Dr. Taylor's General Guidelines to Writing an Essay
- The essay test should reflect a reasonable standard of writing; that is, sentences, paragraphs, decent spelling. You will lose credit because of poor spelling or bad sentences and paragraph construction. Remember, poor spelling, disjoined sentences, and poor paragraphs blur meaning. When the meaning is unclear, you lose credit. A good way to check your sentences is to read to yourself as you want it to sound. Correct your written sentence to read that way.
- The answer should be complete; that is, it should stand alone. A good test of completeness is, could someone who had never taken a criminal justice course read your answer and understand what you are writing about?
- Carefully select material to be included in your answer. Too much is as wrong as too little. Ask yourself, does this piece of information address the question, clarify what I have said. A common mistake is to include too many main points and to add too little supporting detail.
- Answer the question. If the question says "analyze", then analyze, don't describe or discuss.
Types of essay questions:
- "Analyze." Your answer should attempt to separate a whole into its component parts, and study the nature and relationship of the component parts as a whole as well as independently. For example, "Analyze the criminal justice system" would necessarily include a thorough discussion of the major components of the criminal justice system -police, prosecution, courts, and corrections --- "how" each component relates to the others and "how" the system behaves as a whole.
- "Discuss." It may ask you to discuss something, or give a statement first and ask you to discuss that. Either way, tell all the important points you know about the item, organized into a meaningful whole, and supply as much specific detail as you know and have time to write to support and illustrate the basic general points you have made.
- "Compare." Give the similarities between two or more things, in as full detail as you can.
- "Contrast." Give the differences between two or more things, in as full detail as you can.
- "Compare and contrast." Give both similarities and differences, as above.
- "Trace." Take the topic step-by-step in some logical order (e.g., time sequences), describing it in as much detail as you can within the time available.
- "Evaluate." Usually this question will give you a statement containing one or more ideas, and then you must give a value judgment regarding its worth. You must also support your evaluation with as much specific data as you can in the time allowed. You may conclude that the ideas in the statement are true, false, or partially-true but now wholly so.
- "Defend." Similar to "evaluate," but you must take the ideas given and argue in favor of them, supporting them as best you can with specific information.
- "Attack." Take the idea given and argue against it, using as much specific factual data to disprove it as you can.
- Use terms explicitly. If the question asks you to discuss the functions of a particular theory, then there should be sentences that begin, "The functions of such theories are ..." If the question asks you to analyze using role, then there should be sentences that begin "A police officer's role consists of ... "
- Be specific. Use detail to support your argument. Use examples to illustrate concepts. Try to be original and use your imagination to develop examples. You will not be graded on factual correctness, but how well you support your argument. Avoid redundancy, restating an idea makes for more labor and less organization.
- Organize your answer; that is, use some theme to arrange your material. For example, if doing functional analysis, arrange all the latent functions, all the manifest functions, the latent dysfunctions, and all the manifest dysfunctions in groups. Or if discussing effects of change, discuss change as it applies to each institution. Place specific points or examples under general points.
- Length does not always make a complete or correct answer. You can write a full page, but if you describe, when you were asked to analyze, the answer is wrong.
- You will not lose credit for incorrect facts in questions where you have been asked to use general information or your imagination. You will be responsible for the correctness only of information given in class or in the reading. You will be graded on how well you develop and support your answer. For example, if you are asked to discuss zero population growth using functional analysis, you will be graded on how well you use functional analysis, not on the correctness of your information about zero population growth. Be objective and avoid putting the expression of your feelings in front of a balanced presentation of the material.
- When asked to give an example, you must demonstrate that your example incorporates the elements of what ever you are illustrating; e.g., if you say the FBI is a bureaucracy, then you must demonstrate that the characteristics which define a bureaucracy are present in the FBI.
Criteria for Grading Essay Portion of Test
For an A
- The question is answered, you have analyzed, described, discussed, etc., whatever was required by the question. The argument is essentially correct.
- The paper is complete, specific, all aspects of the question answered.
- The paper is well-organized, the argument is supported with detail, examples, illustrations, etc.
- The examples have some originality or depth and are elaborated to some degree.
For a B or C paper
- The question is answered, and is essentially correct.
- The paper is less complete, some aspects of the question are not answered, the answer is general.
- The organization is poor, needs more detail.
- The examples lack detail and originality.
For a D paper
- The question is partially answered and partially correct.
- The paper is incomplete and general.
- Where is little or no supporting material.
For an F paper
- The question is not answered and partially correct.
- The paper is not complete.
- The paper has no organization, no supporting material.
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