[Rancorous]

Depends completely on your subject and university. Pretty much everything in this thread is useless to someone not doing that particular degree. Some of this stuff is dead wrong for my subject.

[Bubbles*de*Milo]

(Original post by Craig_D)
Find every kind of relevant source you can, as kat2pult suggests. Try and reference them all.

Make your pre-essay narrative lead your choice and order of sources, rather than just letting your sources form your narrative during writing. We've all done the latter at some point, and you could easily get 65-70 that way, but really the best essays are the ones where you've done enough reading to know the direction you want to take before you start writing.

Use of relevant pictures, anywhere from 2 to 4. Easy marks.

Adequate proof-reading to avoid silly errors. Correct referencing, again another area where many people lose marks needlessly.

A couple of hundred words over the word limit is always better that a couple of hundred under. One of my highest scoring essays was about 30% over.

Haha, you say that but at SOAS if you go even one word over the word limit you're penalised. Whereas there's no lower limit, so you can write 500 words without being penalised.

[kittyb99]

(Original post by Craig_D)
Yeah, the department generally had a 10% rule, but 10% over was still better than 10% under. For some reason that specific lecturer had a 30% boundary, I guess he wanted to give more freedom for producing what the student felt was a good length.

I feel that my list was rather incomplete but I don't know what else to add. I think though that with loads of practice you get a 'feel' for it.

We're always told: "As long as I'm not bored, I don't really care how much over the word count it is! If it's really long and it's rubbish- I'll kill you."

My friend went to 3000 words on a 2500 word essay and still got a first. I consistently turn in 4500-5000 word essays for one subject as there is no solid word counts, just advised word counts

Oh, and OP, try getting whiteboards to brain storm on- I do that and find my arguments are more intricate and connected than they would have been otherwise. Mainly though, lots of reading, thought and rewriting tends to yield first class marks

[Craig_D]

(Original post by Bubbles*de*Milo)
Haha, you say that but at SOAS if you go even one word over the word limit you're penalised. Whereas there's no lower limit, so you can write 500 words without being penalised.

Really? Wow, there really is a lot of variation between universities. I hadn't realised anywhere would be so strict. In that case I take it back!

[Samus2]

The essays I've received firsts on have been incredibly well researched using a lot of different sources (books, journals, primary sources, articles, tv shows, videos) and they've been essays I knew what I wanted to say before I wrote the essay as opposed to just researching as i went along.

[Samus2]

(Original post by Craig_D)
Really? Wow, there really is a lot of variation between universities. I hadn't realised anywhere would be so strict. In that case I take it back!

we're allowed 10% or 200 words which ever is less and then it's a 10 mark penalty for every hundred words.

[SpicyStrawberry]

- Give yourself plenty of time to write essays; a rushed assignment usually means lower quality

- Make sure your spelling and grammar are perfect, typos and spelling errors can cost you marks

- Use a variety of sources rather than limiting yourself to recommended texts (journal articles, textbooks, reputable websites - not Wikipedia! - etc.)

- Make sure you give both sides of the argument if the essay question is worded that way to make it balanced

- Your referencing needs to be excellent for it to be a first class essay, if you write references and citations out wrong this can also cost you

[Bluth.]

Before even you start to write do some research on the marker. Read some of their work, it will give you a good idea about the writing style and manner of referencing they prefer. I'm not necessarily saying all lecturers want a mirror of themselves (although most academics come with an ego that likes to be stroked ) but it has never done me any harm. Tailor your essay to suit the audience.

[Venom123]

(Original post by Bluth.)
Before even you start to write do some research on the marker. Read some of their work, it will give you a good idea about the writing style and manner of referencing they prefer. I'm not necessarily saying all lecturers want a mirror of themselves (although most academics come with an ego that likes to be stroked ) but it has never done me any harm. Tailor your essay to suit the audience.

This ^

I found this out in my final year, I knew this guy was somewhat deeply into his academics purely on his lectures, but still decided to continue with my style of writing - sometimes reading outside my subject for example reading something in psychology bringing stuff in that related to the essay.

However this was such a bad move, he wanted specifics in his essay so I ny received 50... He told me that I was even lucky to get that.

All in all I just think he was a d***

[Ash S]

This thread is really helpful, thanks guys Was my first year at uni this year and my essays improved loads throughout the course of the year (63% -> 70% -> 76%) so I'll try and offer a few tips too:

- Use lots of different kinds of sources. For example in my last essay I used books, journals, news articles, govt. websites, documentaries and even a fictional film and the lecturer really liked it.

- Read lots and lots of sources beforehand. Look where they agree and disagree, figure out your own opinion, and plan how you want to present it before you start writing. Don't rely too much on one or two sources.

- Make sure sources are talking about the time period you want them to. (ie. don't use an article about education in the 1950s and present it as if it was talking about education today)

- Have some kind of sensible structure. Chronological, thematic, whatever, just so long as you're not going all over the place.

- I suppose this one might depend on your citation system but using multiple citations for same point can show the breadth of your reading (and back up your point better too I guess).
ex. TSR is a great site (Jones, 2010, 288; Smith, 2011, 156; Adams, 2009) lol.