Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi everyone. I'm so glad you can join me
here for this short-course, breaking down essay questions. In this course, I hope you'll learn how to better understand, comprehend, and answer
complex essay questions. Now for many people, writing
essays is a daunting task. When those essays
are centered around a specific question
set by somebody else, this can be even more daunting. And that's because you don't
always know what to expect. And in many cases, you don't fully understand what the question expects
and is asking of you. I hope that in this course I will be able to help
you break through that initial panic
and writer's block that you will be able to produce better essays as a result. In this course, I'll be guiding you through the
process of examining a question and breaking down some key elements that you will find in any essay question. We will start by learning how to best read and observe
the questions. Then we will look at what
are called process words. And finally, we
will learn how to identify the keywords
within a question. So I hope you'll join me
and let's get started.
2. Observing the Question: The first thing you have to
do is observe the question. So here we have a picture
of a bird and the bird, there's nothing
about it, nothing particularly
interesting about it. But a bird is just so much more. You can break it down
into its component parts. It has eyes, it has a beak, it has feathers, has
legs, a tail, wings. All these different
component parts that make it so much more than just the
holistic idea of a bird. And a question is
much the same, okay? So a question might be
asking you about a topic, let's say the law of the sea. And you might want to just write everything you know about
the Law of the Sea down. Well, that's not going to
get you very far because that's just a
generalized answer. And it's probably
not even answering the specific questions set. What's important is to look, what is it asking me to say
about the law of the sea? What am I being asked to
write about this bird, right? It might be a question about
the eyes of the bird, right? How the eye is composed? How do the eyes of this bird
compared to this other bird? How does this element
of the Law of the Sea compare to
another element? Why does it work better
than another, right? These are the kind of things or questions Can I ask a view? But in the panic, you just look at the question. You see the general topic
and you try and say, Okay, I'll tell you
everything I know about this general topic that isn't going to get you a
particularly good mark or create a particularly
interesting essay. What we need is detail. In order to get detail, we need to break
the question down and see what does it
really asking us.
3. Understanding Process Words: So let's start off
looking at process words. What are process words? Well, these are the words
within a question that direct you down a
certain form of answer. They tell you what's
required of you in terms of using information
within your answer. And in a lot of ways, they
just direct you as to the method you need to use in order to answer the question. And let me show you
what I may mean. Here are some common
process words. So we have to analyze,
to assess, discuss. We also have to explain to
what extent and evaluate. These are the ones you're
going to see across the board. So let's go through them. What do they mean? Because they're all different. Analyse means to
examine in detail, to explain or interpret
something within the question. It's requiring you to really
break down the issues, discuss how they relate, examine them in detail
against each other. In contrast, assess is considering the
relative importance of something in
relation to another. You look at the positives than
negatives, other aspects, and you come to a judgment about a suitability for a given role in relation to the question. Now, discuss is a lot
more broad, right? It requires you to think
about the topic in a more discursive, open manner, weighing up different
opinions, points, arguments before drawing a conclusion based
on the question. Explain. Well, that's just saying,
how does this work? Exploring the processes,
the elements involved, and making clear your knowledge
of how something works. To what extent requires you to explore how far
something is true? How far does a
certain proposition contained within the
question hold true? Evaluate requires
you to consider the relative
importance of things in relation to its role
within the question. In a lot of ways it's
similar to assess. There's just something more in evaluate requires
far more comparison, far more direct
criticism than assess. So let's see some examples. So here's essentially the
same topic, the same region. Evaluate how X has changed
from the periods 1124 to 1753, versus to what extent
has exchanged or explain how X has
changed the same topic, the same time period. But those operators
at the beginning, those process words
completely change how and in what way you're
going to answer the question, evaluate how presumes
things have changed. There is a presumption
in the question. It requires you to look at
the differing importance of factors that
contributed to the change. Comparing and contrasting them. To what extent does not presume
that things have changed. So you are actually
looking at how far things have or
have not changed. You're looking at
factors related to change and to non-change and exploring how far that has occurred while weighing
up those factors. So very different from evaluate. Explain also presumes
that things have changed. But it asks you to explain
how that has happened, rather than
necessarily requiring you to look at the
difference in importance. You are looking and exploring the different factors that
have contributed to that. So hopefully you can see how these process was
directly change a question and the direction of travel of your answer and
what's expected of you.
