question and answer essay format

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Writing: Essay Questions and APA Style

Introduction, example of formatting, writing strategy, questions within questions.

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Some courses may require you to write application papers that respond to prompts, similar to a question and answer format.  In these cases, use the following formatting rules unless otherwise specified by your instructor:

To format questions and answers in APA format:

• Begin the question on a new line and type number 1 followed by a period. 
• Type the discussion question in an approved font and size.  Use the correct punctuation at the end -- a question mark if the prompt is a question; a period if it is a statement.   
• Use double spacing and one inch margins.
• Separate the answer from the question by beginning the answer on a new line.
• Always answer in complete sentences.  If your answer is lengthy, it is okay to start a new paragraph.
• Incorporate in-text citations as needed, with a references page at the end.
• Continue to use the same format for fonts and spacing for the whole document.
• Continue the list of questions on a new line and align the number 2 under the 1.

If the Instructor has specific instructions about  bold  type, follow their preference, but APA does not require it.

Use an academic tone; avoid "I" statements such as "I think" or "I believe" or "My opinion is..."

These types of papers are typically not essays that require an introduction and conclusion.  However, you will still need to retain the usual APA components:  proper formatting, a title page, a references page, and in-text citations.

When in doubt, ask your instructor!

1.   Discuss the approaches psychologists have taken to understand human perception.

      Psychologists have taken three main approaches in their efforts to understand human perception. First, is the computational approach. These psychologists try to determine the computations that a machine would have to perform to solve perceptual problems in an effort to help explain how complex computations within the human nervous system might turn raw sensory stimulation into a representation of the world. The computational approach owes much to two earlier approaches .... (and so on and so forth).

Imagine that you've been asked to respond to the following question:

A solid writing strategy for responding to essay questions is the following:

Answer the Question + At Least One Reason + Closing Statement

Keep your responses focused, structured, and prove your points with evidence.

Here's how to do it.  

1)  Begin with a direct answer to the question.  The easiest way to do this is to restate the question in a way that incorporates your answer.   If you will give more than one reason or address more than one topic in your response, pre-outline the topics/reasons you will discuss in order.

2)  Address your reason(s) in order.

A.  Use transitions  to move smoothly between reasons.

B.  Incorporate examples to amplify your reasoning.

C.  Use signal phrases and in-text citations to identify your sources. 

3.  End with a closing statement that wraps up your response and reminds the reader of your position on the question.

Thanks to Texas State University for the example here.

Sometimes an instructor will prepare a prompt that is more than one question, and may require a response that tackles more than one topic.  Here's an example:

This is actually two related questions -- a main question and then a subset of that main question.

Adjust your strategy as follows:

1)  Prepare a direct response that focuses on the general main topic or question.  

2)  Respond to each question in the prompt as a separate paragraph under the restatement of the question. Use a transitional sentence to move smoothly from the first paragraph of response to the second.

3)  Wrap it up with a concluding sentence at the end of the final paragraph.

Note:  Latin "Lorem ipsum" text is used in lieu of real responses, as you may encounter this question in one of your courses!

• Answering the Short Answer Essay Exam From the University of Arkansas. Printable document that contains tips for writing effective answers to essay questions.
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• Last Updated: Dec 24, 2020 5:03 AM
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How to Write a Good Answer to Exam Essay Questions

Last Updated: July 9, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Tristen Bonacci . Tristen Bonacci is a Licensed English Teacher with more than 20 years of experience. Tristen has taught in both the United States and overseas. She specializes in teaching in a secondary education environment and sharing wisdom with others, no matter the environment. Tristen holds a BA in English Literature from The University of Colorado and an MEd from The University of Phoenix. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 650,400 times.

Answering essay questions on an exam can be difficult and stressful, which can make it hard to provide a good answer. However, you can improve your ability to answer essay questions by learning how to understand the questions, form an answer, and stay focused. Developing your ability to give excellent answers on essay exams will take time and effort, but you can learn some good essay question practices and start improving your answers.

Understanding the Question

• Analyze: Explain the what, where, who, when, why, and how. Include pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, etc.
• Compare: Discuss the similarities and differences between two or more things. Don't forget to explain why the comparison is useful.
• Contrast: Discuss how two or more things are different or distinguish between them. Don't forget to explain why the contrast is useful.
• Define: State what something means, does, achieves, etc.
• Describe: List characteristics or traits of something. You may also need to summarize something, such as an essay prompt that asks "Describe the major events that led to the American Revolution."
• Discuss: This is more analytical. You usually begin by describing something and then present arguments for or against it. You may need to analyze the advantages or disadvantages of your subject.
• Evaluate: Offer the pros and cons, positives and negatives for a subject. You may be asked to evaluate a statement for logical support, or evaluate an argument for weaknesses.
• Explain: Explain why or how something happened, or justify your position on something.
• Prove: Usually reserved for more scientific or objective essays. You may be asked to include evidence and research to build a case for a specific position or set of hypotheses.
• Summarize: Usually, this means to list the major ideas or themes of a subject. It could also ask you to present the main ideas in order to then fully discuss them. Most essay questions will not ask for pure summary without anything else.

• Raise your hand and wait for your teacher to come over to you or approach your teacher’s desk to ask your question. This way you will be less likely to disrupt other test takers.

Forming Your Response

• Take a moment to consider your organization before you start writing your answer. What information should come first, second, third, etc.?
• In many cases, the traditional 5-paragraph essay structure works well. Start with an introductory paragraph, use 3 paragraphs in the body of the article to explain different points, and finish with a concluding paragraph.
• It can also be really helpful to draft a quick outline of your essay before you start writing.

• You may want to make a list of facts and figures that you want to include in your essay answer. That way you can refer to this list as you write your answer.
• It's best to write down all the important key topics or ideas before you get started composing your answer. That way, you can check back to make sure you haven't missed anything.

• For example, imagine that your essay question asks: "Should the FIFA World Cup be awarded to countries with human rights violations? Explain and support your answer."
• You might restate this as "Countries with human rights violations should not be awarded the FIFA World Cup because this rewards a nation's poor treatment of its citizens." This will be the thesis that you support with examples and explanation.

