Comments on the First Essay, JPU 200Y, 2004-2005
These are comments are amassed from the tutors for JPU 200 concerning the first essays.
Here is the grading scheme for the essays:
Scientific content: 50%
Composition (originality/creativity): 30%
Style (grammar/referencing): 20%
The first, most general comment is that some students seem to have been confused by the requirements of the essay. JPU 200 is a second year university course whose description announces that there will be written work. You were assigned an essay. From Writing at the University of Toronto:
It should try to prove something--develop a single “thesis” or a short set of closely related points--by reasoning and evidence, especially including apt examples and confirming citations from any particular text or sources your argument involves. Gathering such evidence normally entails some rereading of the text or sources with a question or provisional thesis in mind.
What is required for a good grade is that a single topic be discussed with sufficient detail and concision as to present a unified whole.
In those cases in which scientific theories are discussed in relation to something larger, there must be enough science, in detail, in order to make your case convincingly. However, if you opted for a bibliographic or historic study, the work must have a narrow enough theme in order that a coherent whole can be given in the number of pages allotted.
Many of the essays, however, are journalistic treatments, relying virtually entirely on the opinions of others for its authority. Here’s an example from one of the essays, page 3:
All of this is true. All of this is interesting. Indeed, this might have made a great introductory paragraph for the essay, the entire essay devoted to showing that it is so. The problem is that this paragraph relies generously on claims to which you are not entitled to have for free (as the philosophers say). Let’s go through this paragraph piece by piece.
Go through
Instead of the crude and qualitative laws
of mechanics that had been characteristic of the ancient and medieval periods,
What are those crude and qualitative laws? In what senses were they crude and qualitative? This should not be a sentence hidden in a transitional paragraph; it should be several paragraphs itself.
Newton’s laws evidently represented a
fundamentally new kind of law, making the precise quantitative predictions of
mechanical systems possible.
How were they fundamentally new? What are some of these predictions? Again, this author should go through them, one by one, explaining what this claim comes to. The author should use numerous specific examples in doing this.
Most of these ‘journalistic’ accounts have this problem all the way through: there is page after page of very general scientific and historical trends. Much of it is a summary of longer accounts. It tends to be a series of segments from research, with numerous general and vague statements. For an essay, you must show that you have thought through a particular, very specific topic. It must be specific enough that you can show that you understand what you are writing about.
Another misconception about these essays seems to be the audience to whom you are writing. The description of physical concepts in the essay should be comprehensible by and instructive for your peers, and not dependent on the knowledge of the tutor. The aim of this exercise is to demonstrate to the tutor your understanding of physics.
There are also more basic problems. Firstly, a few of the students are unaware of what is typically required for university writing. Others need help with organisation and with English usage. Further confusion lies in recognizing when referencing is necessary – you need to reference more than just quotes. Less serious but still very important is the necessity to follow a clear and consistent reference scheme. It does not particularly matter which method you use, but please consult a style guide such as the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, or the documentation section of the Writing at the University of Toronto website.
For help with these and other aspects of writing, you can consult Writing at the University of Toronto and the university’s writing help program: Counselling and Learning Skills Service, Learning Skills Counselling/Education. Each college has its own Writing Centre, where they provide free editing and other language services. They are listed on the web page: Writing Centres at U of T.
Now, here is a specific list of suggested essay formats, that might help you get started the second time around. You are still free to devise your own format, within the guidelines discussed above.