How to write an excellent psychology essay
If you’re doing a BSc or MSc in psychology, then you’ll be very familiar with the importance of writing. Many of your assignments will be essays, which means that being able to write well can make a huge difference to your final degree. There is no magic formula for producing a perfect essay, and writing is hard, but there are lots of tips and advice that can help you along the way. I’ve summarised them here.
Before we start, I want to mention the importance of two things. First, clarity. In writing, clarity is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the princess in the castle: clarity is your final, most important goal. You cannot write well unless you write clearly.
Second, you must think about your reader. When writing an essay, never, ever forget about your reader. Good writing means having a constant awareness of what the reader knows, what they don’t know, and what they need to know next. Hold your reader in mind the entire time that you write, then deliver the message to them as clearly as possible. Bearing in mind that this is your ultimate goal, let’s look at the steps you need to take to get there.
1. Understand the question
If you have a choice of which essay question to pick, choose carefully. Not all questions are created equal, and some more obviously give you opportunities to write well. Potential for a clear structure (see Step 3 below), and for describing and critiquing evidence (Steps 4 and 5) are more important than your interest here—don’t be too swayed by the topic that jumps out at you as interesting. Writing an excellent essay on a topic that personally doesn’t interest you will serve you far better in the long run. If there is only one essay question, then make sure you really understand what the essay is asking from you. Speak to your tutor if it’s not clear—it’s likely you’re not the only one, and this step really, really matters.
2. Draft your introduction
Often students struggle with starting an essay because they try to write the introduction paragraph first, when they know very little about the topic. If this sounds like you, then try writing your introduction later, after you know the structure of the essay (except in exams, of course, where you generally need to write the introduction first). I’ve just started with it here as it’s what will appear first in your essay.
There are three things that should appear in all introductions:
a) Definitions: explain any key terms or concepts. Don’t assume your marker will know what you mean by, for example, ‘theory of mind’. Yes, she does know what that means, but you need to show that you know what it means. Remember the rule about clarity—demonstrate that you know exactly what you’re talking about.
b) What the problem is and why the reader should care. Why does this topic matter?
c) What you will talk about in your essay. Departments and markers differ in terms of whether they are happy with you writing this in the first person (‘In my essay I will…’). I think this is fine, but you’re best to check with your specific department on this.
Almost always, the introduction should be a single paragraph. In a long essay, you might have several subsequent paragraphs where you introduce things in a bit more detail, but you should still have a single opening paragraph that covers definitions, context, and an overview of the essay.
3. Work out your basic structure
The majority of your essay will be made up of main body paragraphs (i.e. everything that’s not the introduction or conclusion paragraph).
Start writing brief subheadings, one per main body paragraph. These subheadings may or may not survive in the final version (I think they’re a good idea in long essays), and they will probably end up moving around a bit—that doesn’t matter right now. This stage is about building a more detailed structure by telling yourself what you will cover in each paragraph. I always do this with my writing: I start by mapping out the list of points I’m going to make, one per paragraph.
4. Structure each paragraph
a) Signpost
Now you can start to bulk out each paragraph. Critically, all your main body paragraphs start with a topic sentence, and all of them should end with a wrap sentence.
The topic sentence opens the paragraph and tells the reader what the paragraph is about. When your essay is finished, a reader should be able to look at only the first sentences of each paragraph and understand your whole overall structure. If I could give you only one bit of essay writing advice, it would be about topic sentences. Make sure every main body paragraph starts with a sentence that explains what the paragraph will cover.
The wrap sentence is the final one in the paragraph, and here you need to summarise your paragraph and link it back to the question. Without wrap sentences, it’s easy to stray quite far from your original question, especially in essays with long word counts. Wrap sentences are essential, because they ensure that every paragraph you write clearly contributes to answering your question.
Together, topic and wrap sentences are known as signposting. There’s a reason for this—they tell your reader where he is and where he’s about to go. Remember that your job is to guide the reader through your essay. You tell him what you’re going to say (topic sentence), then you say it (Steps 4 and 5 below), then you summarise what you’ve just said and link it back to the question (wrap sentence). This may sound a bit repetitive, but believe me, this is how you write a clear essay.
b) Describe
After your topic sentence, you’ll need to describe some theories, therapies or studies, whatever is relevant to your particular essay question. When describing studies, there are four things you might want to cover: method, sample, results, implications. Students often ask me whether they need to describe every study in this much detail, and the answer is no. You need to work out which aspects of the study are most important for answering your specific question, describe those in detail, then go into less detail with the others. Remember that your goal is clarity for the reader, so provide whatever information you need to make your point clearly.
c) Critically analyse
Here’s the big one, the lifeblood of your essay and the thing that most often trips people up: critical analysis. Many students stop after the description part (Step b), but this is a fatal error. To get a decent mark for any psychology essay, you must critically analyse what you have just described. Don’t just take the study or theory at face value; you must evaluate how good it is. Interrogate it. What are the strengths? What are the limitations? What’s missing? Are there alternative theories or explanations for the findings—things that the researchers didn’t measure? Are the findings supported or contradicted by other evidence? What future research is needed to better understand the problem? All of these are examples of critical analysis.