• For example, whether you argue that the FIFA World Cup should or should not be awarded to countries with human rights violations, you will want to address the opposing side's argument. However, it needs to be clear where your essay stands about the matter.
• Often, essay questions end up saying things along the lines of "There are many similarities and differences between X and Y." This does not offer a clear position and can result in a bad grade.

• If you are required to write your answer by hand, then take care to make your writing legible and neat. Some professors may deduct points if they cannot read what you have written.

Staying Calm and Focused

• If you get to a point during the exam where you feel too anxious to focus, put down your pencil (or take your hands off of the keyboard), close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Stretch your arms and imagine that you are somewhere pleasant for a few moments. When you have completed this brief exercise, open up your eyes and resume the exam.

• For example, if the exam period is one hour long and you have to answer three questions in that time frame, then you should plan to spend no more than 20 minutes on each question.
• Look at the weight of the questions, if applicable. For example, if there are five 10-point short-answers and a 50-point essay, plan to spend more time on the essay because it is worth significantly more. Don't get stuck spending so much time on the short-answers that you don't have time to develop a complex essay.

• This strategy is even more important if the exam has multiple essay questions. If you take too much time on the first question, then you may not have enough time to answer the other questions on the exam.

• If you feel like you are straying away from the question, reread the question and review any notes that you made to help guide you. After you get refocused, then continue writing your answer.
• Try to allow yourself enough time to go back and tighten up connections between your points. A few well-placed transitions can really bump up your grade.

Community Q&A

• If you are worried about running out of time, put your watch in front of you where you can see it. Just try not to focus on it too much. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you need more practice, make up your own questions or even look at some practice questions online! Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Tips from our Readers

• Look up relevant quotes if your exam is open notes. Use references from books or class to back up your answers.
• Make sure your sentences flow together and that you don't repeat the same thing twice!

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.linnbenton.edu/student-services/library-tutoring-testing/learning-center/academic-coaching/documents/Strategies%20For%20Answering%20Essay%20Questions.pdf
• ↑ https://success.uark.edu/get-help/student-resources/short-answer-essays.php

About This Article

To write a good answer to an exam essay question, read the question carefully to find what it's asking, and follow the instructions for the essay closely. Begin your essay by rephrasing the question into a statement with your answer in the statement. Include supplemental facts and figures if necessary, or do textual analysis from a provided piece to support your argument. Make sure your writing is clear and to the point, and don't include extra information unless it supports your argument. For tips from our academic reviewer on understanding essay questions and dealing with testing nerves, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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• Focus and Precision: How to Write Essays that Answer the Question

About the Author Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of Fribourg.

We’ve all been there. You’ve handed in an essay and you think it’s pretty great: it shows off all your best ideas, and contains points you’re sure no one else will have thought of.

You’re not totally convinced that what you’ve written is relevant to the title you were given – but it’s inventive, original and good. In fact, it might be better than anything that would have responded to the question. But your essay isn’t met with the lavish praise you expected. When it’s tossed back onto your desk, there are huge chunks scored through with red pen, crawling with annotations like little red fire ants: ‘IRRELEVANT’; ‘A bit of a tangent!’; ‘???’; and, right next to your best, most impressive killer point: ‘Right… so?’. The grade your teacher has scrawled at the end is nowhere near what your essay deserves. In fact, it’s pretty average. And the comment at the bottom reads something like, ‘Some good ideas, but you didn’t answer the question!’.

If this has ever happened to you (and it has happened to me, a lot), you’ll know how deeply frustrating it is – and how unfair it can seem. This might just be me, but the exhausting process of researching, having ideas, planning, writing and re-reading makes me steadily more attached to the ideas I have, and the things I’ve managed to put on the page. Each time I scroll back through what I’ve written, or planned, so far, I become steadily more convinced of its brilliance. What started off as a scribbled note in the margin, something extra to think about or to pop in if it could be made to fit the argument, sometimes comes to be backbone of a whole essay – so, when a tutor tells me my inspired paragraph about Ted Hughes’s interpretation of mythology isn’t relevant to my essay on Keats, I fail to see why. Or even if I can see why, the thought of taking it out is wrenching. Who cares if it’s a bit off-topic? It should make my essay stand out, if anything! And an examiner would probably be happy not to read yet another answer that makes exactly the same points. If you recognise yourself in the above, there are two crucial things to realise. The first is that something has to change: because doing well in high school exam or coursework essays is almost totally dependent on being able to pin down and organise lots of ideas so that an examiner can see that they convincingly answer a question. And it’s a real shame to work hard on something, have good ideas, and not get the marks you deserve. Writing a top essay is a very particular and actually quite simple challenge. It’s not actually that important how original you are, how compelling your writing is, how many ideas you get down, or how beautifully you can express yourself (though of course, all these things do have their rightful place). What you’re doing, essentially, is using a limited amount of time and knowledge to really answer a question. It sounds obvious, but a good essay should have the title or question as its focus the whole way through . It should answer it ten times over – in every single paragraph, with every fact or figure. Treat your reader (whether it’s your class teacher or an external examiner) like a child who can’t do any interpretive work of their own; imagine yourself leading them through your essay by the hand, pointing out that you’ve answered the question here , and here , and here. Now, this is all very well, I imagine you objecting, and much easier said than done. But never fear! Structuring an essay that knocks a question on the head is something you can learn to do in a couple of easy steps. In the next few hundred words, I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned through endless, mindless crossings-out, rewordings, rewritings and rethinkings.

Top tips and golden rules

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told to ‘write the question at the top of every new page’- but for some reason, that trick simply doesn’t work for me. If it doesn’t work for you either, use this three-part process to allow the question to structure your essay:

1)     Work out exactly what you’re being asked

It sounds really obvious, but lots of students have trouble answering questions because they don’t take time to figure out exactly what they’re expected to do – instead, they skim-read and then write the essay they want to write. Sussing out a question is a two-part process, and the first part is easy. It means looking at the directions the question provides as to what sort of essay you’re going to write. I call these ‘command phrases’ and will go into more detail about what they mean below. The second part involves identifying key words and phrases.

2)     Be as explicit as possible

Use forceful, persuasive language to show how the points you’ve made do answer the question. My main focus so far has been on tangential or irrelevant material – but many students lose marks even though they make great points, because they don’t quite impress how relevant those points are. Again, I’ll talk about how you can do this below.

