click any of the addresses below and you will be taken directly to the document.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Evidence in essays

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sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Evidence in essays is the information you put forward to support your argument(s). This might be items of data or the illustrative examples which demonstrate the validity of your claims.

2. This evidence might be statistical data [51% of the population is female] illustrative examples [Milton’s ‘On his Blindness’ and Wordsworth’s ‘On Westminster Bridge’ are both written in sonnet form] or experimental results [Four out of the five control groups failed to meet these targets].

3. Many academic essays are normally concerned with the detailed inspection of evidence. A proposition is asserted, but then it must be substantiated by examples which are analysed and discussed.

4. Evidence might sometimes be a detailed selection of points from a body of data under consideration. For instance, in making a historical analysis of a subject, your particular selection of its chronological details might form the evidence supporting your argument.

5. In other essays, the evidence might have to be assembled or discovered as part of the examination of the subject. A project on urban traffic density or on public opinion regarding divorce for instance might require practical research to compile statistics.

6. Many subjects require the study of what are called ‘set texts’. That is, books which have come to be regarded as standard works on their subject:

  • Richard G. Lipsey, Positive Economics
  • Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
  • Charles Dickens, Bleak House
  • Ernst Gombricht, The Story of Art
  • Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

7. Essays, term papers, and assignments set in these subject require a close examination of these set texts, and the evidence used in your arguments will be drawn from the texts to show your understanding of them.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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