ESSAY GUIDANCE

Question:

  • In what ways does gender and/or race matter in global politics? Use example(s) to illustrate your answer.

Guidelines on essays

  • Keep to the word count
  • Be consistent in referencing
  • Include a bibliography/reference list
  • Proof read your work before you submit it – check for spelling mistakes and grammatical problems
  • You can use images/pictures as these do not affect the word count (apart from any ‘title’ that goes with the image)
  • Familiarize yourself with the marking criteria for Politics essays
  • Start you essay with the title – In what ways does gender and/or race matter in global politics? Use example(s) to illustrate your answer.
  • Introduce the object/issue/topic you will discuss.
  • Say what first drew you to this object/issue/topic and where you came across it. Also say what argument or main claims you want to make in the essay. Remember that an essay isn’t about your ‘opinion’, but is about putting forward claims or arguments which you make on the basis of your reading of the literature (books, articles etc).
  • Briefly contextualise the object/issue/topic – why did you choose it? What, initially, do you think it has to do with global politics? Some might be more obvious than others – but something has grabbed your attention enough to write about it for your essay.
  • Next explain how the essay will proceed/be structured
  • Say what framework or approach you are going to use to carry out your discussion. You might be using a specific theoretical approach – you might be delving more widely into the ‘gendering’ or ‘race-ing’ of the object/issue/topic. Be explicit. Don’t assume the reader knows the answers to these things.
  • Then have your discussion about the gender (race etc) of the object/issue/topic.
  • Have a conclusion – remind the reader why gender and/or race matters in the context of global politics in regard to the object/issue/topic you have discussed. Be explicit.