3)     Be brutally honest with yourself about whether a point is relevant before you write it.

It doesn’t matter how impressive, original or interesting it is. It doesn’t matter if you’re panicking, and you can’t think of any points that do answer the question. If a point isn’t relevant, don’t bother with it. It’s a waste of time, and might actually work against you- if you put tangential material in an essay, your reader will struggle to follow the thread of your argument, and lose focus on your really good points.

Put it into action: Step One

Let’s imagine you’re writing an English essay about the role and importance of the three witches in Macbeth . You’re thinking about the different ways in which Shakespeare imagines and presents the witches, how they influence the action of the tragedy, and perhaps the extent to which we’re supposed to believe in them (stay with me – you don’t have to know a single thing about Shakespeare or Macbeth to understand this bit!). Now, you’ll probably have a few good ideas on this topic – and whatever essay you write, you’ll most likely use much of the same material. However, the detail of the phrasing of the question will significantly affect the way you write your essay. You would draw on similar material to address the following questions: Discuss Shakespeare’s representation of the three witches in Macbeth . How does Shakespeare figure the supernatural in Macbeth ?   To what extent are the three witches responsible for Macbeth’s tragic downfall? Evaluate the importance of the three witches in bringing about Macbeth’s ruin. Are we supposed to believe in the three witches in Macbeth ? “Within Macbeth ’s representation of the witches, there is profound ambiguity about the actual significance and power of their malevolent intervention” (Stephen Greenblatt). Discuss.   I’ve organised the examples into three groups, exemplifying the different types of questions you might have to answer in an exam. The first group are pretty open-ended: ‘discuss’- and ‘how’-questions leave you room to set the scope of the essay. You can decide what the focus should be. Beware, though – this doesn’t mean you don’t need a sturdy structure, or a clear argument, both of which should always be present in an essay. The second group are asking you to evaluate, constructing an argument that decides whether, and how far something is true. Good examples of hypotheses (which your essay would set out to prove) for these questions are:

• The witches are the most important cause of tragic action in Macbeth.
• The witches are partially, but not entirely responsible for Macbeth’s downfall, alongside Macbeth’s unbridled ambition, and that of his wife.
• We are not supposed to believe the witches: they are a product of Macbeth’s psyche, and his downfall is his own doing.
• The witches’ role in Macbeth’s downfall is deliberately unclear. Their claim to reality is shaky – finally, their ambiguity is part of an uncertain tragic universe and the great illusion of the theatre. (N.B. It’s fine to conclude that a question can’t be answered in black and white, certain terms – as long as you have a firm structure, and keep referring back to it throughout the essay).

The final question asks you to respond to a quotation. Students tend to find these sorts of questions the most difficult to answer, but once you’ve got the hang of them I think the title does most of the work for you – often implicitly providing you with a structure for your essay. The first step is breaking down the quotation into its constituent parts- the different things it says. I use brackets: ( Within Macbeth ’s representation of the witches, ) ( there is profound ambiguity ) about the ( actual significance ) ( and power ) of ( their malevolent intervention ) Examiners have a nasty habit of picking the most bewildering and terrifying-sounding quotations: but once you break them down, they’re often asking for something very simple. This quotation, for example, is asking exactly the same thing as the other questions. The trick here is making sure you respond to all the different parts. You want to make sure you discuss the following:

• Do you agree that the status of the witches’ ‘malevolent intervention’ is ambiguous?
• What is its significance?
• How powerful is it?

Step Two: Plan

Having worked out exactly what the question is asking, write out a plan (which should be very detailed in a coursework essay, but doesn’t have to be more than a few lines long in an exam context) of the material you’ll use in each paragraph. Make sure your plan contains a sentence at the end of each point about how that point will answer the question. A point from my plan for one of the topics above might look something like this:

To what extent are we supposed to believe in the three witches in Macbeth ?  Hypothesis: The witches’ role in Macbeth’s downfall is deliberately unclear. Their claim to reality is uncertain – finally, they’re part of an uncertain tragic universe and the great illusion of the theatre. Para.1: Context At the time Shakespeare wrote Macbeth , there were many examples of people being burned or drowned as witches There were also people who claimed to be able to exorcise evil demons from people who were ‘possessed’. Catholic Christianity leaves much room for the supernatural to exist This suggests that Shakespeare’s contemporary audience might, more readily than a modern one, have believed that witches were a real phenomenon and did exist.

My final sentence (highlighted in red) shows how the material discussed in the paragraph answers the question. Writing this out at the planning stage, in addition to clarifying your ideas, is a great test of whether a point is relevant: if you struggle to write the sentence, and make the connection to the question and larger argument, you might have gone off-topic.

Step Three: Paragraph beginnings and endings

The final step to making sure you pick up all the possible marks for ‘answering the question’ in an essay is ensuring that you make it explicit how your material does so. This bit relies upon getting the beginnings and endings of paragraphs just right. To reiterate what I said above, treat your reader like a child: tell them what you’re going to say; tell them how it answers the question; say it, and then tell them how you’ve answered the question. This need not feel clumsy, awkward or repetitive. The first sentence of each new paragraph or point should, without giving too much of your conclusion away, establish what you’re going to discuss, and how it answers the question. The opening sentence from the paragraph I planned above might go something like this:

Early modern political and religious contexts suggest that Shakespeare’s contemporary audience might more readily have believed in witches than his modern readers.

The sentence establishes that I’m going to discuss Jacobean religion and witch-burnings, and also what I’m going to use those contexts to show. I’d then slot in all my facts and examples in the middle of the paragraph. The final sentence (or few sentences) should be strong and decisive, making a clear connection to the question you’ve been asked:

  Contemporary suspicion that witches did exist, testified to by witch-hunts and exorcisms, is crucial to our understanding of the witches in Macbeth.  To the early modern consciousness, witches were a distinctly real and dangerous possibility – and the witches in the play would have seemed all-the-more potent and terrifying as a result.

