Essay
Introduction
For this assignment, you are going to write an essay on a topic related to English-speaking culture based on information you find when researching the topic. Read through the instructions carefully and let your teacher know if anything is unclear!
Topic
Choose a topic for your essay. This topic must be related to English speaking culture. You could for instance deal with politics, society, religion, history, arts or music, such as:
Cyber Bullying in America
Important Events in Australian History
Ireland and the Question of Abortion
Contact your teacher if you are unsure of what topic or direction to choose.
Research questions
Formulate one or two questions about the topic you have chosen that you want to investigate further. These will help you keep on track when researching and writing your essay. Avoid yes/no questions; they are usually either trivial or impossible to answer. Questions using ”how” or ”why” tend to lend themselves well to analysis and discussion!
Formal language
You are required to use a formal language in this text. This will require you to show variation in the language used by using a nuanced vocabulary. It is also important to remember that all words have to be written in their proper form (do not use ”wanna” for ”want to” or ”u” for ”you” etc., contractions (it’s, don’t, can’t etc.) are discouraged) and first person (I, us, we) and second person (you) should not be used. See further information on formal writing tips in the document “Guide to successful writing” included under kurstillbehör.
Completed it should consist of about 1000 words.
The following parts must be included in your essay:
Introduction
Introduce your reader to what you are going to write about and state your intention. What kind of essay is this? What is the aim? What are you going to research?
Main body
This is where you present the facts and investigate your questions. No new questions should be asked in this part of the essay nor should you include your own opinions. Make sure that it is clear what is fact and what is your interpretation. You must make in-text citations. More information on reference systems can be found here: Common Reference Systems
Give your main body of text a proper headline, and remember to divide the
text into proper paragraphs.
Conclusion
This part consists of a finalizing discussion of your essay. Briefly go through the points and/or answers you have come up with in the main body of text and what conclusions can be drawn from these. Do not forget to explain how and why these conclusions were drawn. No new information may be introduced in the conclusion.
List of references and criticism of your references
The essay should have a list of references at the end, but such a list is not enough. You must also show in the text from where you have gathered the information/facts you are using (see the link in the Main Body section for more information). You are required to use at least two references, but you are not allowed to use Wikipedia and must use sources written in English.
You must also include criticism of the sources you have used; explain why you chose the sources you did and evaluate and discuss their reliability in regards to the essay you have written. More information on how and what to think about when critiquing can be found here: Source Criticism
The reference list and source criticism do not count towards the word count of the essay. The essay should be ~1000 words plus the reference list/source criticism.
Write your essay in a Word document (or Open Office), Times New Roman/Arial, size 12, 1,5 space,
The topic you have chosen is related to English speaking culture.
Your text is well-structured with a clear disposition (introduction, main body, conclusion).
You use a formal language in your text.
You have used at least five sources for information.
Your sources are referred to in the text.
You have included a list of references as well as criticism of your sources at the end of the essay.
Your essay consists of about 1000 words (reference list/source criticism do not count towards this number).
