The Discursive Essay
Investigate a range of cohesive devices that condense information in texts, including nominalisation, and devices that link, expand and develop ideas, including text connectives.
The essay most often written badly, because students think it means sitting on the fence. It does not. It means examining both sides honestly, and then telling the reader where you landed.
Builds onYr 8 · The Argumentative Essay
Method
Discursive is not neutral
You explore both sides, then reach a position. An essay that refuses to conclude has not finished.
Balance the treatment, not the belief
Give each side its strongest case. You may still find one more convincing.
Connectives carry the argument
However, admittedly, conversely, granted, on balance. These are how the reader knows which way you are turning.
Never alternate paragraph by paragraph
For, against, for, against reads as a tennis match. Group each side, then weigh them.
Worked example
e.g. Discuss whether social media has been good for teenagers.
- Introduction. Frame the issue and say why it is genuinely contested. Do not state your position yet.This is the one essay where the introduction withholds the verdict.
- Side one. Two paragraphs giving the first position its strongest case.Argue it as though you believed it.
- Turn with a connective. Signal the shift clearly.There is, however, a harder case to answer.
- Side two. Two paragraphs, equally strong. Same evidence standard.If one side is thinner, the essay reads as rigged.
- The weighing paragraph. Where the essay is actually won. Compare the two cases directly.Both sides agree that use has risen. They disagree about what that use replaces.
- Conclusion. Now state your position, and say what convinced you.On balance, the evidence about sleep is harder to dismiss than the evidence about connection.
Practice
The four ways a discursive essay usually fails.
1
An essay ends: So there are good points and bad points and it is up to each person to decide. Why does this score poorly?
AnswerIt refuses the task. Discursive writing requires a judgement — the reader has read both sides and is entitled to know which one you found stronger, and why.
2
A learner alternates for, against, for, against across six paragraphs. What is lost?
AnswerCohesion. The reader cannot hold either case in mind long enough to weigh it. Group the paragraphs by side, then weigh them in one place.
3
One side gets three developed paragraphs, the other gets four lines. What does a marker conclude?
AnswerThat the writer never seriously considered the second position. Balance the treatment even if you disagree with one side.
4
Which single paragraph carries the highest marks in a discursive essay?
AnswerThe weighing paragraph. Setting out two cases is comprehension; comparing them and judging between them is the actual skill.