ESSAY: INFORMATION & GUIDANCE
Instructions:
Answer the following question:
In what areas does international law most shape behaviour? Answer with reference to at least TWO areas. These could include those we have covered (such as human rights, global health and international trade) or those of your choosing.
Word length: 2000 words maximum
The best essays will not be A-level essays. We are not looking for you to spend 1750 words summarising two views and then 250 words on a vague conclusion arguing that ‘both are valid’. The best essays will take a position in the debate in the introduction, and then spend most of the essay defending that position with argument and evidence. Your conclusion should never be a surprise.
But this does not mean that you have to ‘pick a side’. For one thing there are never just two sides to any discussion – sometimes there are 17 sides, or 53, or whatever. If you look carefully at the academic sources that you read you will see that they rarely just pick a side, and they almost never just summarise two views. They more often use the introduction to argue for which general approach is best, but then argue in the main body for why there is nonetheless still some problem even with the best approach. Or sometimes they argue that whilst some views appear to contradict each other, in fact they do not if we look more closely. Of course, you can be polemical if you want and argue strongly against one view throughout. There’s no problem at all with this. The point is simply that you don’t have to in order to make a coherent argument.
Make sure that the reader is always clear about what you are saying. Your argument should run like a ‘red thread’ throughout. Sometimes it can help to recap at the end or start of sections, with phrases like ‘so far I have shown X, now I’m going to show Y’ – highlighting how all your different points fit together.
While engaging with the academic debate about your question discuss IR theory (realism, constructivism etc.).
Similarly, note that you can and should use non-academic sources but they should not dominate your bibliography. It’s usually very easy (and psychologically rewarding) to argue against politicians and uninformed people on the internet, but the hardest and most impressive thing to do is to argue against the most knowledgeable and thoughtful advocates of other positions. Do not cheat with strawman arguments.
Sources
There can be no answer to ‘how many sources should I use?’. If the only source you have read is the whole of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit then you have done more work than someone who has read 200 newspaper articles! But as a very general rule, if you have done a lot less than 200 pages of reading for this task then you probably need to do more reading and thinking.
Do not use language that sounds clever but which you do not understand. If you’re unsure write in your own voice. Even academics have a bad habit of using vague but scientific-sounding terms when simpler terms would be more accurate. Be especially suspicious of the passive voice (‘x has been victimised’) or words ending with ‘isation’ (‘X was victimisation’). It usually better to write in simple language that tells us exactly who was doing what when (‘X has victimised Y by doing Z’). Of course, this doesn’t mean you should use everyday language for the sake of it. Everyday words like ‘losers’ or ‘haters’ can actually be even less precise than academic jargon. Just think carefully about which is best.
Remember also this advice from last time:
Do not include a waffly intro with pointless context that everyone knows: e.g. ‘Russia’s attitude towards international law is increasingly in the news, and is very important to understand because … etc, etc’. Get straight to the point.
