How to Write Better Essays (Part 1: Reading)

In this video, Tim Squirrell (University of Edinburgh), explains the important part that reading plays in the essay-writing process, especially for undergraduates.

Summary: read the reading list, don’t read books cover to cover, find additional articles in bibliographies of reading list articles, skim abstracts for relevance, write down notes with page numbers and quotes. Read critically.
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Unless you’re Foucault (and you’re not Foucault), then the foundation of any good essay is a solid set of references. This isn’t just so that you can look good and your tutor thinks you’ve done the reading. It’s because, no matter how clever you are and what percentile of the country you came in your school leaving exams, your ideas still aren’t original. Trust me. You might think that you’re the first person to discover moral relativism, or situationist perspective on human behaviour, or discursive constructions. Spoilers: you’re not. Someone has done it before, and they’ve almost certainly done it better. That’s not to say that you can’t have cool ideas, or express those ideas in interesting ways. You just need to make sure that you cite the people who came up with those ideas originally, and ideally show how you differ from or improve upon them. The only way you can do this (and consequently, the only way to get a decent mark) is to do some reading.

1. Look at the reading list. If it’s incredibly long, you probably won’t want to (or be able) to read it all. However, that is not an excuse to not read any of it. Look through the list, identify if there are any readings marked as essential. Read them. If there aren’t any essential readings, pick a few which look interesting and relevant, then read them.​
2. Read some more. If the reading list is really short, you’ll need to go beyond it. If it’s long, this is still relevant. Look through the reference lists of the papers and books you’ve just read. See where their ideas came from. Mark out a few of the most promising-looking readings. Read them.
3. There is a difference between reading to understand the topic, and reading that you plan to reference. It is totally fine to use Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, lecture notes etc to familiarise yourself with the key arguments and concepts. It is considerably less fine to cite them.
4. Books. Do not read whole books. It’s a waste of your time. You won’t remember any of it, it will drain all of your energy, and you only get one reference and viewpoint out of it. Read the intro and conclusion so that you get the gist of their argument. Pick a chapter from the contents page which looks like it’s relevant to your essay. Read that. As above, find relevant references and follow them up.
5. Articles. Read the abstract first. Does it look like it’s relevant? If not, don’t waste your time. If it does, read it. Check the bibliography as above.
6. Read critically. For the sake of all that is holy, read critically. This is absolutely essential. Don’t just stare at the pages and absorb them, bovine-like, for the purposes of regurgitation into your essay. Think about:
   1. The central claim the author is making. Usually there is only one, perhaps two. Summarise it in one sentence if you can.
   2. What is the frame of their argument? When in history is it set? Who are the key actors? Are they responding to another author? If so, what is the argument they’re responding to? Try to position their argument in context. This allows you to:
   3. Critically assess the claims made. This obviously doesn’t just mean ‘say they’re wrong’. They might well be wrong, but you’ll need to find reasons for it. Generate a list of three reasons for each line of attack you want to take. Scrap the weakest two. If you think they’re right, why are they right? Are there other authors who corroborate their claims? Are there logical reasons to prefer their argument?

​Make sure you take notes on everything you read. Put page numbers in those notes. In fact, write down a few potentially useful (and ideally flexible) quotes verbatim. Using them makes it look like you’ve actually read the text, rather than just picking a page at random and hoping that it happens to contain the right argument or that your examiner doesn’t know the literature at all well. I still handwrite quotes in my notes, and I’m working on my PhD. There aren’t many ways in which I’d recommend being like me. This is one of them.
You don’t want to get penalised because you didn’t reference your readings properly after you’ve put in all that effort to make sure that your arguments are founded in the literature.

​Please follow the links below to the relevant videos and transcripts:

• How to Write Better Essays (Part 1: Reading)
• ​How to Write Better Essays (Part 2: How to Answer Questions)
• ​How to Write Better Essays (Part 3: Structure)
• ​How to Write Better Essays (Part 4: Analysis)
• ​How to Write Better Essays (Part 5: Using Evidence)