Step Four: Practice makes perfect

The best way to get really good at making sure you always ‘answer the question’ is to write essay plans rather than whole pieces. Set aside a few hours, choose a couple of essay questions from past papers, and for each:

• Write a hypothesis
• Write a rough plan of what each paragraph will contain
• Write out the first and last sentence of each paragraph

You can get your teacher, or a friend, to look through your plans and give you feedback. If you follow this advice, fingers crossed, next time you hand in an essay, it’ll be free from red-inked comments about irrelevance, and instead showered with praise for the precision with which you handled the topic, and how intently you focused on answering the question. It can seem depressing when your perfect question is just a minor tangent from the question you were actually asked, but trust me – high praise and good marks are all found in answering the question in front of you, not the one you would have liked to see. Teachers do choose the questions they set you with some care, after all; chances are the question you were set is the more illuminating and rewarding one as well.

Image credits: banner ; Keats ; Macbeth ; James I ; witches .

Comments are closed.

How do you format a question and answer in APA?

To format questions and answers in APA format :

• Begin the question on a new line and type number 1 followed by a period. 
• Times New Roman font, 12 point size
• Calibri font, 11 point size
• Arial font, 11 point size
• Georgia font, 11 point size
• Lucida Sans Unicode font, 10 point size
• Computer Modern font, 10 point size
• Use double spacing and one inch margins.
• Separate the answer from the question by beginning the answer on a new line.
• Continue to use the same format for fonts and spacing for the whole document.
• Continue the list of questions on a new line and align the number 2 under the 1.

If the Instructor has specific instructions about bold type, follow their preference, but APA does not require it.

Example in APA format :

1.   What year was slavery abolished in America?

Slavery was officially abolished in the United States in 1865 , although many states abolished slavery for themselves at  various dates between 1777 and 1864 .

Thank you for using ASK US.  For more information, please contact your Baker librarians .

• Last Updated May 19, 2022
• Views 313479
• Answered By Baker Librarians

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Comments (11)

• My professor says the question should be bold and the answer should be indented. by James on Jan 05, 2017
• I have seen some just have a Q. With the question And others say 1.and the question (both are in bold) what is the right way? by Brenda Ramirez on Feb 01, 2018
• Begin your question on a new line and type number 1 followed by a period. Type the discussion question in Times New Roman font, 12 point size- do not bold. Please let us know if you have any further questions! by Patrick Mullane on Feb 05, 2018
• If you are one of 4 people doing a case analysis together, do you state an introduction to your question? by Veronica on Feb 27, 2018
• Depending on what your Instructor/Professor assigned, a short introduction would make the case analysis easier for your reader to understand. by ASK US Librarian on Feb 28, 2018
• How do you format any extra paragraphs when using APA question/answer format? ie. The question, when written out in the paper isn't indented, and the follow up paragraph/answer isn't indented, but if your answer is multiple paragraphs, are those paragraphs indented? Thanks! by Mark on Sep 19, 2018
• Since the question/answer is double spaced, there should be an empty line between paragraphs, but the second paragraph does not need to be indented. (Your Instructor/Professor may have a different opinion and, as always, defer to their preference.) by ASK US Librarian on Oct 10, 2018
• When writing a question and answer case study should there be headings? by Tara on Oct 05, 2019
• The APA Help guide has a Sample Paper with headings. https://guides.baker.edu/apahelp by ASK US Librarian on Oct 23, 2019
• Hi, for question/answer type assignments, are introduction and conclusions necessary? Thank you by A. Sellers on Mar 31, 2020
• Always defer to what the Professor/Instructor assigned, but APA format does call for an Introduction and Conclusion in a research paper. See guides.baker.edu/apahelp for a Sample Paper. Since your assignment is not a research paper, the Instructor may not require those sections. by ASK US Librarian on Apr 01, 2020

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The Writing Guide

• The First Thing
• Step 1: Understanding the essay question

Identify task, content & limiting words in the essay question

Words, words, words..., academic writing webinar part 1.

• Step 2: Critical note-taking
• Step 3: Planning your assignment
• Step 4a: Effective writing
• Step 4b: Summarizing & paraphrasing
• Step 4c: Academic language
• Step 5: Editing and reviewing
• Getting started with research
• Working with keywords
• Evaluating sources
• Research file
• Reading Smarter
• Sample Essay
• What, why, where, when, who?
• Referencing styles
• Writing Resources
• Exams and Essay Questions

Essay topics contain key words that explain what information is required and how it is to be presented.  Using the essay question below indentify task content & limiting words.  Regardless of your topic or discipline, if you can identify these words in your essay topic, you can begin to consider what you will need to do to answer the question.

Task words : These are words that tell you what to do, for example “compare”, “discuss”, “critically evaluate”, “explain” etc.

Content words : These words in the essay topic will tell you which ideas and concepts should form the knowledge base of the assignment. Refer to subject specific dictionary or glossary.

Effective communication is considered a core skill in higher education and is usually conveyed through the medium of academic papers and essays. Discuss the process of writing academic essays and critically examine the importance of structure and content.

Before you scroll down to the next box, what can you unpack from this topic? What are you actually going to look for in a search tool like One Search? What are you supposed to do?

• Content Words
• Limiting Words
• Context Words

Task words are usually verbs and they tell you what to do to complete your assignment.

You need to identify these words, because you will need to follow these instructions to pass the assignment.  As you research and write your assignment, check these words occasionally to make sure you are still doing what you have been asked to do.

Here are some definitions of different academic task words.  Make sure you know exactly what you need to do for your assignment.

Don't try to use them in your research - they aren't things to find, only things to do.

The task words from our sample question are:

Effective communication is considered a core skill in higher education and is usually conveyed through the medium of academic papers and essays. Discuss the process of writing academic essays and critically examine the importance of structure and content.

• Discuss means to "consider and offer an interpretation or evaluation of something; or give a judgment on the value of arguments for and against something"
• Examine means to inspect something in detail and investigate the implications

So, you would need to give a short description of what essay writing is all about, and then offer an evaluation of the essay structure and the way it presents content.

• Task Words Here are some definitions of different academic task words. Make sure you know exactly what you need to do for your assignment.

The content words are the "meat" of the question - these are things you can research.

Effective communication is considered a core skill in higher education and is usually conveyed through the medium of academic papers and essays . Discuss the process of writing academic essays and critically examine the importance of structure and content .

