How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays - Paul Dickerson

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an essay without an introduction is a very clear signal that the writer is not thinking about their reader, but is just keen to cram down whatever they have in their mind connected with the essay topic. By contrast, a thoughtful, intelligent introduction gives the sense of the author relating to their reader in what they write – not with ‘witty’ messages to the reader in brackets (you know what I mean, don’t you?), but with an intelligent outline of what the essay is all about.

      The ‘so what?’ reader

      This concept will be returned to in later chapters, but for now let’s revisit an abbreviated version of one of the opening examples in this chapter.

      Essay title:

      ‘Critically evaluate the contribution of fMRI research to understanding psychological processes.’

      Sample essay beginning

      One particularly important strand of research has involved using fMRI data to localise psychological function to specific brain regions. An example of this is found in the work of Downing, Liu and Kanwisher (2001), who investigated whether the same regions of the brain were employed in object recognition regardless of the specific object being perceived. A particular interest for Downing et al. …

      This looks like it could have been a really good essay – but it has gone wrong from the start. It is not that the content is incorrect or irrelevant – it looks right on target. The problem is that the reader comes to an academic essay with a high chance of asking the two-word question that they (almost) never ask of dictionaries, encyclopaedias or of the instant results to their twentieth Google search that day: ‘so what?’ Don’t write your essay like a dictionary or encyclopaedia entry or a Google factual search result. These are great for conveying information, but your essay needs to do more than that and your introduction sets the scene.

      Starting an essay without conveying a sense of what you will cover and why it is relevant to the essay title means that however relevant and accurate your information actually is, your essay will suffer as you have not demonstrated a scholarly mind at work. Your essay, from the introduction onwards, is a medium for demonstrating your thinking about the title and showing that thinking, rather than leaving the reader to try to deduce what sort of thinking there was or wasn’t from flimsy and incomplete evidence.

      While the reader of your essay is possibly the most wonderful, engaged and enthusiastic person you can think of – it can be handy to imagine that – whatever their many strengths, they have a tendency to ask ‘so what?’ A well-written essay can meet the ‘so what?’ challenge and prevail. It can even prevent our dear reader(s) from even asking the question.

      To write a good introduction, get a draft down first and then read it through as if you were the reader – perhaps the marker – who does not know what’s coming up in your essay, rather than the author, who does. Reading your introduction in this way, ask yourself these three questions:

      1 Can you tell from the introduction alone (roughly) what the essay title is?

      2 Can you tell (again from the introduction alone) how this essay addresses the title?

      3 Can you tell something of the author’s understanding of the issues involved – for example, concerning what issues are debated in this topic and how different perspectives can be characterised?

      Exercise

      Interrogate your introduction

      Try interrogating your first paragraph with the questions in Table 3.4. You may find it helpful to look at the expanded definitions in Table 3.5.

      Feedback on introductions

      Introductions often attract feedback from markers. Let’s look at some of the more common forms of feedback that directly and indirectly indicate that changes to the introduction would be a good idea. Some of the feedback will indicate quite precisely the aspect of your introduction that should be improved.

      The following feedback is often used in commenting on introductions:

       Include a statement of intent

       Signpost your essay

       Indicate how your essay will address the question

      These comments all indicate that your essay should overtly indicate how your essay will address the question. Your introduction needs to identify what will be covered in your essay. This statement of intent should convey a sense that you thought intelligently about what you included and the order in which you included it, rather than it appearing to be the result of unthinking passivity, such as simply following the content and order of a textbook, lecture notes or, much worse, your favourite psychology website.

       Outline how your essay will approach/address/answer the essay question

      This is getting at the same idea as the previous comments, but it does usefully highlight that you need to convey a sense of the relevance of what you plan to include for the essay title. A strong statement of intent conveys a sense of not only what will be included and when it will be included, but also why it is relevant for this particular essay.

       Set the context for the essay

       Don’t start abruptly

       Don’t start so generally

      These comments about the first paragraph in your essay indicate that as well as considering your statement of intent, your orientating sentence should be looked at. The first – or orientating – sentence in your essay is a challenge and is often easier to write after you have completed most, or perhaps all, of your essay. Use your orientating sentence to convey an awareness of the relevance of thinking about the domain that is indicated by the essay title. A well-written orientating sentence cues the reader into thinking about the specific aspects of psychology from which the essay topic is drawn. This can vary but might be thought of as the sort of subsection in a textbook in which you could imagine finding this essay title. For example, ‘Cognitive development in children has been a key concern within developmental psychology and a focus of substantial debate’ could set up a debate between different approaches to children’s cognitive development, while ‘Piaget’s stage theory of children’s cognitive development has been a major influence within developmental psychology while simultaneously being questioned in terms of its theoretical scope and its empirical basis’ sets up a more specific evaluation of Piaget’s contribution. Sometimes an additional sentence may be used to further specify the relevant focus of the essay. In the previous example, adding a sentence such as, ‘One aspect of Piaget’s work that has attracted considerable debate concerns his series of Conservation experiments’, identifies that a more specific focus on evaluating Piaget’s Conservation experiments will be pursued. Feedback comments such as these, when made in response to your introduction or first paragraph, can be a challenge to address, but looking at both your orientating sentence and statement of intent (unless another part of your essay is indicated by the comment) is wise. Do bear in mind that your orientating sentence and statement of intent can often be substantially improved if you edit them after you have finished you essay.

      Exercise

      Try to Wreck It! – The Intro

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