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ESSAY WRITING TIPS
GENERAL
1. Always include the question you are responding
to at the top of the page.
2. Remember to edit your assessment.
3. This means, doing a final read through and using
spelling and grammar check before submitting.
4. Review page 10 of the Learning Guide for a full
list of steps that you should take when writing
your essays.
CHOOSING YOUR ESSAY QUESTION
Essay questions in Understanding Society:
1. Explain Mills’ ’sociological imagination’. Why is this concept considered
foundational in sociology?
2. Explain ’social construction’. How might gender or nationality be understood
as a social construction in contemporary Australia?
3. What are social norms? How do they shape behaviour? Give examples from
everyday life.
4. What is a social institution? What role do social institutions like the family or
education play in socialisation?
5. Compare and contrast two of the following: functionalism, conflict theory or
symbolic interactionism. How do they view the relationship between
individuals and society?
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BREAK THE ESSAY QUESTION DOWN
INTO ITS KEY COMPONENTS
• What is the question about?
• What key topics in the unit does the question relate to?
• What is the question asking you to do? Look for the instructions (e.g. compare,
contrast, explain).
• Are you being asked to make choices (i.e. is there an instruction to choose, or
an ‘or’ in the question) or is it a multi-pronged question (i.e. is there more than
one question or instruction, or is there an ‘and’ in the question).
• Can you take a critical perspective with this question? If so, how?
LANGUAGE
• Academic writing asks writers to adopt a formal tone- this is different from the tone you would use when texting a
friend or talking to your mum.
• Generally, academic writing requires the author to write in the third person (‘he,’ ‘she’, ‘it’, ‘they’) not the first person ( ‘I’
or ‘me’).
Example:
‘I believe that the author is saying…’
‘Here the author is explaining…’
To make your language sound as formal as possible, you should avoid using language features that are characteristic of
spoken casual conversation, such as:
→ colloquial or slang words (e.g. use ‘children’ instead of ‘kids’)
→ contractions (e.g. use ‘is not’ instead of ‘isn’t’)
→ abbreviations (e.g. use the word ‘maximum’ instead of ‘max’)
→ spoken-like grammatical structures such as run-on sentences or sentence fragments
For more information see: https://westernsydney.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1082508/Essay_Tone.pdf
LANGUAGE CONT’D.
• If you do use first person, and at times this is appropriate (after all it is you that is writing your essay), then this needs to
be managed carefully. So remember that while you are writing the essay (for instance), you are striving to form a
structured, informed and supported argument. Thus, it is not just your random thoughts, beliefs or opinions that are
featured – it is your argument. This is what differentiates academic from other forms of writing.
• So ‘I’ is preferable to an imaginary ‘we’ (which students sometimes use as a way of getting around writing ‘I’), but it should
not be ‘overused’. Look to examples of good academic writing (your textbook, or journal articles for instance) to see
how academic authors manage this.
Example:
‘I think this means…’
Instead try:
‘I suggest…’
Or:
‘I contend…’
Example:
‘In this essay, we will examine…’
Instead try:
‘In this essay, I will examine…’
Or:
‘This essay will examine…’
Example:
‘In my opinion…’
Instead try:
‘I argue that…’
Or:
‘On this basis, it seems likely that…’
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HARVARD REFERENCING 1
For this unit there is a particular set of referencing rules you must follow.
Harvard Referencing requires you to acknowledge the source of the idea
or the quote you are referring to in the body of your paper (in-text
citations) as well as a detailed list of these sources at the end of your
paper (the reference list).
Please download a copy of the Harvard Referencing Guide from vUWS or
make use of the iCite tool found on the WSU Library homepage
https://library.westernsydney.edu.au/main/guides/referencingcitation/i%3aCite
HARVARD REFERENCING
How to reference a chapter of a book:
Author, Initial(s) Year of publication, ‘Title of chapter/article’, in Title of book, Publisher, Place of publication, pages of the
chapter/article referred to.
Knowles, MS 2007, ‘Independent study’, in Using learning contracts, JosseyBass, San Francisco, pp. 89-96.
Your turn!
Please choose a chapter from a book you’ve chosen from the WSU Library Website and reference following the
above instructions.
HARVARD IN-TEXT CITATIONS
Your turn!
Please choose a quote from the book you chose from the last exercise and cite the quote correctly.

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USING SCHOLARLY SOURCES
• You must use a minimum of 5 scholarly sources in the essay and 2 of these should come from sources other than the
set readings.
• Scholarly sources are sources that have been produced as a result of a rigorous research process and then reviewed by
other scholars before they are published. Generally, they are written by qualified people in the academic community for
other people in the academic community.
Examples: Academic research → Other kinds of research (government reports, etc) → Peer-reviewed journal articles → Scholarly
books (written by academics for academics or for students) → Academic conference papers → Published research data sets
→Academic book reviews.
• Non-scholarly sources are sources written or produced for an audience outside the academic community, i.e. the
general public.
Examples: General knowledge → Everyday purposes, e.g. news, entertainment, social media sharing, topics of conversation → News →
General websites (including Wikipedia) → Blogs (including those written by academics) → Social media posts → Fiction books →
Popular non-fiction books (including those written by academics for a general audience) → Government documents and publications
For more information see: https://westernsydney.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1082808/Types_of_Sources.pdf
LOCATING SCHOLARLY SOURCES
• The library databases are the best place to begin the search for scholarly
sources: https://library.westernsydney.edu.au/main/
• You can carry out a quick search to look for all sources on a topic, or you can
look for specific journals or databases (many of which are subject specific) and
search those: https://library.westernsydney.edu.au/main/resources/eResources
• If you are going to use Google, it is best to use Google Scholar (and to access it
via the library, so that you can automatically download the resources that the
library has subscriptions to). See the following page for more information on this:
https://subjectguides.library.westernsydney.edu.au/googscholaroffcamp
• Instructions on resources available in the library and how to access them can be
found here: https://library.westernsydney.edu.au/main/guides/quick

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Remember:
• You start at 0 and earn marks from there (we do not start at 100 and deduct).
• The criteria are weighted – so some aspects of the essay are worth more than others.
• The descriptions for each criteria give a broad overview of where the essay sits. You may not have done all of
things listed in the box, but if the bulk of your essay corresponds with that descriptor, that’s where your mark
for that criteria will fall.
• Your marker’s written comments should be read alongside the rubric. They will indicate more specifically what
you have done well and where you could improve.
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TOOLS TO ASSIST YOU
iCite referencing tool: https://library.westernsydney.edu.au/main/guides/referencing-citation/i%3ACite
Study Smart Zone: (online assistance with assessments, self-help guides, tools and resources)
https://westernsydney.edu.au/studysmart/home
PASS Programs:
Academic Literacy Workshops:
https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/currentstudents/current_students/services_and_facilities/study_and_life_skills_worksh
ops/bridging_programs2
Assessment Folders on vUWS
PASS is also transitioning online so please see the vUWS site for times and dates