You will often be asked to talk about "the role" something plays or "processes", "importance", "methods" or "implementations" - but you can't really research these things just by looking for those words.

You need to find the keywords - the most concrete concepts - and search for those.  The information you find about the concrete terms will tell you about the "roles" and "methods", the "process" or the "importance", but they probably won't use those words exactly.

One of the core skills of academic research is learning to extrapolate :  to find the connections in the information you can find that will help you answer the questions which don't have clear, cut-and-dry answers in the books and articles.

So, the core keywords/concepts to research are:

• "academic writing"
• "higher education"
• structure and content

Limiting words keep you focused on a particular area, and stop you from trying to research everything in the history of mankind.

They could limit you by:

• Time (you may be asked to focus on the last 5 years, or the late 20th Century, for example)
• Place (you may be asked to focus on Australia, or Queensland, or South-East Asia)
• People groups (such as "women over the age of 50" or "people from low socio-economic backgrounds" or "Australians of Asian descent")
• Extent (you are only to look at a particular area, or the details you believe are most relevant or appropriate).

In this example, you have two limits:

• "higher education" is the industry focus. This could be expanded to include the tertiary or university sector.
• Essays - we are concentrating on essay writing as the aspect of communication.  Note that this is also a content word. There can be (and usually is) some crossover.

Sometimes it can help to add your own limits .  With health sciences, you almost always limit your research to the last five or six years. Social sciences  are not as strict with the date range but it's still a good idea to keep it recent.  You could specifically look at the Australian context.  You may decide to focus on the private sector within that industry.

With the question above you could limit yourself to only looking at first year university students.

Sometimes an assignment task will give you phrases or sentences that aren't part of the task at all:  they exist to give you some context .

These can be ignored when you do your research, but you should read over them occasionally as you are writing your assignment.  They help you know what the lecturer was thinking about (and wanted you to think about) when they set that task.

Effective communication is considered a core skill in higher education and is usually conveyed through the medium of academic papers and essays . Discuss the process of writing academic essays and critically examine the importance of structure and content.

You don't have to do anything with the first sentence of this question - but it does get you to think specifically about the "using essays to communicate knoweldge" - something that isn't mentioned in the task itself.

Obviously, whoever wrote the task wants you to think about the assignments as a form of writing and communication.

It is easy to get distracted and go off on tangents when doing your research .  Use the context words to  help you keep your focus where it should be.

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To answer an essay question (EQ), students must assess the purpose of the essay question: factual recall, analysis (explanation of relationships) synthesis (application/transfer of previously learned principles) opinion

How much information to include, repeat, restate (intro needed? details needed?).

The chart below outlines 4 main types of essay questions, the verbs/cues that indicate the type of essay question and its purpose, and the strategy to be used to answer it.

Read the questions very carefully at least 2 or 3 times. Circle  the main verb (= action verb/imperative) in the question and decide on the necessary rhetorical strategy for answering the question (cause-effect, comparison-contrast, definition, classification, problem-solution). Make sure you understand what type of answer the main verb calls for (a diagram a summary, details, an analysis, an evaluation). Circle all the keywords in the question. Decide if you need to write a 1-paragraph or a multi-paragraph answer. Write a brief outline of all the points you want to mention in your answer. Restate the question and answer it with a topic sentence (for a 1-paragraph answer) or a thesis statement (for a multi-paragraph answer).  Answer the question according to general rules of academic writing.  Use indentations; begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; support the topic sentence(s) with reasons and/or examples; use transition words to show logical organization; write a conclusion.  Use correct punctuation throughout. Read over your answer again and check if all the main ideas have been included. Check your answer for grammar and punctuation.

© 2005: Christine Bauer-Ramazani ; last updated: September 02, 2019

Essay Exams

What this handout is about.

At some time in your undergraduate career, you’re going to have to write an essay exam. This thought can inspire a fair amount of fear: we struggle enough with essays when they aren’t timed events based on unknown questions. The goal of this handout is to give you some easy and effective strategies that will help you take control of the situation and do your best.

Why do instructors give essay exams?

Essay exams are a useful tool for finding out if you can sort through a large body of information, figure out what is important, and explain why it is important. Essay exams challenge you to come up with key course ideas and put them in your own words and to use the interpretive or analytical skills you’ve practiced in the course. Instructors want to see whether:

• You understand concepts that provide the basis for the course
• You can use those concepts to interpret specific materials
• You can make connections, see relationships, draw comparisons and contrasts
• You can synthesize diverse information in support of an original assertion
• You can justify your own evaluations based on appropriate criteria
• You can argue your own opinions with convincing evidence
• You can think critically and analytically about a subject

What essay questions require

Exam questions can reach pretty far into the course materials, so you cannot hope to do well on them if you do not keep up with the readings and assignments from the beginning of the course. The most successful essay exam takers are prepared for anything reasonable, and they probably have some intelligent guesses about the content of the exam before they take it. How can you be a prepared exam taker? Try some of the following suggestions during the semester:

• Do the reading as the syllabus dictates; keeping up with the reading while the related concepts are being discussed in class saves you double the effort later.
• Go to lectures (and put away your phone, the newspaper, and that crossword puzzle!).
• Take careful notes that you’ll understand months later. If this is not your strong suit or the conventions for a particular discipline are different from what you are used to, ask your TA or the Learning Center for advice.
• Participate in your discussion sections; this will help you absorb the material better so you don’t have to study as hard.
• Organize small study groups with classmates to explore and review course materials throughout the semester. Others will catch things you might miss even when paying attention. This is not cheating. As long as what you write on the essay is your own work, formulating ideas and sharing notes is okay. In fact, it is a big part of the learning process.
• As an exam approaches, find out what you can about the form it will take. This will help you forecast the questions that will be on the exam, and prepare for them.

These suggestions will save you lots of time and misery later. Remember that you can’t cram weeks of information into a single day or night of study. So why put yourself in that position?

Now let’s focus on studying for the exam. You’ll notice the following suggestions are all based on organizing your study materials into manageable chunks of related material. If you have a plan of attack, you’ll feel more confident and your answers will be more clear. Here are some tips: 

• Don’t just memorize aimlessly; clarify the important issues of the course and use these issues to focus your understanding of specific facts and particular readings.
• Try to organize and prioritize the information into a thematic pattern. Look at what you’ve studied and find a way to put things into related groups. Find the fundamental ideas that have been emphasized throughout the course and organize your notes into broad categories. Think about how different categories relate to each other.
• Find out what you don’t know, but need to know, by making up test questions and trying to answer them. Studying in groups helps as well.

