NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE OF AN ESSAY

STRUCTURING THE ESSAY

Essays must have an introduction, a body and a conclusion.

1. The Introduction
KEY FEATURES OF AN INTRODUCTION

Purpose To introduce the subject matter and your

claim or position.
Parts  a general statement – gives
background information.
 a specific statement (known as the
thesis statement) – often one
sentence – that outlines the writer’s
plan, purpose, and claim.
 a linking statement that connects the
general statement to the specific or
thesis statement – it can also
provide a theoretical framework for
the thesis statement.
Features  answers/responds to the essay
question (the thesis statement).
 outlines the sequence of stages or
issues for discussion in the body of
the essay.
 establishes the limits or ‘scope’ of
the essay (i.e., what the essay will
not cover).

Examine the key features of the introduction in the sample essay below. Of
course this is not the same as either of the topics you have been set. It is
merely an example to illustrate essay parts etc.

1
Question: The approach of governments and industry to the global
population explosion has led to short term wealth for the few and long
term poverty for the many.
Critically assess the leading perspectives on global population growth
to argue a position on this claim. In your answer consider the impact of
policy decisions on environmental sustainability.

Introduction

With the world’s population having doubled from three to six billion in the last
forty years, it is no exaggeration to speak of a population ‘explosion’.
However, the existence and extent of a population ‘problem’ is highly
contested. Despite this range of opinion in the field of population study, the
policy responses of political parties or, more particularly, governments and
industries worldwide have, since the 1980’s, largely been shaped by a
dominant neo-liberal agenda. This essay will argue that the effect of these
policies has been to produce plenty or wealth in the short term and for
the few, at the expense of the many caught in the web of poverty. It will
further be shown that such policies have delivered a legacy of
environmental degradation. In an attempt to navigate the mire of the
population debate, I will first examine the opposing sides, characterised as
(1) 1
populationism and developmentalism , discuss the arguments mounted by
each and evaluate their evidence. This review of key schools of thought will
be followed by a brief history of the dominant policy approaches to population
management since the 1950’s and an analysis of the effects of each on the
people subjected to them. Finally I will demonstrate ways in which the current
economic rationalist approach has served only to widen the gap between the
rich and poor, both within and between countries, at considerable cost to the
environment.

2. The Body of the Essay

1
G. Sen, “Population, Gender and Development,” 73.
2
KEY FEATURES OF A PARAGRAPH INCLUDING SUPPORTING
EVIDENCE TO BACK UP ARGUMENT

Each paragraph should contain evidence to support your argument.

Paragraph structure

Topic sentence Claim (your voice)

Supporting sentences Evidence

Elaboration
Examples
Explanation (your voice)
Interpretation

3
 Paragraph structure

The inequity in the distribution of

This is the topic Supporting evidence is
. a statement
sentence: wealth in Australia is yet another provided to validate the
of the writer’s indicator of Australia’s lack of argument.
intended argument in egalitarianism. In 1995, 20% of the
this text
Australian population owned 72.2%
of Australia's wealth with the top
. 50% owning 92.1% (1). Such a
significant skew in the distribution of
The writer’s voice
wealth indicates that, at least in makes the
terms of economics, there is an significance of this
established class system in evidence obvious
by linking it to the
This evidence is used Australia. Mcintyre(2) argues that issue of “class”.
to support and
elaborate on the Australian society can be
previous claim. categorised into three levels: the
Paraphrased material
is integrated into the
Upper, Middle and Working classes.
paragraph as In addition, it has been shown that
supporting evidence most Australians continue to remain
for the writer’s
argument. in the class into which they were
born (3) despite arguments about the
ease of social mobility in Australian
society. (4) The issue of class and its
inherent inequity, however, is further
compounded by factors such as race
and gender within and across these Again, the writer’s
class divisions. academic voice is
clear. Here the writer
is creating links with
The writer’s comment The relative disadvantage of women the following
indicates wider reading with regard to their earnings and paragraph, which
and an understanding of levels of asset ownership indicates contains the next
contradictory argument. aspect of the
that within classes there is further argument.
economic inequity based on
gender...

4
These features of an argument are illustrated in these 3 paragraphs of
the sample essay:

The thesis of the populationists is that population growth is the key cause of
(2)
poverty and destruction of the natural environment. Malthus , considered
the father of this movement, posited that the exponential expansion of
population would inevitably exhaust the food supply and the earth’s
resources. His views were taken up and given new prominence by Hardin 3,
who put it thus: ‘...the quality of life and the quantity of it are inversely related’.