If you’re not sure what points to make, then try looking at the paper’s own Discussion section —all researchers will critically analyse their own work here. You can also read later papers that have cited the study; they will critically evaluate the previous work. Remember: every time you describe something in your essay, think about how you might critically analyse it. This is so, so important for getting the top marks.
4. Conclusion
You’ve made it to the conclusion, where you now need to summarise your essay. This bit should be relatively easy, because you’ve written the essay now; you know what it’s about. What have you found? It’s also nice to think here about the implications of it all: remind the reader, like in the introduction, of why this topic matters. You can also talk about future research: what don’t we know? What needs to happen next?
5. Edit, edit, edit
You are nearly there now, but there’s one more essential step to take: editing. An absolutely critical concept to accept about good writing is that it never happens first time round. I’ve been writing for years now, and my first drafts are always, always bad. The sad thing is that students often submit just that—their first draft. This is a terrible idea! You have done 90% of the work, so keep going for a bit longer; it will make a huge difference to your final grade.
As an absolute minimum I would say that you need to go through your essay twice after the first draft is written, each edit taking a couple of hours (obviously this doesn’t apply in exams, and this is taken into account when people mark your exam essays). Print it out and mark it up with a pen if that’s helpful; seeing your writing on physical paper can often show up what sections need work, and any issues with structure.
This read-through is not just a check for spelling and grammar, although that’s important too. What you’re also checking for here is—you guessed it—clarity. This might mean you rearrange the order of some paragraphs, delete or move around some sentences, or rephrase some of your wording. Every edit you make is serving that one goal: to make your message more clear.
When re-reading the essay, you should ask yourself the following questions:
a) Does my introduction define key terms, describe the context of the problem, and set up my essay?
b) Does my conclusion summarise the essay and think about implications and ideas for future research?
c) In the main body paragraphs, does each topic sentence explain what’s coming in the paragraph, and is there a wrap sentence clearly demonstrating how this paragraph helps to answer the question?
d) Do I describe evidence clearly, and critically analyse it wherever possible?
If you can answer yes to all these questions, then you have yourself an excellent psychology essay—well done.
Before we start, I want to mention the importance of two things. First, clarity. In writing, clarity is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the princess in the castle: clarity is your final, most important goal. You cannot write well unless you write clearly.
Second, you must think about your reader. When writing an essay, never, ever forget about your reader. Good writing means having a constant awareness of what the reader knows, what they don’t know, and what they need to know next. Hold your reader in mind the entire time that you write, then deliver the message to them as clearly as possible. Bearing in mind that this is your ultimate goal, let’s look at the steps you need to take to get there.
1. Understand the question
If you have a choice of which essay question to pick, choose carefully. Not all questions are created equal, and some more obviously give you opportunities to write well. Potential for a clear structure (see Step 3 below), and for describing and critiquing evidence (Steps 4 and 5) are more important than your interest here—don’t be too swayed by the topic that jumps out at you as interesting. Writing an excellent essay on a topic that personally doesn’t interest you will serve you far better in the long run. If there is only one essay question, then make sure you really understand what the essay is asking from you. Speak to your tutor if it’s not clear—it’s likely you’re not the only one, and this step really, really matters.
2. Draft your introduction
Often students struggle with starting an essay because they try to write the introduction paragraph first, when they know very little about the topic. If this sounds like you, then try writing your introduction later, after you know the structure of the essay (except in exams, of course, where you generally need to write the introduction first). I’ve just started with it here as it’s what will appear first in your essay.
There are three things that should appear in all introductions:
a) Definitions: explain any key terms or concepts. Don’t assume your marker will know what you mean by, for example, ‘theory of mind’. Yes, she does know what that means, but you need to show that you know what it means. Remember the rule about clarity—demonstrate that you know exactly what you’re talking about.
b) What the problem is and why the reader should care. Why does this topic matter?
c) What you will talk about in your essay. Departments and markers differ in terms of whether they are happy with you writing this in the first person (‘In my essay I will…’). I think this is fine, but you’re best to check with your specific department on this.
Almost always, the introduction should be a single paragraph. In a long essay, you might have several subsequent paragraphs where you introduce things in a bit more detail, but you should still have a single opening paragraph that covers definitions, context, and an overview of the essay.