Taking the exam

Read the exam carefully.

• If you are given the entire exam at once and can determine your approach on your own, read the entire exam before you get started.
• Look at how many points each part earns you, and find hints for how long your answers should be.
• Figure out how much time you have and how best to use it. Write down the actual clock time that you expect to take in each section, and stick to it. This will help you avoid spending all your time on only one section. One strategy is to divide the available time according to percentage worth of the question. You don’t want to spend half of your time on something that is only worth one tenth of the total points.
• As you read, make tentative choices of the questions you will answer (if you have a choice). Don’t just answer the first essay question you encounter. Instead, read through all of the options. Jot down really brief ideas for each question before deciding.
• Remember that the easiest-looking question is not always as easy as it looks. Focus your attention on questions for which you can explain your answer most thoroughly, rather than settle on questions where you know the answer but can’t say why.

Analyze the questions

• Decide what you are being asked to do. If you skim the question to find the main “topic” and then rush to grasp any related ideas you can recall, you may become flustered, lose concentration, and even go blank. Try looking closely at what the question is directing you to do, and try to understand the sort of writing that will be required.
• Focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.
• Look at the active verbs in the assignment—they tell you what you should be doing. We’ve included some of these below, with some suggestions on what they might mean. (For help with this sort of detective work, see the Writing Center handout titled Reading Assignments.)

Information words, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject. Information words may include:

• define—give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning.
• explain why/how—give reasons why or examples of how something happened.
• illustrate—give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject.
• summarize—briefly cover the important ideas you learned about the subject.
• trace—outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form.
• research—gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you’ve found.

Relation words ask you to demonstrate how things are connected. Relation words may include:

• compare—show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different).
• contrast—show how two or more things are dissimilar.
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation.
• cause—show how one event or series of events made something else happen.
• relate—show or describe the connections between things.

Interpretation words ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Don’t see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation. Interpretation words may include:

• prove, justify—give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth.
• evaluate, respond, assess—state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons (you may want to compare your subject to something else).
• support—give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe).
• synthesize—put two or more things together that haven’t been put together before; don’t just summarize one and then the other, and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together (as opposed to compare and contrast—see above).
• analyze—look closely at the components of something to figure out how it works, what it might mean, or why it is important.
• argue—take a side and defend it (with proof) against the other side.

Plan your answers

Think about your time again. How much planning time you should take depends on how much time you have for each question and how many points each question is worth. Here are some general guidelines: 

• For short-answer definitions and identifications, just take a few seconds. Skip over any you don’t recognize fairly quickly, and come back to them when another question jogs your memory.
• For answers that require a paragraph or two, jot down several important ideas or specific examples that help to focus your thoughts.
• For longer answers, you will need to develop a much more definite strategy of organization. You only have time for one draft, so allow a reasonable amount of time—as much as a quarter of the time you’ve allotted for the question—for making notes, determining a thesis, and developing an outline.
• For questions with several parts (different requests or directions, a sequence of questions), make a list of the parts so that you do not miss or minimize one part. One way to be sure you answer them all is to number them in the question and in your outline.
• You may have to try two or three outlines or clusters before you hit on a workable plan. But be realistic—you want a plan you can develop within the limited time allotted for your answer. Your outline will have to be selective—not everything you know, but what you know that you can state clearly and keep to the point in the time available.

Again, focus on what you do know about the question, not on what you don’t.

Writing your answers

As with planning, your strategy for writing depends on the length of your answer:

• For short identifications and definitions, it is usually best to start with a general identifying statement and then move on to describe specific applications or explanations. Two sentences will almost always suffice, but make sure they are complete sentences. Find out whether the instructor wants definition alone, or definition and significance. Why is the identification term or object important?
• For longer answers, begin by stating your forecasting statement or thesis clearly and explicitly. Strive for focus, simplicity, and clarity. In stating your point and developing your answers, you may want to use important course vocabulary words from the question. For example, if the question is, “How does wisteria function as a representation of memory in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom?” you may want to use the words wisteria, representation, memory, and Faulkner) in your thesis statement and answer. Use these important words or concepts throughout the answer.
• If you have devised a promising outline for your answer, then you will be able to forecast your overall plan and its subpoints in your opening sentence. Forecasting impresses readers and has the very practical advantage of making your answer easier to read. Also, if you don’t finish writing, it tells your reader what you would have said if you had finished (and may get you partial points).
• You might want to use briefer paragraphs than you ordinarily do and signal clear relations between paragraphs with transition phrases or sentences.
• As you move ahead with the writing, you may think of new subpoints or ideas to include in the essay. Stop briefly to make a note of these on your original outline. If they are most appropriately inserted in a section you’ve already written, write them neatly in the margin, at the top of the page, or on the last page, with arrows or marks to alert the reader to where they fit in your answer. Be as neat and clear as possible.
• Don’t pad your answer with irrelevancies and repetitions just to fill up space. Within the time available, write a comprehensive, specific answer.
• Watch the clock carefully to ensure that you do not spend too much time on one answer. You must be realistic about the time constraints of an essay exam. If you write one dazzling answer on an exam with three equally-weighted required questions, you earn only 33 points—not enough to pass at most colleges. This may seem unfair, but keep in mind that instructors plan exams to be reasonably comprehensive. They want you to write about the course materials in two or three or more ways, not just one way. Hint: if you finish a half-hour essay in 10 minutes, you may need to develop some of your ideas more fully.
• If you run out of time when you are writing an answer, jot down the remaining main ideas from your outline, just to show that you know the material and with more time could have continued your exposition.
• Double-space to leave room for additions, and strike through errors or changes with one straight line (avoid erasing or scribbling over). Keep things as clean as possible. You never know what will earn you partial credit.
• Write legibly and proofread. Remember that your instructor will likely be reading a large pile of exams. The more difficult they are to read, the more exasperated the instructor might become. Your instructor also cannot give you credit for what they cannot understand. A few minutes of careful proofreading can improve your grade.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind in writing essay exams is that you have a limited amount of time and space in which to get across the knowledge you have acquired and your ability to use it. Essay exams are not the place to be subtle or vague. It’s okay to have an obvious structure, even the five-paragraph essay format you may have been taught in high school. Introduce your main idea, have several paragraphs of support—each with a single point defended by specific examples, and conclude with a restatement of your main point and its significance.

