social science essay writing

social science essay writing

Enhancing Your Social Science Essay Writing Skills

1. Introduction to Social Science Essays

In general, components of a persuasive essay are generally located on a cover page. A title and subtitle, the name of the author, and the word count are some of the conventional items listed on a cover page. There are two main forms of outline: topic and sentence outlines. Topic outlines list words or phrases, while sentence outlines list complete sentences. Specific and particular rather than broad generalities should be listed in an outline. Sentence outlines are used for specific grants or fellowship applications, for job interviews, and for single subject psychology, sociology, political science, and economics tests. Sentence outlines are similar to social sciences subject tests because they call for descriptions and evaluations of specific topics. Sentence outlines do not test comprehension, critical analysis, nor synthesis, but they do test knowledge and recall. General books on writing term papers and making presentations often confuse the two types of outlines. Writers on social science topics may need to use general books to assist with such general writing, yet which books should be avoided or viewed with reservations when their advice is about how to write generally rather than about what to write about. Like other texts, sentence outlines should be attention grabbers that identify research questions, define research concepts, and limit the scope of research problems. Combine terms to avoid definitions. Good sentence outlines move from general to specific, or from simple to complex. Components of sentence outlines appear in creative writing anthologies, general reference books, other writers’ term papers, grant and fellowship applications, and successful job interviews.

Social science essays are generally written using the Harvard system of citation, although you may use a different system of citation if it is preferred. Each essay should have a title and subtitle, and each should be included in a running head. Titles and subtitles are important because they may ensure that the overall look and value of the research is clear. Titles and subtitles should be short and descriptive. They should reflect a consistent style, which is usually neutral in stance: do not use bold, italics, capitals, underlining, or the inverted pyramid method. Instead, center the title or subtitle in the appropriate part of the page, and begin with a capital letter and then use lowercase whenever a preposition or the is necessary. Do not try to impress the reader with great titles or subtitles, but choose those that reflect the content. Titles or subtitles of more than one line should be used sparingly; they may be difficult to read or appear cumbersome.

2. Key Components of a Strong Social Science Essay

There are some common statements that are often made about essay writing and they need to be critically discussed where necessary. You will hear these statements all the time as a student; however, you should not always follow them. You need to actively close down and dismiss these commentaries when they are being presented because they are simply not true. In this presentation, I will go into detail about what is expected in different types of essays in social science subjects. While the prompt set for essays in social science subjects tend to vary, a key commonality is that they typically offer only general guidelines about unambiguous instructions about what is needed to complete the assignment successfully.

In poor essays, these issues are often a key cause of poor grades. However, if you are confident and well prepared, you will achieve your goal and your essay will be the best it can be. It is important to realize that a really good essay is not achievable without lots of practice. At last, you will finally have the skills that can take you as far as you want to go! While the skills developed for academic writing and the social science disciplines are very similar, they are not exactly the same. It is important to work within the specialized conventions practiced in your specific discipline. Your professors understand these differences; they have carefully designed the assignments in order to give you the critical thinking, sophisticated reading, and model writing practice that is necessary to your future professional or academic goals.

3. Research and Data Analysis Techniques for Social Science Essays

There are many good books on research design. This chapter can only provide a short overview of the principles of research design. However, many of the texts on research methodology can introduce you to the debates that are going on in the literature. The key aim of quantitative research is to test a theory although not all studies in quantitative research are theoretical. The research structure helps us to test a hypothesis and, depending on the depth of the data, to make claims about a larger population. Supposition is the customary form of hypothesis testing; researchers search for evidence that confirms a theoretical position. Unlike qualitative research, quantitative research does not search for such in-depth meaning. Data collection is a matter of procedure. Results can be quickly generated and can then be used to test the theory. Data are then put in order and meaning attributed.

The aim of the qualitative researcher is to gather detailed, in-depth data using a number of different research methods. All the methods have advantages and weaknesses, and we need to consider the complexity of the approaches when designing our research project. We also need to be sensitive to our research when utilizing such documents as letters, newspaper cuttings, and written journals. We may be tempted to think that questionnaire design is the easy part of the research process. This is not necessarily true. There are choices that need to be made and decisions to be taken before the questionnaire can be constructed.

4. Effective Writing Strategies and Techniques

Effective writing is clear, concise, direct, and well organized. The key to writing effectively is defining the rules and formats of communication in a way that maximizes clarity and the effectiveness of your ideas and research. Rules of effective writing include the following: the title of your essay, the opening and closing sentences, inverted pyramid structure, audience, coherence, paragraphs, and overwriting. Task-specific issues that must be addressed in writing tasks relate to the construction of introductions, scholarly definitions, criteria for evaluating source materials, evaluation of hypotheses, examples and evidence, and source citations. These issues and writing techniques amplify the included questions used to evaluate your essay and determine the strengths and weaknesses of your argument or content.

This next section provides twenty effective strategies and writing techniques that will help develop your writing skills. They have been divided into seven rules of effective writing and thirteen writing techniques that will produce a more effective written communication. It is important to ask yourself whether your proposed essay addresses these rules and maximizes the writing techniques. This section is designed to evaluate your work by assessing the strengths and weaknesses in each writing task. The writing strategies and techniques can be applied to all essay components, including the essay question, evaluation of sources, writing scholarly definitions, writing essays based on scholarly literature, developing hypotheses, proposing methods, developing arguments, and the conclusion.

5. Conclusion and Final Tips for Success

For first-year undergraduate applications, this portion should elaborate a serious application of the section lessons or tools to a truly worthy cause. It should be both challenging and provocative. To reiterate, for primary purposes only a small portion of the total text should be dedicated to the first-year assignment. The remainder of the seminar provides a combination of library research and critical revision.

Your definition and solution to the relevant portion must fill approximately 2 1/2 to 3 double-spaced written pages, so the issues should not be overwhelming or complicated. At the same time, you want to foster critical thinking. You should resolve all issues relevant to your audience’s understanding of the discussion or topic but not over-resolve issues that relate specifically to the issues examined in the text.

First-year seminar courses are writing intensive, and writing can be the primary consideration, as students are required to produce a great deal of original research. As primary teachers of first-year writing, we allow the assignment of topics on which students can easily find sources.

In a sense, the conclusion creates the future. You want to stress how you have shown why imitation is necessary and how your analysis impacts proposals for reform. You also want to provoke further questioning and research on the part of the reader. This part of the essay is your chance to demonstrate to the reader that you know about the ideas on which you have focused and that you have found critical results that have more general implications in terms of government and policy. Moreover, you must discuss the work that remains to be done so that your analysis retains its relevance.