New Zealand politics

Task 7 | Essay Plan

1. What is your question? (choose from the list provided on Blackboard)

2. What is your provisional thesis?

I.e. what is your main argument likely to be? Another way to think of this: if you had to provide a one or two sentence answer to the question, what would that answer be? You may find this resource helpful in formulating your thesis: https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/developing-thesis

3. Outline your essay

This should indicate the main ideas you will be exploring in your essay and will most likely be laid out as sections along the lines of:

Introduction

Main body sections (will you use headings? what are the main arguments and evidence you will be using to support your thesis? have you considered counterarguments?)

Conclusion

3. Selected bibliography This requires you to indicate the sources you plan to use to answer your question. It is not to your advantage to simply copy book or article citations that seem related to your topic – take this opportunity to do a literature search and find resources that will actually help you to write your essay. Use the reference list you started in the ‘Evaluating Sources’ assignment as a starting point. You should include at least five peer-reviewed sources in your bibliography.

Note that creating a thoughtful bibliography doesn’t require you to read entire books on your topic for the paper proposal. However, you should at least skim through abstracts or book reviews to get a sense of whether or not a book or article is actually going to be useful for you before you include it in your bibliography. (Of course, it should go without saying that when you actually write your essay you should be reading the actual book/article and not just abstracts or reviews!)

4. Timeline

Time management is crucial for researching and writing good essays. Alongside your plan, include a work calendar outlining your personal deadlines for completing your paper showing how these are going to fit with your other course commitments (you may like to include the deadlines for this class alongside deadlines you have to meet in other courses). The personal deadlines for writing your research paper might include research, writing particular sections, drafting your introduction for peer review, and completing your first draft.

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Finally, I realise that you may be in the early stages of researching and writing your paper. The essay plan is not meant to be a finished project. It is a road map showing that you’ve thought about the topic and that you are on your way to finding the information that will allow you to write a good paper. It is also a good starting point for a conversation with your tutor if you are having difficulty with any aspects of the essay.

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POLS 111 | Task 7 | Essay Plan