Academic Writing –

Essay

ICFAI BUSINESS SCHOOL GURGAON

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 1. Introduction

Essay Writing

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 1.1 Introducing the
Subject of an Essay
It is often said/asserted/claimed that...
– It is often said that John Wesley saved England from a
French-style revolution.
– It is often asserted that America has traded higher
inequality for faster growth.
It is sometimes forgotten that...
– It is sometimes forgotten that
what we’re talking about is only
the northern half of the country.
The concept of...
– The concept of animal rights is
founded theologically.
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 1.1 Introducing the
Subject of an Essay
• The idea of…
– The idea of creating a powerful financial regulator is
finding growing support.
The question of whether...
•

– The question of whether the

economy is capable of sustained
growth is still very much an
open one.
– …is much debated…
– …the most interesting features
of… Er. VIPIN MITTAL JIND 44
1.2 How the Essay is to be
organized
• The first thing that needs to be done is…
– The first thing that needs to be done is to identify
those areas where you have, or could have, some
problems.
• It is important to try to understand…
– To answer this question it is important to
understand first why people are still fleeing the
country.
• …at the outset…
– The first we need to address, however, is the one
we posed at the very outset

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1.2 How the Essay is to be
organized
I would like to start with…
I/We will begin/start by…
This essay/paper/project will begin by…
I would like to summarize…
I would like to outline…
Let us look at…
Let us begin/start by/with…

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1.2 How the Essay is to be
organized
First of all, let us…
There are a number of issues…
We shall see how…

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 1.3 Limiting the scope of
the Essay
• I will deal with the question of…
– I will then deal with the question of whether or not
these requirements are compatible with criminal
procedure.
• I will confine myself to…
– I will confine myself to a few points
• It is beyond the scope of…
– It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss every
aspect of this large problem

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 2. Building an
argument
Essay Writing

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 2.1 Introducing a topic

• The main issue is…

– One of the issues under discussion will be land
degradation.
• The at stake here is…
– The issue at stake is an absolutely vital one for the
future scope of Scottish politics.
• An important aspect of…is…
– An essential aspect of knowledge is its ambiguity
and constant change.

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 2.1 Introducing a topic

It is worth mentioning that…

It is interesting to consider…
On the question of
Economists are divided on the question of
whether we‘re already in a recession.
We are faced with choice between…and…
It is argued…
There is the argument that…

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 2.2 Making a
generalization
…tend to believe that
Politicians have far too much tended to
believe that television and newspapers were
the main game.
…a tendency to
There is a tendency for people to divorce
around the fourth year of marriage.
It is generally/widely accepted/believed
that…
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 2.2 Making a
generalization
In the (vast) majority of cases…
For most of us…
There are numerous examples/instances of…
In many cases…
In most cases…
On the whole…
For the most part…

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 2.2 Making a
generalization
As a rule…
As a rule, we spend at least 30 percent of
any project’s effort and time in testing.
In general…
In general, Americans are poorly informed
about politics and government.
Usually…

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 2.3 Being more precise

• In particular…
– Rural commodity prices, in particular, had dragged
down the index.
• …particularly…
– What has happened in western Europe and
particularly the UK will affect the global market.
• More specifically…
• … and especially…
• …mainly…

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 3. Dealing with
sources and
supporting an
Essay Writing

argument

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 PLAGIARISM

Please note that you should

always acknowledge other
people’s work when you use it in
your writing. Failure to do so is
considered to be plagiarism, or
cheating, and is punished severely
in English – speaking universities.
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 3.1 Introducing a
quotation or paraphrase
As…claims/points out/remarks/suggests,…
Food is intimately related to identity, as
Suzanne Moore points out.
According to…
In the words of…
In the words of one worried UN official, ‘The
fighting today may show that events are
slipping away from us again.’

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 3.2 Paraphrasing and
reformulating
• What he is saying is that…
– What he is saying is continuity is important
because that is one of the key ingredients of
success.
• According to…
• In other words…
• What this means…
• To put in another way…
• That is to say…
• …or rather…

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 3.3 Introducing examples

• To take another example…

• …for example…
– Consider, for example, the fictional works of the
offbeat British writer David Lindsay.
• …for instance…
• …serves to illustrate…
– A bitter struggle between the Labor party and one
of its own local authorities has served to illustrate
how the political landscape, even at local level,
has changed

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 3.3 Introducing examples

By way of illustration…
A case in point is…
…if we take the case of…
…as follows: …
…one example of the many supportive
studies is as follows:

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 3.4 Evaluating an
argument
…could be interpreted as …
Could be taken to mean that…
This leads one to suppose that…
It is reasonable to assume that…
…weigh up the pros and cons…
…a convincing explanation
The truth of the matter is that

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 3.4 Evaluating an
argument
• The truth is that…
• This raises the question of…
• This is true up to a point…
• …is somewhat misleading…
• …the wrong approach…
• …considerable advantages…
• It would make sense to…
• The advantages outweigh the
disadvantages.

