Preparing for the EMA

Hastings, 23 August 2014

Your EMA essay must, above all else, answer the question,

so make answering the question your top priority. Most

importantly, make sure you know what the question is asking

you.

The answer to the question forms the basis of your argument. Your argument will solve the problem posed by the question, by assembling, synthesising and re-arranging the module material into a new pattern.

Arguments can be simple or complex, but they need to be carefully constructed or they will fall down.

You are being assessed on how well you demonstrate knowledge of the module materials. Use them.

Plans can take many forms, and will be as individual as you are. How you plan your essay is entirely up to you but as Benjamin Franklin said: “if you fail to plan you are planning to fail”.

You will have a lot of material to choose from, a throng of ideas, masses of evidence, crowds of concepts? How do you choose? Your argument will guide you. Your plan will keep you on the straight and narrow. But if you find a face in the crowd that you fall for, you can always change your plan.

Your plan will prevent you from going round in circles. Although your plan may not be linear, the structure of your argument will be. Keep moving forward.

Structurebeginning

middle

end

If you are inhabiting someone else’s ideas, speaking their words, utilising their arguments or borrowing their analysis you need to make it clear to the reader that it is not you. You do this by referencing.

Your reader needs to be able to locate all the material to which you have referred. Asking your reader to find your sources without giving them accurate references would be like asking them to find a particular pebble on Brighton beach.

Your EMA is written. It was a labour of love, it is perfection, it could not be any better. Leave it for a couple of days, and read it again with a critical eye and you are sure to find something you can improve.

Finally, please will EMA patrons refrain from: • writing more than 2,200 words;• using more material sourced from Google than Book 4;• submitting in a non-specified file format; • submitting after the deadline (12 noon!).

Thank you

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Jennie Osborn

jennie.osborn@open.ac.uk

www.open.ac.uk