Some physiological tips

Just think—we expect athletes to practice constantly and use everything in their abilities and situations in order to achieve success. Yet, somehow many students are convinced that one day’s worth of studying, no sleep, and some well-placed compliments (“Gee, Dr. So-and-so, I really enjoyed your last lecture”) are good preparation for a test. Essay exams are like any other testing situation in life: you’ll do best if you are prepared for what is expected of you, have practiced doing it before, and have arrived in the best shape to do it. You may not want to believe this, but it’s true: a good night’s sleep and a relaxed mind and body can do as much or more for you as any last-minute cram session. Colleges abound with tales of woe about students who slept through exams because they stayed up all night, wrote an essay on the wrong topic, forgot everything they studied, or freaked out in the exam and hyperventilated. If you are rested, breathing normally, and have brought along some healthy, energy-boosting snacks that you can eat or drink quietly, you are in a much better position to do a good job on the test. You aren’t going to write a good essay on something you figured out at 4 a.m. that morning. If you prepare yourself well throughout the semester, you don’t risk your whole grade on an overloaded, undernourished brain.

If for some reason you get yourself into this situation, take a minute every once in a while during the test to breathe deeply, stretch, and clear your brain. You need to be especially aware of the likelihood of errors, so check your essays thoroughly before you hand them in to make sure they answer the right questions and don’t have big oversights or mistakes (like saying “Hitler” when you really mean “Churchill”).

If you tend to go blank during exams, try studying in the same classroom in which the test will be given. Some research suggests that people attach ideas to their surroundings, so it might jog your memory to see the same things you were looking at while you studied.

Try good luck charms. Bring in something you associate with success or the support of your loved ones, and use it as a psychological boost.

Take all of the time you’ve been allotted. Reread, rework, and rethink your answers if you have extra time at the end, rather than giving up and handing the exam in the minute you’ve written your last sentence. Use every advantage you are given.

Remember that instructors do not want to see you trip up—they want to see you do well. With this in mind, try to relax and just do the best you can. The more you panic, the more mistakes you are liable to make. Put the test in perspective: will you die from a poor performance? Will you lose all of your friends? Will your entire future be destroyed? Remember: it’s just a test.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Axelrod, Rise B., and Charles R. Cooper. 2016. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing , 11th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Fowler, Ramsay H., and Jane E. Aaron. 2016. The Little, Brown Handbook , 13th ed. Boston: Pearson.

Gefvert, Constance J. 1988. The Confident Writer: A Norton Handbook , 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Kirszner, Laurie G. 1988. Writing: A College Rhetoric , 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Woodman, Leonara, and Thomas P. Adler. 1988. The Writer’s Choices , 2nd ed. Northbrook, Illinois: Scott Foresman.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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How to Answer Essay Questions – The Ultimate Guide

• Posted by Brian Stocker MA
• Date November 30, 2007
• Comments 7 comments

Everyone Loves Essay Questions!

“I hate essays!” This battle cry is famous to most students. That’s because essay questions are either easy or difficult. Either way, there’s no certain formula. Even if you think you know the answer - don’t be overconfident - the critical part is how you make your essay worth reading. So how do you do it?

Audio Version of this Post

Tips for Writing an Essay

Read the question more than once. Some questions can be tricky so make sure you understand it to the letter. A lot of students commit error by simply not reading instructions very well. They read and then write a long essay, only to realize very late that they did not understand the question correctly.

Familiarize yourself with your professor or teacher’s style of organization, if you can. As students, it’s your role to know how your teachers want their essays answered.

Mentally go through your lecture notes before writing anything on your paper.

Create an outline of thoughts and related topics in connection with the essay question. By doing this you are helping yourself create a more organized answer.

Construct an idea in each paragraph. Go back to your essay outline if you think you are repeating yourself or not making sense at all.

Use the terminology of the course . Be professional in knowing what type of words to use in a particular topic or subject.

Read and go back to your previous paragraphs after you are finished with one paragraph. This will help you determine your flow of thought and if you are really making a point or giving an answer.

Don’t include ideas that are off-topic.

If there are too many ideas in your outline , cut out the least important ones. As much as possible, make your idea concrete and pointed, with arguments or statements that is easy to understand.

The body of your essay should have a summary or statement.

Support your summary or statement with adequate details and specifics. If you do not know how to add details, just expand on your generic idea.

Avoid jumping from one point to another.

Avoid vague descriptions if necessary . Include specifics to get your message across.

Review the question again and again so you will not lose your thread of thinking.

If you have time to make revisions, do so.

Use all the time you have to complete your essay. Review and re-check your answers before submitting your paper.

If you have nothing to write and don’t know what to write , don’t leave your paper blank. Write something at least.

Get the Complete Guide to Studying

Get the complete guide to taking notes, taking a test complete guide to multiple choice, essay check list.

Here is a great Checklist for answering Essay Questions from Tennessee State University:

Use the following as a guide when writing answers to discussion questions and as a checklist after you have written your answer.

1. Do I understand the question?  What am I being asked to do? 2. Do I have a plan?  What are my major points and how am I going to present them? 3. Does the reader know, just from reading the first sentence of my essay, both the question and how I will answer it? 4. Are my major points clear and do they stand out? 5. Do I support my argument with facts and examples? 6. Do I make clear and sensible transitions between major points? 7. Is my answer clear to someone who knows nothing about this? 8. Have I answered the question completely?  Have I fully covered all of the major points required to completely answer the question? 9. Is there irrelevant material? 10. Do I have a conclusion and summary statement? 11. Have I proofed my essay for common spelling and grammatical errors? 12. Is my handwriting legible?  Is there room for comments or additions?

Glossary of Essay Exam Terms

When taking an exam the first thing you should do is familiarize yourself with all instructions. At times this can be confusing especially if you do not understand the terms. Below you will find some common terms used on essay exams. Learning these terms is a key step in successful completion of most essay exams.

