an argument o more specifically it is your argument in relation to the question that you have been set. This means that it is not just a summary of someone else’s views or writing, but is instead a piece of academic work in which you present your answer to the question asked, that draws on a range of other people’s published academic material to support and develop your answer.
this argument must have a clear, logical structure; o this means explicit sections, that each deal with a particular aspect of your core argument and an Introduction that tells the reader what you will argue and how you will structure your argument.
that has evidence of substantial reading of relevant academic material;
that supports its main points through references to published academic material;
that has a Conclusion which summarises again your argument and how you developed this in the main sections of your essay; and
that has an alphabetically ordered sources in the reference list. This concept of using an essay to develop and present an ‘argument’ is, I know, unfamiliar to many of you. You may be more used to writing essays that merely summarise ‘for’ and
‘against’ points of view, or that summarise a source such as a textbook. Some others of you may not have written essays at all for quite a while. So to help with understanding what is meant by developing an ‘argument’ in your essay I have, for the essay question, provided an illustrative opening paragraph that presents one possible