4. Identifying Keywords: Now we're going to
look at keywords. Now these are
incredibly important because these are those elements of the question that tell you what topic
you're looking at. But not only do
this, they direct you not just to
the general topic, but they narrow these things down into more specific areas. In a way they're like signposts for your research
on the question. So here's an example. How did industrialization alter the economies of developing
nations after World War II? So our keywords are
industrialization, economies, developing
nations after World War two. These are the different
words that are going to guide our research. Now, if you had studied industrialization before
opening this essay, you might see the word
industrialization and go right, I know
how to ask this. I'm going to tell you
everything I know about industrialization after World War Two in
developing nations. But you'd be missing economies. Write every word
is important here. So if you just talk generally
about industrialization and how that changed different
nations after World War II. You wouldn't be answering the question because you need to talk about the economy's,
in the same way. Economic change after
industrialization. You might know a lot about that. But if you don't talk about it specifically in the context of developing nations or in the context of
post-World War II, then you're still not
answering the question. So remember, each word is of critical importance to answering
the question properly. Also note our
operator word here, how we're explaining
how this has happened. Again, there's a
presumption that it has. So we have all these
different elements here. We have our process Word of how, we have our keywords. And this is going to
guide our research on the question and eventually
how we answer it. So takeaways from this section. Remember, it's important
to break down the question and really look at how its component parts guide
how you should answer it. And if you do this, not only will your question
be more direct, be more on point, it will also be clearer to
you on how to answer it. Because when you understand what the question is asking of you, planning and researching your
essay becomes far easier.
5. Get Writing: Hi everyone and welcome back. So we've talked about
how to approach a question and break it down
into its component parts. Now I'm gonna give you the
most important piece of advice that I have given
you in this course. And if you take one thing away, please take this away. Start writing. It doesn't matter how well you think you
understand the question. How confident you are that you will be
able to complete it. You cannot edit a blank page. And a badly written essay can be easily made
into a good essay. An essay that doesn't exist, cannot get started writing. You could make a
writing schedule. Thinking about the time that
you're gonna be spending, writing, the time you will spend researching and critically
the time you spent resting. Because that's really
the time when you allow your ideas to develop in
the back of your mind. You come back with fresh eyes. You can set yourself
personal deadlines. Think about for
longer-term projects, setting deadlines for the
completion of certain sections. But for smaller projects. Just set yourself a paragraph
a day and get writing. Because once you have
something to work with, you can then employ
all the techniques we've been talking
about in breaking down the question
further to ensure that what you've written
answers the question. But you can't do that if you don't already have
something down. So please get started. Thanks guys.
6. The Four Steps to Success: Guys, welcome back. In this final section, we're going to look at
essentially the solution to the problem posed at the
beginning of the course, which is panicking
and not knowing where to go when you open
your essay question. So we're going to summarize everything we've covered
thus far in the course. Step one, observed the question. See the question that's
more than just a whole, but break it down into
its component parts. And by doing this,
you're going to better understand what the question
is really asking you, but also how you're going
to answer this question. To identify and understand
the process words. Because these are
really going to change how you approach your research, but also your answer
to the question. Step three, identify the
keywords within the question. Think of it like a funnel. You're going to narrow
down from the broad topic to the specific topic that the question is getting
you to look at. This, we'll focus your research, but it will focus
your answer and ensure that you are
answering directly. And step four, right? Because a terrible first draft, it's far easier to improve
than a completely blank page. You cannot edit 0 words. So just get writing,
get started. And you'll soon be on your
way to a great essay. I hope you've
enjoyed this course, and I'll see you
in the next one.
Tom Peck, Researcher, Academic
