Comments on education essays - 09 Oct

Please read the following comments on your education essays. Each of these comments are in response to the essays written by the class.

Over the next week, everyone should reflect on both the comments below and the individual feedback that I give. I then want everyone to write a comment which reflects on what they did and what they could improve upon.

First and foremost, I honestly enjoyed reading these essays. It was interesting to see everyone’s voice emerging in their interpretation of the purposely broad question: “what is the purpose of education?” One of the hardest things to do is to set your own limits on what you are going to discuss or focus on. I asked students to keep it to 800 – 1000 words to put boundaries on the discussion.

I’d like to make some general points, but will feedback to everyone individually as well.

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Sometimes when we are asked to write essays we react as if we were being dragged along to a wealthy relation’s house for dinner. We dress up and project a more formal style than we are used to. The result is that we feel uncomfortable; we don’t feel like ourselves. Sometimes I get this kind of impression when I read students’ essays: the individuality of the student’s voice gets lost in an overly self-conscious writing style. This often manifests as inappropriate use of complex words (possibly suggested by a thesaurus) or very long sentences (and lots of them). Such forced complexity often spoils some wonderful, insightful thoughts. Sometimes complex sentences and words are needed; but don’t overdo it.

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Purpose, purpose, purpose. Okay, I know I keep going on about purpose, but I do so for a reason. If the reader can’t work out the purpose of the essay quickly, then they will be left in a state of frustrated confusion (and as your readers will often be your markers, you want to avoid leaving them like that). The purpose of an essay is often designed by a set question (eg. "Discuss the value of running educational institutions like businesses"). Alternatively, you may be asked to define your own question or purpose (as I asked you). Two weeks ago I got everyone to write down what they considered to be the purpose of their essay: do you think this statement of purpose that you came up with was relevant to the finished essay? A sense of clear purpose will also be served well by a focussed title. Did you tailor your title to suit the specific subject of your essay?

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Your introduction is crucial in creating a sense of your essay’s purpose as well. Once you get your essay back, re-read your introduction. Is there a clear sense of the essay’s purpose in the introduction? Then read the rest of the essay: does your essay stay focussed on that purpose? The introduction should provide the reader with a comforting sense of the journey ahead: where is this essay taking us?

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I wonder how many people read their essays aloud before they handed them in? Sometimes an essay looks fine. It may even smell, feel and taste fine. However, if you read it aloud it may not sound quite right. Reading your draft aloud is a very good way of catching problems to do with grammar, syntax and general clarity in meaning. Read it slowly, with a pencil to hand to make comments or changes as you go. Only take a breath or pause when the punctuation lets you (this is crucial). As I’ve said before, this is something I always did when I returned to education as a mature student. In fact, if I have an important document to produce, I still do it.

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Try to use gender neutral language. Avoid saying things like: “The life of a student is often difficult. Exams can be a major source of stress. However, he will need to deal with this stress if he wants to progress to a higher academic level.”

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Avoid colloquial language.

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Avoid using the second person “you”. Again, it sounds a bit too informal. “We” is more acceptable.

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Avoid contractions: ie. "don’t" is a contraction of "do not".


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There is a general rule about how to incorporate longer quotations in your writing. If a quotation runs to more than four lines, then indent it from the rest of your writing and do not use quotation marks. These indented, longer quotations are usually introduced by a colon.

For example:

O’Neill concludes that tourist texts reveal as much about their writers as their subjects:

A study of tourist texts reveals the fault-lines in the cultural imagination of the imperial and metropolitan subject. In the signification and aestheticization of the west, we can sense the anxieties of the writer, and even detect a certain fragility inherent in a privileged social and cultural origin where the authority to signify resides. [1]

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Don’t forget to reference throughout your text. Furthermore anything that appears as a footnote reference should also appear in your references at the end of your essay.

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Some students have problems with articles (“an”, “a”, “the”). Follow this link to a site which is quite good on articles: http://www.elanguages.ac.uk/activities/2EAP/02/when_do_you_need_to_use_an_article.htm
However, you may want to use the services of the Second Language Support Staff as well. They’re just beside the library.

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How to use evidence or quotes.

If you use a quote or some evidence you need to sandwich this between a statement and a comment of your own. Think SEC (Statement – Evidence – Comment)

Indeed, everything sensible that you will say in an essay (or, come to think of it, life) will, more or less, use the SEC (Statement – Evidence – Comment) method in some form or other.

Make a statement (this will set up the evidence to follow)
Back it up with evidence (sometimes a quote but not always)
Then, and this is the crucial part, link the two by commenting on both.

For example;

Take the quote from Thomas Carruthers: "A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary." Say we were writing an essay on the purpose of education and we thought that this might fit in nicely with our thoughts on the empowering nature of education. We might sandwich the quote using the SEC method.

1. The statement often makes a general point and sets up the evidence which follows: Thomas Carruthers supports the notion of education as an empowering process

2. Next we have the evidence: “A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary”

3. Now the important part: a comment on the evidence. We need to justify the inclusion of this quote into the general point we are making, by comment on the evidence: how do we interpret this evidence? How does it support the general point we are trying to make? This third and final part is crucial. So in this case we may argue that Carruthers’ idea of education puts the student at the centre of the process. The teacher is, in his view, more a facilitator than the traditional authoritative figure at the front of the class. As he suggests, a teacher should aim to move from an instructive to a supportive role as the student gains confidence though learning. Notice that this comment has, by far, the most words. It should have because this is where you prove that you are capable of independent and insightful thought based on research.

Put the three bits together and you get a nice little paragraph:

Thomas Carruthers supports the notion of education as an empowering process: “"A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary."[1] Carruthers’ idea of education puts the student at the centre of the process. The teacher is, in his view, more a facilitator than the traditional authoritative figure at the front of the class. As he suggests, a teacher should aim to move from an instructive to a supportive role as the student gains confidence though learning.