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 3.5 Agreeing

• …agree wholeheartedly with…

• It is hard to disagree with…
• One must acknowledge that…
• It is quiet right to…
• …support this claim…
• In support of this theory…
• …argument in favor of …
• …deserves support

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 3.6 Disagreeing

I must disagree with…

I cannot agree with…
This is far from the truth…
It is simply not true…
It is quite wrong to…
…out of the question…
…is untenable

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 3.6 Disagreeing

The opposite is true…

It is difficult to share the opinion that…
This argument does not hold water
This argument does not stand up
…not…, …but rather that…
The problem with…
…unjustified…

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 3.7 Introducing your own
point of view
• In my opinion…
• My personal opinion is that…
• Speaking personally…
• Personally…
• My own view is that…
• In my view…
• From my point of view…
• It is my belief that…

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 3.7 Introducing your own
point of view
I feel that…
I am convinced that…
As far as I’m concerned…
It seems to me that…
As I see it…
I believe that…

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 3.8 Proposing an
alternative and
introducing an counter –
argument
Another approach…
Another way of looking at this…
On the other hand…
The other side of the coin…
It is more accurate to speak of…

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4. Referring to data

Essay Writing

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 4. Referring to data

• From the table/chart/data/diagram/graph

it can be seen that…
• As you can see from the
table/chart/data/diagram/graph…
• The chart/data/diagram/graph/table shows
that…
• According to the
chart/data/diagram/graph/table…
• …figures show that…

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 5. Stages in the
argument
Essay Writing

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 5.1 Transition Markers

• First of all…
• Firstly…
• First and foremost…
• In the first place…
• Secondly…
• A second problem is that…
• Thirdly…
• Let us now consider…

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 5.1 Transition Markers

Let us now look at…

Let us now turn to…
Finally…
Lastly…
To conclude this section…
This merits closer examination

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 5.2 Addition Markers

In addition…
In addition to…
Added to this…
An added … is …
As well as…
Over and above that…
Furthermore…

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 5.2 Addition Markers

Moreover…
In the same way…
Not only … but also …
What is more….
In the same way…

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 6. Degrees of
certainty
Essay Writing

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 6.1 Expressing Certainty

It is clear that…
Indisputably…
Undeniably…
There can be no doubt that…
It is undoubtedly true that…
As we all know, …
One thing is certain…

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 6.1 Expressing Certainty

It is certain that…
It is true that…
It is noticeable that…
It can be observed…
It can be seen that…

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 6.2 Emphasizing a point

It is significant that…
It should not be forgotten that…
It should be stressed that…
The important point…

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 6.3 Expressing doubt and
qualifying an argument
It is doubtful whether…
It remains to be seen whether…
I wonder whether…
I have reservations about…
It is by no means certain that…
It’s difficult to say whether…
It is questionable whether…

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 6.3 Expressing doubt and
qualifying an argument
Is there any real substance…
This poses/raises fundamental questions…
This raises again the question of…
… may well be true but…
It is hard to believe that…

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 7. Making
comparisons and
contrasts
Essay Writing

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7.1 Objective Comparisons

• …compared with…
• In/by comparison with…
• The former… the latter…
• Similarly…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• There is the fundamental difference
between…

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7.2 Favorable Comparisons

Far superior to…

…have the edge over…

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 7.3 Unfavorable
Comparisons
…cannot compete with…
…nowhere near as… as…
… no match for…
…not measure up to…
…cannot compare with…
There’s no comparison between … and…

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 7.4 Comparing similar
things
…much/almost/virtually the same as…
…not much to choose between…
There is no difference between…
…equivalent to…
…on a par with…
…corresponds to…
…can be likened to…

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 7.5 Comparing dissimilar
things
…have little/nothing in common with…
…bear little resemblance to…
…is completely/entirely/quite/totally
different from

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 7.6 Contrast

…but in reality…
In contrast to…
…as opposed to…
Unlike…
Whereas…
…differentiate …from…
On the one hand, … on the other hand…

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 7.6 Contrast

Conversely…
…on the contrary…
In actual fact…

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8. Expressing cause
and effect
Essay Writing

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 Expressing cause and
effect
• The fundamental reason for…
• As a result/consequence…
• …because of this…
• Therefore…
• Thus…
• Consequently…
• …in order to…
• For this reason…
• …so that…
• …leads to…
• The consequence of this is…
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 9. Conclusions

Essay Writing

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 9.1 Summarizing the
arguments
I have demonstrated/shown that…
This shows how…
So it would appear that…
This goes to show that…
To sum up…
To summarize…
In a nutshell…

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 9.2 Drawing conclusions

• On balance…
• We have to conclude that…
• This leads to the conclusion that…
• In conclusion…
• Ultimately…
• On the whole…
• There is a need for further
investigation/research/study…

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