3. Work out your basic structure
The majority of your essay will be made up of main body paragraphs (i.e. everything that’s not the introduction or conclusion paragraph).
Start writing brief subheadings, one per main body paragraph. These subheadings may or may not survive in the final version (I think they’re a good idea in long essays), and they will probably end up moving around a bit—that doesn’t matter right now. This stage is about building a more detailed structure by telling yourself what you will cover in each paragraph. I always do this with my writing: I start by mapping out the list of points I’m going to make, one per paragraph.
4. Structure each paragraph
a) Signpost
Now you can start to bulk out each paragraph. Critically, all your main body paragraphs start with a topic sentence, and all of them should end with a wrap sentence.
The topic sentence opens the paragraph and tells the reader what the paragraph is about. When your essay is finished, a reader should be able to look at only the first sentences of each paragraph and understand your whole overall structure. If I could give you only one bit of essay writing advice, it would be about topic sentences. Make sure every main body paragraph starts with a sentence that explains what the paragraph will cover.
The wrap sentence is the final one in the paragraph, and here you need to summarise your paragraph and link it back to the question. Without wrap sentences, it’s easy to stray quite far from your original question, especially in essays with long word counts. Wrap sentences are essential, because they ensure that every paragraph you write clearly contributes to answering your question.
Together, topic and wrap sentences are known as signposting. There’s a reason for this—they tell your reader where he is and where he’s about to go. Remember that your job is to guide the reader through your essay. You tell him what you’re going to say (topic sentence), then you say it (Steps 4 and 5 below), then you summarise what you’ve just said and link it back to the question (wrap sentence). This may sound a bit repetitive, but believe me, this is how you write a clear essay.
b) Describe
After your topic sentence, you’ll need to describe some theories, therapies or studies, whatever is relevant to your particular essay question. When describing studies, there are four things you might want to cover: method, sample, results, implications. Students often ask me whether they need to describe every study in this much detail, and the answer is no. You need to work out which aspects of the study are most important for answering your specific question, describe those in detail, then go into less detail with the others. Remember that your goal is clarity for the reader, so provide whatever information you need to make your point clearly.
c) Critically analyse
Here’s the big one, the lifeblood of your essay and the thing that most often trips people up: critical analysis. Many students stop after the description part (Step b), but this is a fatal error. To get a decent mark for any psychology essay, you must critically analyse what you have just described. Don’t just take the study or theory at face value; you must evaluate how good it is. Interrogate it. What are the strengths? What are the limitations? What’s missing? Are there alternative theories or explanations for the findings—things that the researchers didn’t measure? Are the findings supported or contradicted by other evidence? What future research is needed to better understand the problem? All of these are examples of critical analysis.
If you’re not sure what points to make, then try looking at the paper’s own Discussion section —all researchers will critically analyse their own work here. You can also read later papers that have cited the study; they will critically evaluate the previous work. Remember: every time you describe something in your essay, think about how you might critically analyse it. This is so, so important for getting the top marks.
4. Conclusion
You’ve made it to the conclusion, where you now need to summarise your essay. This bit should be relatively easy, because you’ve written the essay now; you know what it’s about. What have you found? It’s also nice to think here about the implications of it all: remind the reader, like in the introduction, of why this topic matters. You can also talk about future research: what don’t we know? What needs to happen next?
5. Edit, edit, edit
You are nearly there now, but there’s one more essential step to take: editing. An absolutely critical concept to accept about good writing is that it never happens first time round. I’ve been writing for years now, and my first drafts are always, always bad. The sad thing is that students often submit just that—their first draft. This is a terrible idea! You have done 90% of the work, so keep going for a bit longer; it will make a huge difference to your final grade.
As an absolute minimum I would say that you need to go through your essay twice after the first draft is written, each edit taking a couple of hours (obviously this doesn’t apply in exams, and this is taken into account when people mark your exam essays). Print it out and mark it up with a pen if that’s helpful; seeing your writing on physical paper can often show up what sections need work, and any issues with structure.
This read-through is not just a check for spelling and grammar, although that’s important too. What you’re also checking for here is—you guessed it—clarity. This might mean you rearrange the order of some paragraphs, delete or move around some sentences, or rephrase some of your wording. Every edit you make is serving that one goal: to make your message more clear.
When re-reading the essay, you should ask yourself the following questions:
a) Does my introduction define key terms, describe the context of the problem, and set up my essay?
b) Does my conclusion summarise the essay and think about implications and ideas for future research?
c) In the main body paragraphs, does each topic sentence explain what’s coming in the paragraph, and is there a wrap sentence clearly demonstrating how this paragraph helps to answer the question?
d) Do I describe evidence clearly, and critically analyse it wherever possible?
If you can answer yes to all these questions, then you have yourself an excellent psychology essay—well done.
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