[MUSIC] So, what is an essay? The 16th Century French Philosopher Montaigne, described an essay as an attempt or trial where ideas are presented, shaped, challenged and revised. In academic spaces, these ideas are presented following formal academic rules or conventions. Essay writing is a crucial component of your academic journey at university. Drafting essays is a way of testing ideas through the lens of critical reflection. While there's no winning formula for drafting an essay, here are some principles to bear in mind. An essay contains three essential features, an introduction, the body of the essay, and a conclusion. An academic essay also contains a reference list at the end of the document which list the sources that the writer has used. Basically, in the introduction, you say what you're going to do in the essay, in the body of the essay, you do it, and in the conclusion, you say what you've achieved. In the forthcoming weeks, we will look more closely at these. I remember when I first arrived at university, I was quite surprised to learn that my writing style was a bit story-like, that I needed to formalize it a bit more. So regardless of where we stand, academic language can be seen as a foreign language for those of us who are new to its particular conventions. Let's have a look at what some student shared about their essay writing experience at university. >> Yeah I learned early on that the way we write here at university is very different from the way we used to write at high school. And it was a struggle as I come from a black disadvantaged school. Yeah, so to have to transit to all of that I mean, the university had to offer much help, in terms of how to write academically. >> I remember wondering why my mom, when I showed her my first essay that I was going to hand in for an assignment, why she was like to me, why are there bullet points in your essay? First in my introduction, then my premises were all in bullet points. And then I concluded all of that. And I was like, references, yeah, man, this is my essay. And my teacher called me in and she was like, girl, listen, this is not an essay. This is just some thoughts that you scribbled out and put on a paper. You need to formulate it and structure it into academic prose. All of these things that I had no clue what I was doing. >> My secret is just to read more. Writing is just secondary in terms of academics. You just need to read and be well informed before you can actually write something. So, they should just stay on their reading lane and read more, and read more and read more and then writing is going to come after. When I started writing, I looked up my laptop and it was a blank space and I have to fill it with words and that can be quite terrifying. So, the method that I started using that really worked and it worked for me is I started writing, all the ideas I had in my head. I gave myself about 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and I just typed everything that was in my head. So I took an hour break. And what I would do then, is then I would go through everything that I wrote. And then I would organize that into something that made it more coherent. After that, I would add articles, interesting things that I read and added it. >> I just feel like it's important to ask for help. You're going to be a fish in an ocean, yes. But you can find another fish, feel like, hey what's up, help me with this essay. You could have found an island, get some safety in the island, which is a writing centre awesome to help you out there, you're not alone. And that's one thing that I also didn't get, that I'm not alone. And education doesn't have to be individualistic. Your essay process doesn't have to be only you alone. >> So the essay topic for the course is, drawing on your sources, discuss what happens to the identity of individuals as they move across borders. The essay topic contains two key words, identity and mobility. So first, we need to brainstorm what we understand by identity and mobility, or movement. Individuals move across different contexts all the time, from high school to university, from familiar to unfamiliar spaces. In such cases, consider whether identity remains stable or whether it changes. If it changes, how and why? As you reflect on these ideas and write, we will walk on the journey with you. During the four weeks, we will also be accompanied by our student writers, Ada, Ziggy and Joey. We are going to follow them as they draft their paragraphs. And you can observe the feedback that we offer them. Both drafting and working with feedback are essential processes in preparing for essay submissions at university. Writing an essay once off to submit the next day is not good practice. We try ideas out first, then we write them up in the form of a draft. Having done so, we reflect on these, then we take some time to consider suggestions and opinions on what to improve, we refine them, and then finally we submit an essay. So, drafting is a continuous process of putting thoughts on paper and refining them draft upon draft. Writing is a practice. It's similar to performing a dance or song on stage. We will rehearse several times before and gradually we refine our craft. Feedback should be regarded as a building process involving both the reader and the writer. The suggestions made through these process of feedback must aim at encouraging and improving the writing rather than being negative or dismissive. In this course, we make use of peer feedback, where you read over a fellow student's writing and offer suggestions on how they can improve the clarity of message they are trying to convey. Now we will move on to the concept of identity. [MUSIC]
