The advice offered below is fairly sound advice in answering essays of any type. However, you may have been given specific advice by individual lecturers that differs from the advice here, depending on the requirements set out by your other lecturers. As a result, you will need to check that these pointers are appropriate to your other courses.

• Firstly, forget all the fancy essay writing techniques you may have followed in the past. Just simply get your knowledge down on the paper. DON'T worry about introductions, summaries and conclusions - just get the information on the page.
• Use sentences and try to observe good grammar. Split your work up into easy to read paragraphs if you can.
• Where there is a choice, spend some time deciding which question is best for you to answer. Getting half way through one question and then deciding the other one would have been better, can seriously waste valuable time, and can be disastrous.
• Make sure you ANSWER THE QUESTION! This is one of the main reasons students do poorly in essays. They don't answer the question. Make sure you know what the question is asking. Underline the important parts to the question BEFORE you start writing. Spend some time doing this BEFORE you put pen to paper. Keep checking back at the question to make sure you are following what is required.
• Make sure you answer ALL THE PARTS of the question. Students generally do worse when they don't attempt ALL that they are required.
• Don't go off describing something not relevant to the question. You wont get any more marks for giving a brilliant essay on something not required by the question.
• Normally think of an adequate essay as being approximately two sides. This will obviously vary depending on the particular question and the students writing style.
• Use LARGE, clear, annotated drawings. USE COLOURED pens or pencils to make your diagrams attractive to read and look at. Remember I am TRYING TO GIVE YOU MARKS! Make my job easy by making the diagrams clear using different colours with labels easy to see and read.
• Write your essay in black or blue ink (unless you have a special requirement to use a different colour). It creates a good overall effect. Take spare pens (of the same colour ink) with you.
• DON'T make jokes, write anything you think is funny, or write anything personal to me in your essay. It will not be thought of very highly, and I assure you, I wont find it funny, and neither will the external examiner.
• Read the INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. Does the question ask you to draw something? Does it ask you to compare one thing with another?
• Generally it is better to start the essay AFTER you have completed the short answer part of the paper. Hopefully by the time you then get to the essay, you will be calmer, less nervous, have more confidence and possibly have more time to devote to a great essay. Ultimately the choice is up to you.
• Make sure you have all the time allotted for the essay, if you do the short answer questions first. Running short of time makes for poor essay writing!

Finally - BEST OF LUCK and think of Andrew Still's words to you!
Very best wishes to you all.
Gerry Carter