Political science students have to write a lot of essays. Their field of study requires that they must be good at writing because later in their career they have to argue in favor of their point of view.
It is not enough to be right, political science students must be able to prove that they are right, using evidence and critical thinking.
That is what is required of them in their essays as well. If you are a political science student struggling to write good essays, then here are some tips for you.
With these five helpful tips, you will improve your essay-writing skills noticeably.
Table of Contents
5 Helpful Tips for Writing Essays for Political Science Students
- Understand the Essays Prompt
- Research and Find Evidence
- Write Clearly and Format Well
- Anticipate Counter Arguments and Prepare
- Proofread for Errors
1. Understand the Essays Prompt
The first problem that many students face is that they do not understand what their essay is about. They have trouble understanding what the essay prompt is asking of them. This confusion can jeopardize the entire essay.
An essay written on a misunderstood prompt cannot hope to be correct, save by a lucky coincidence.
That is why it is always advised to take your time to understand the prompt first. A helpful tip in this regard is to rephrase the prompt as a question.
This usually makes the prompt clearer, and therefore easier to understand. Once you have a good understanding, you can develop your arguable thesis statement.
2. Research and Find Evidence
After understanding the prompt, you have to form your argument. This argument is presented in the form of a thesis statement.
Now, the rest of the essay is spent citing evidence and facts that favor your argument and disprove opposing theories.
This can only be done if you conduct proper research on your topic. This research is supposed to unearth all kinds of evidence that you need to use in your essay.
Now, not all evidence is equal. Some of the evidence can be quite damning, while others are just circumstantial at best.
Sifting through all the collected evidence and deciding which ones are useful is the hard part. But here is a tip for that too; use AI search engines for finding direct facts related to your topic.
3. Write Clearly and Format Well
None of your arguments are worth anything if you cannot articulate them well. A poorly written argument is hard to understand and makes the essay look unprofessional. Poor writing makes for confusing essays that are difficult to read.
So, how well you can pen down your thoughts is directly related to your essay’s performance.
As a political science student, your essays need to be immaculate. The first thing you can do is format them properly. Follow a logical structure so that one topic leads to another naturally. Make the headings noticeable.
The other thing you need to do is paraphrase online parts of your essay. Why online? Because paraphrasing tools can do a much better job of enhancing readability than humans.
They can replace difficult words with their synonyms and restructure confusing sentences to make them simpler. And they can do it all in under a few seconds.
4. Anticipate Counter Arguments and Prepare
Essays in political science are almost always argumentative. And there are always two sides to any argument. That is why when writing your essay, you should anticipate some counterpoints to your arguments and prepare for them.
You can do this by getting a classmate or a colleague to debate with you. Give them some time to prep, so they can bring in some relevant points and evidence. Then do your research to learn how to refute those points.
You should address some of the strongest and most obvious counterpoints in your own essay. This makes your essay more compelling and persuasive to the reader.
5. Proofread for Errors
Finally, all good essays are those that were proofread and edited. On your first draft, you will make some mistakes that you will not even know about.
That is why proofread your essay to find them. You will be surprised how a simple session of reading your essay aloud can help you find errors.
You can find:
- Small grammar mistakes,
- Tense errors,
- Confusing sentences,
- Weak arguments.
Then you can address these issues and make your essay pristine. This goes a long way in improving the reception of your essay and enhancing its persuasive power.
Even a small grammar mistake can sharply tank the credibility of your essay because it calls into question the work ethic of the writer.
Conclusion
So, these are the five tips to help you write a good political science essay. The tips we discussed were understanding the essay prompt, finding relevant evidence to support your arguments, writing well, anticipating counterarguments, and proofreading.
By applying these tips to your essays, you will be writing great political science essays in no time.