By contrast, the developmentalist school ascribes to the view that

‘development is the best contraceptive’. 4 Within this discourse are two
sometimes opposing camps. One promotes social development, in the form
of health and education for women in the South, or developing countries, in
particular, as the key to curbing population growth. 5 Most subscribers to this
school also regard consumption levels in the rich countries of the North,
rather than population levels in the South, as the main contributor to
environmental degradation.6 The other camp puts its faith in economic
development, relying on a ‘trickle-down’ effect of economic benefit from rich to
poor. Proponents of this view often play down the significance of
environmental damage and resource depletion, thereby dismissing the need
for reduced consumption of energy and resources (see for example Decter,
7
). Rejecting neo-Malthusian concerns about food scarcity, Sen 8 cites oft-
quoted statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which
show continuous increases in world food production relative to population
growth.9 However, like Hardin, Brown and Kane are not so sanguine. 10 They
use these same FAO figures over a longer period to show the rate of increase
of production to be in decline.
The populationists are justified in their alarm about the problems besetting the
natural environment and the pressures they place on food security. As Brown

5
and Kane point out, enough constraints are now being placed on food
production to cause serious alarm.11 These constraints include the overuse of
natural systems evident in declining seafood catches worldwide. The loss of
cropland to industrialisation is also a major concern as the situation in China
exemplifies. Sales of cars and tracks in China are now approaching three
million per year. Simply supplying land to park one hundred cars represents a
loss in grain productivity of one tonne per year, or enough to feed five people.
If China continues to industrialise at the current rate, by 2030 it will need to
import 400 million tones of grain per year, more than the entire output of the
United States.12
___
2. Malthus, Essay on the Principle of Population, 17.
3. Hardin, Living within the limits, 213.
4. Weigel, “What really happened in Cairo,”131.
5. Knowles, “Independent Study,” 37.
6. Sen, “Population, Gender and Development,” 88.
7. Gosper, Population Growth, 134.

6
3. The Conclusion

KEY FEATURES OF A CONCLUSION

Purpose The purpose of the conclusion is to bring the

arguments and concepts of your essay to a logical
finishing point – to fit everything together, not just
to summarise. If you stop at the summary, you
have not actually written a conclusion.
Parts The conclusion often has several parts:
 a summary: restates the main issues or
ideas covered in the essay in a condensed
form.
 a thesis restatement: shows how the main
elements of the essay combine to confirm
the essay thesis.
 a final statement: this is the actual
conclusion of the essay, and the most
important part of the final paragraph. This
statement can make a recommendation,
prediction, or warning, or it may indicate the
direction of future research.
Features A well-written conclusion has the following
characteristics:
 It includes your subjective perspective, based
on the objective facts and evidence
presented in the body of the essay. A good
conclusion is logical and valid.
 It does not introduce any new ideas (i.e. no
afterthoughts) offer any apologies, or make
qualifying remarks that are not supported in
the body of the essay.

7
Key features of a conclusion illustrated in the sample essay:

It is obvious no easy solutions exist to the complex problems of poverty,

social inequality and destruction of the natural environment. However, there

is mounting evidence that this coalition of interests between

governments and private enterprise worldwide may be delivering short-

term benefits to the few, but at the expense of long-term social and

environmental stability. Despite this gloomy scenario, there is some cause

for optimism. Recent riots in Seattle at the World Trade Organisation’s Third

Ministerial Meeting received considerable media coverage, suggesting

growing popular awareness, which many attribute to the communications

revolution embodied in the Internet. The Jubilee 2000 Campaign calling for

cancellation of Third World debt is gaining momentum, demonstrating that at

the popular level there is increasing disenchantment with neo-liberalism and

corporate greed. It seems inevitable that if beneficial change is to come it

must be driven by enlightened voices in the developed as well as the

developing world.

8
Bibliography

Hardin, Gerard. Living within the limits. London: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Knowles, Malcolm S. 1986. “Independent Study.” In Using Population

Controls. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986.

Malthus, Thomas. Essay on the Principle of Population. London: Penguin Classics, 1982.

Weigel, Gerard. “What really happened in Cairo.” In The Nine Lives of Population Control,

ed Malcolm Cromartie. Washington: Ethics and Public Policy Centre, 1995.