title carefully
If you do not stop, you are treating the essay like a Wikipedia entry – you see the trigger name or idea and immediately reference ‘the’ material that matches so that you can write ‘the’ Piaget, Freud or Short-Term Memory essay. This is a terrible idea. The essay is almost never in the form: ‘Tell me whatever you know and can find out about Piaget’. Instead, it asks you to do something, something much more specific.
Look What is the title asking you to do?
Look really carefully at what the essay title is asking you to do (see Chapter 4 for more on how you can address the specific essay title). You may be asked to evaluate evidence or contrast ideas; the essay may be focused on a specific aspect of Piaget, Freud or Short-Term Memory; the essay might be framed in a highly specific way, asking you to explore a particular perspective on the target topic.
Think How do I best address the title?
Think not so much about ‘what is the answer’ as ‘how can I display relevant scholarly understanding and thinking regarding the issue(s) identified in the title’. The essay is your opportunity to display that depth of scholarly thinking – your reader wants to see the extent to which you serve up something subtle, knowing and sophisticated, rather than simply slop out the usual gruel. Think about the sorts of things you need to do for your specific essay title and the sorts of things you need to find out in order to do these things.
This Stop, Look and Think process is illustrated below.
Ace your assignment I is for index
We live in a world of i-prefaced words, but what about that amazingly useful but, widely neglected i, namely the index. Some digital search tools are addressed in more detail below but, for now, note that most academic books have not one, but two indexes (for both names and subjects). This means you can search for that psychologist whose work you were interested in, or that special topic – or you can really push the boat out and do both.
It is a real hassle for authors and publishers to compile carefully copy-edited indexes and they do it as some small but precious act of kindness for you. Why not accept their generous gift and save yourself many hours of flicking through texts, wondering if that key name or idea will pop up, and enter the wonderful world of indexes? It’s what Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Adam Dalgliesh would do – you should try it too.
Imagine the following essay title:
‘Critically evaluate the evidence for the multistore model of memory.’
Stop – this is not asking for whatever you know or what the textbook says about the multistore model of memory.
Look – the essay is particularly focused on an evaluation of the evidence regarding the multistore model. Although the essay refers to the evidence for the multistore model, as you are evaluating the evidence it would normally (though do be aware of specific tutor guidance) be appropriate to include evidence for and against.
Think – what do you need to do in this essay and what do you need to find out in order to do it?
What do you need to do? You need to demonstrate:
An understanding of what the Multi-Store Model is.
An awareness of empirical evidence relating to the Multi-Store Model.
A capacity to evaluate the empirical evidence relating to the Multi-Store Model.
A capacity to think about these issues from different viewpoints.
What do you need to find out in order to do this?
You need information that will help you to describe the Multi-Store Model.
You need information concerning the empirical evidence for the Multi-Store Model.
You need information that both supports the empirical evidence and criticises it – or identifies its shortcomings.
You need information concerning alternatives to the Multi-Store Model. These can be used to evaluate the Multi-Store Model, but care has to be taken to keep the focus on the Multi-Store Model itself.
Don’t let this active orientation to using sources as resources become oppressive. It can be fun. Get into detective mode. You are identifying just what it takes to provide a really strong answer to your specific essay title. The next part of the essay challenge is to locate the information and ideas that will support and stimulate you in writing an excellent essay.
Locating your (re)sources
What do you need to find out in order to solve this essay?
Start by noting what you know – briefly jot down all the thoughts and ideas that you have regarding the essay title that you are working on.
Then identify what you need to find out – you might need further details, names and dates, specific bits of information, or it could be more generic, such as ‘information that I can use to critique the Multi-Store Model’.
Note where you can look to find this out – don’t just lazily list ‘on the web’, be precise. Is it in your lecture notes, a textbook or an item on the reading list?
Make use of your notes, textbook and other material that has been identified as being important on your course, and specifically for this topic and this essay. This is most likely to include key information – do make use of it.
Identify the potential challenges along the way – there are possibly things that might be difficult to find. Perhaps the hardest are those we are not yet aware of – perhaps there are excellent reviews of the evidence that we do not know of, which could be invaluable. Try to envisage what might exist as well as looking for the bare essentials of what you need.
Be careful as you enter your distraction zones! Yours might be as you search on the web, or look for your notes, or go to find a textbook. Be aware of where you are most likely to be distracted away from your goal and acknowledge the temptation, without giving in to it. Gamify it: give yourself 50 points, a cut-out and keep medal, or some other reward for running three Google searches without suddenly being caught by YouTube videos of a fish that can speak fluent Spanish. All those distractions will still be there later.
Identify
