Every essay I hand in comes back with "too descriptive, not enough analysis" written in the margin. I have read the marking criteria and I still cannot see the difference in my own writing, because to me the facts already make the point.
What is the actual test for whether a paragraph is arguing rather than narrating?
Accepted Answer
The test I use: could a well informed reader disagree with this sentence? If not, it is description.
"The Reform Act of 1832 extended the franchise to around one in five adult men." Nobody can disagree. That is a fact, and facts are the raw material rather than the argument.
"The 1832 Act mattered less for who gained the vote than for conceding that the franchise was something Parliament could alter at all." Now there is a claim, and someone could argue the opposite.
The practical move is to check the first sentence of each paragraph. If it announces a topic rather than making a claim, the paragraph will describe for its whole length however good the evidence is.
Worth heading off the usual overcorrection, because it is the next thing that goes wrong.
Being told to analyse more, people cut the evidence and write paragraphs of unsupported assertion. That marks lower than description, not higher.
Analysis is not the opposite of evidence, it is what you do with it. The proportion that works is roughly a claim, the evidence, and then a sentence doing the work of connecting them. That last sentence is the one most drafts are missing entirely.
A trick from my supervisor: after each paragraph write "so what?" in the margin and answer it in one line. If you cannot, the paragraph is not earning its place. Then delete the question and keep the answer.
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