The French Mic Drop | Writing a Successful Essay # 1

One of the hardest transitions between A Levels and University is the sudden influx of long, academic essays that you're required to ace in order to succeed. The invaluable PEE you learned in GCSE just doesn't hack it anymore, and you've lost your terra firma. For a lot of students, this is completely new territory; so how do you tackle an essay without rambling? I got my best advice from learning French, and it's helped me towards some of my best work.

Beyond Paris, fashion and romance, the French can definitely boast a long history of brilliant authors. Sartre, Voltaire, Dumas, Flaubert... the list goes on. So it's no wonder that French students learn from an early age how to write a thorough and convincing essay - something students in other countries don't necessarily benefit from. The key? Structure. This is just one part of a strong essay, but without it, an essay falls into the realms of the unintelligible. The French method sets up two methods; Thematic essays, and For/Against essays. The Thematic essay discusses arguments according to common themes; the For/Against essay is more suited to debate questions, and literally argues for and then against. 

Introduction

For both methods, the introduction has the same layout. It comes in three parts:

1. Context
   This usually comes in the form of a fact or statistic on the subject, and sets up your essay. For example:

   
   Considering the extensive discussion of the male protagonist following the publication of the novel, analysis of his female counterpart has been comparably limited.
2. Problem
   
   You should then pose your problem. This should effectively rephrase the title question of your essay, or pose it from a similar angle, but doesn't necessarily need to be a problem. E.g. For an essay about the role of women in a novel, you might need to consider a common reading of women in the novel, and your "problem" might look like this:
   
   

   A phenomenon which has arisen, particularly during the late twentieth century, has been the reading of the female in the novel as an early "femme fatale".
3. Petit Plan

   This is where you signpost your argument(s) for the essay. In a thematic style, you'll highlight the themes you will cover; in a for/against essay, you can simply state that you are going to analyse both sides of the argument. An example of a thematic essay Petit Plan:

   
   This essay will attempt to analyse this reading, with attention firstly to the narrative styles, and secondly to the revealing progression of the male's treatment of the female.

Body

This is where your essay changes according to which method you choose. Here's how they both work:

Thematic Essays

This method works best when you don't necessarily have a for and against for each point, or when you have clearly defined subjects which your points come under. It's a particularly strong style for analysis of literary texts. To write a successful thematic essay, you need to have a good plan in your mind: what subjects do you need to tackle? The body of your essay should always follow the order which you have set out in your introduction, so keep that in mind. From there on, you just need to set up your themes and discuss them. Remember not to jump from one theme to another though, use connectives to ensure that your essay flows properly and reads well. Here's an example of the themes you might use for the essay mentioned above:

First theme: Narrative styles block a reading of the female as a femme fatale
Connection: This means that we can't read the female's actions through this narrative, and have to consider her through the narrator's treatment of her.
Second theme: The treatment of the female is progressively aggressive

For/Against Essays

This is also known as the argumentative style, and works well for discussions or debates. For example, if you were to write an essay on the sustainability of nuclear energy, or whether literature should be engaged, then you might choose an argumentative style. It's a relatively simple format, consisting of an argument, followed by a counter argument, etc. This method tends to leave a little more pressure on the conclusion, as no clear opinion arises in the body.

N.B. It's vital that you back up your points with examples for both methods. Somewhere between a third and half of the points you make should be backed up by a strong example - whether it be a statistic, a quote from the novel, or an example from the general world. 

Conclusion

This is where it gets really difficult, and it's the place most students fall down. By this point, it's possible that you're already over your word count, you're tired of talking about this bloody subject, and you can't wait for it to be over. That's definitely true of most of the conclusions I've written. So the best way to tackle it is to not tackle it at all... until the next day. Save the rest of your essay, leave it alone, and come back to it. This way you can read over what you've already got, remind yourself of your argument (and change parts if you need to), and look at it with fresh eyes. But how do you structure it when you do come to writing the conclusion?

1. Loop it
   The conclusion is a summation of your argument, but don't just spiel out the points you've already made. The first thing a conclusion should do is draw your essay back to the question. You can either pose the question again:
   
   
   So what is the role of literature?

   
   Or you can bring back the problem you posed in your introduction (which is better if this differs a little from your question):
   
   

   Rather than the femme fatale the female is named, due to the biased narration and progression of the attitude towards her, it seems preferable to read her as a fiction fatale.
   
   

   The second method also works better for academic essays; it shows that you have your own take on the question.
2. Replay
   When I say replay, I don't mean repeat. This should be a reiteration of your arguments, a brief explanation of how you got there.
   
   

   Undoubtedly, the female is not presented [narration: theme 1] as the victim by the novel: it is only through rejection of the biased narration that we can reveal her true role in the novel. Intensely idealised by the male, [treatment: theme 2] she is trapped between ideals and effectively becomes a victim. 
3. Personal Opinion
   This is your chance to shine. I once read that if you can't imagine yourself dropping the mic after your conclusion, then it's not strong enough. No matter what you are writing about, you need to come across as though you have incredible, strong ideas on the subject, and you need to believe your essay communicates them.
   
   
   In fact, the exhibition of her as femme fatale by the narrator is an oppressive misrepresentation, microcosmic of the era’s attitude towards society’s female. [MIC DROP]

No lie - you need to go Kanye style on this. If you love your essay as much as Kanye loves himself, there is no way any marker could fault you for it. But really, once you've got a strong, supported set of arguments, well introduced, well concluded, you can conquer the world. Probably. 

Good luck!