Essay suggestions

Over the years of marking essays I've developed a set of comments and suggestions for the kinds of items that keep coming up again and again. I store these in the computer, and add to them or refine them from year to year, and when the same items come up again, rather than recreating yet again the same things to say, I simply refer students to these pages. I hope you will find them useful.

A word about the principles behind these comments. I start from the presumption that you should want to make your essay perfect. Not good enough, or ok, but perfect. In every respect. Why not? So some of these comments pay attention to matters of detail and presentation that some markers might ignore, or be tolerant of, because an essay without them is good enough, or good enough anyway for a first year essay. You can ignore them too: I don't mind. But if you want my advice, make your essay perfect in every possible respect. Especially in these respects. Most of the written work you do in your second and third years count towards your final degree. In the final year Single Honours students are required to do a dissertation that counts one whole final mark, and in which very high standards are required. Why not learn now?

The comments duplicate some of the material that I've set out in an essay on how to write an essay, which is here.

First, here are some general comments which have occurred to me while reading through all of the essays (nearly 50...). Everyone should read these, please.

Next, the specific comments: