How to get a First on an essay

You can do whatever you like, but if you want a first you should avoid quoting because otherwise you can't prove you understand what it means. And then if you go on to explain it, you've basically wasted words and won't gain any extra credit.

As far as disagreeing with the quote, you need to provide further references for that. As I also said you can't go around making up your own theories, so if you want to disagree, you have to say why by paraphrasing from another article.

You can't get a first by being lazy. If you're just going to treat good advice as a joke then don't bother making a thread.

Sorry for the inappropriate smiley

I was just a bit confused because another poster said that she would introduce her own ideas, and I just thought that by using these ideas and taking on a stance of a critical viewpoint, it could be original and possibly gain higher marks?

You can do whatever you like, but if you want a first you should avoid quoting because otherwise you can't prove you understand what it means. And then if you go on to explain it, you've basically wasted words and won't gain any extra credit.

As far as disagreeing with the quote, you need to provide further references for that. As I also said you can't go around making up your own theories, so if you want to disagree, you have to say why by paraphrasing from another article.

You can't get a first by being lazy. If you're just going to treat good advice as a joke then don't bother making a thread.

From what i've gathered, to get a first you need to.......

1) Have a decent bibliography2) Have a decent amount of quotes but relevant ones - they need to be in balance though, too much is bad, what are they supposed to be marking? Your work or someone else's? But they don't like too little quotes either.
3) Talk about theorists, be critical of their approach4) Make links to other subject areas

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head.

Sorry for the inappropriate smiley

I was just a bit confused because another poster said that she would introduce her own ideas, and I just thought that by using these ideas and taking on a stance of a critical viewpoint, it could be original and possibly gain higher marks?

I guess it depends on the subject you're studying. I'm doing radiography so it's a factual subject and I can't argue anything myself unless I've done my own research. If you're doing something more theory-based then maybe it's different.

1) So what do you mean by decent, like, e-journals and all the books you've read? Or just books?

3) I don't understand when people say 'be critical of their approach', like say that you disagree with something?

THANKYOU big time for your help

It doesn't answer the question, you just want to brag about getting a first adding nothing to the discussion. Unlike me.

Does God also know why you now walk with a pronounced limp? Because I suspect the two may not be unrelated.

I get what you mean. OP asks ''How to get a first in an essay'', you say ''I got 78, god knows how''. In other words you can't really offer advice on HOW you achieved the first as you yourself are not sure HOW you did it in the first place. Right?

I got an 80 once @ uni, and the same as yourself god knows how because I really don't know how I did it.

I put in my bibliography all the books i've read that are relevant to the essay and that have somehow helped me write the essay. Eg If I read a book and think well I thought it was relevant but in fact its a bunch of crap and won't help me gain any better understanding then I won't put it in my bibliography. From what I understand, a 2000 word essay should have around 12 sources in the bibliography and it goes up depending on essay length. Oh it should include everything as well, books, journals, websites etc etc.

To be honest, i've never understood what is meant by critical, I think as you said it means to criticise. I think the point that most lecturers try to make is not to take things at face value, you should be critical about it, so yeah criticise I imagine. But don't quote me on that one i'm not 100% sure......i'm only a first year too these are just things i've picked up from books and lecturers!

I get what you mean. OP asks ''How to get a first in an essay'', you say ''I got 78, god knows how''. In other words you can't really offer advice on HOW you achieved the first as you yourself are not sure HOW you did it in the first place. Right?

I got an 80 once @ uni, and the same as yourself god knows how because I really don't know how I did it.

Did you have many quotes in your essay?

What if the EXAM essay has to be based on a journal.... would they mark you down if you write the introduction with quotes of the journal to the EXAM essay question?? Bearing no journals are allowed to take in the exam

No, because it then becomes plagiarism; lecturer's see the essay as not your own work!!

(I wrote that assignment over 2 years ago now, I have since graduated - just thought I'd let you know lol).



I started one of my assignments with a quote, in my final year. It wasn't a big quote however - it was a sentence, just to set the scene of what I was going to write about.

What course did you do, if you don't mind me asking?

I am doing Accounting and i have exams where i am expected to write an essay based on journals and atm i am just copying the journal's introduction and memorising it... it wouldn't be plagiarised because it is an exam right?