• Compare (also Compare with): Discuss the similarities between two or more given subjects.
• Contrast: Discuss the differences in two or more given subjects.
• Criticize: Explain the value of a finding or theory. Include both negative and positive aspects based on implementation. This could be the ease of which it is applied, examples of false findings, etc…
• Define: Describe precisely a term’s meaning as it applies specifically to a given subject.
• Describe: Use exact detail to explain a given term. This may call for the use of examples, definitions, or discussion of the term.
• Diagram: Use a visual representation of relevant information to explain implementation of a term. This usually calls for an explicit chart or graph which is thoroughly labelled. In some cases it may call for a detailed plan as well.
• Discuss: The literal meaning of discuss is talk about. To do this in an exam you must thoroughly explain your subject with words.
• Enumerate: Form a list of relevant points and explain each point. This may result in an outline like answer.
• Evaluate: Discuss the pros and cons of the application of your given subject from a professional point of view. This differs from criticize because personal opinion should be avoided unless instructions specify otherwise.
• Explain: Define the given material and give examples of how and why it is important to the subject.
• Illustrate: Use a visual aid or a clearly defined example to explain a given subject.
• Interpret: Explain the given question, include you personal feelings on the subject as well as a solution.
• Justify: Use factual information to argue you view of the situation presented in a given problem.
• List: Brief but thorough list of information that explains the given topic.
• Outline: much like writing an outline for a paper. Answer the question by creating an outline that highlights the main ideas and key points of those ideas.
• Prove: Discuss the topic in a way that readers are convinced to support or reject the idea discussed. This is done through presentation of facts or the step by step illustration of logical thinking.
• Relate: Discuss the connection between two or more events, people, problems, etc…
• Review: Close examination of a problem accompanied by brief comments that explain the main points.
• State (also Give, Specify, or Present): Explain the major points of a subject in brief for. There is typically no need for further explanation.
• Summarize: Create a brief description that highlights the major points of your subject.
• Trace: Explain the progress of the given subject from conception to current date. Highlight anything that is considered a major topic as well as the reason for any changes.

Don’t!

Last piece of advice – Don’t get your parents to edit it!

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Every thing was educational. Had a good feeling on how to deliver good papers.

Please no pictures.

This is a great tool for us.

i learned a lot – – super

I still hate essays tho

I am a big fan.

Above all are logically important and desirably topics which is value for everyone,thanks.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing Essays for Exams

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

What is a well written answer to an essay question?

Well Focused

Be sure to answer the question completely, that is, answer all parts of the question. Avoid "padding." A lot of rambling and ranting is a sure sign that the writer doesn't really know what the right answer is and hopes that somehow, something in that overgrown jungle of words was the correct answer.

Well Organized

Don't write in a haphazard "think-as-you-go" manner. Do some planning and be sure that what you write has a clearly marked introduction which both states the point(s) you are going to make and also, if possible, how you are going to proceed. In addition, the essay should have a clearly indicated conclusion which summarizes the material covered and emphasizes your thesis or main point.

Well Supported

Do not just assert something is true, prove it. What facts, figures, examples, tests, etc. prove your point? In many cases, the difference between an A and a B as a grade is due to the effective use of supporting evidence.

Well Packaged

People who do not use conventions of language are thought of by their readers as less competent and less educated. If you need help with these or other writing skills, come to the Writing Lab

How do you write an effective essay exam?

• Read through all the questions carefully.
• Budget your time and decide which question(s) you will answer first.
• Underline the key word(s) which tell you what to do for each question.
• Choose an organizational pattern appropriate for each key word and plan your answers on scratch paper or in the margins.
• Write your answers as quickly and as legibly as you can; do not take the time to recopy.
• Begin each answer with one or two sentence thesis which summarizes your answer. If possible, phrase the statement so that it rephrases the question's essential terms into a statement (which therefore directly answers the essay question).
• Support your thesis with specific references to the material you have studied.
• Proofread your answer and correct errors in spelling and mechanics.

Specific organizational patterns and "key words"

Most essay questions will have one or more "key words" that indicate which organizational pattern you should use in your answer. The six most common organizational patterns for essay exams are definition, analysis, cause and effect, comparison/contrast, process analysis, and thesis-support.

Typical questions

• "Define X."
• "What is an X?"
• "Choose N terms from the following list and define them."

Q: "What is a fanzine?"

A: A fanzine is a magazine written, mimeographed, and distributed by and for science fiction or comic strip enthusiasts.

Avoid constructions such as "An encounter group is where ..." and "General semantics is when ... ."

• State the term to be defined.
• State the class of objects or concepts to which the term belongs.
• Differentiate the term from other members of the class by listing the term's distinguishing characteristics.

Tools you can use

• Details which describe the term
• Examples and incidents
• Comparisons to familiar terms
• Negation to state what the term is not
• Classification (i.e., break it down into parts)
• Examination of origins or causes
• Examination of results, effects, or uses

Analysis involves breaking something down into its components and discovering the parts that make up the whole.

• "Analyze X."
• "What are the components of X?"
• "What are the five different kinds of X?"
• "Discuss the different types of X."

Q: "Discuss the different services a junior college offers a community."

A: Thesis: A junior college offers the community at least three main types of educational services: vocational education for young people, continuing education for older people, and personal development for all individuals.

Outline for supporting details and examples. For example, if you were answering the example question, an outline might include:

• Vocational education
• Continuing education
• Personal development

Write the essay, describing each part or component and making transitions between each of your descriptions. Some useful transition words include:

• first, second, third, etc.
• in addition

Conclude the essay by emphasizing how each part you have described makes up the whole you have been asked to analyze.

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect involves tracing probable or known effects of a certain cause or examining one or more effects and discussing the reasonable or known cause(s).

Typical questions:

• "What are the causes of X?"
• "What led to X?"
• "Why did X occur?"
• "Why does X happen?"
• "What would be the effects of X?"

Q: "Define recession and discuss the probable effects a recession would have on today's society."

A: Thesis: A recession, which is a nationwide lull in business activity, would be detrimental to society in the following ways: it would .......A......., it would .......B......., and it would .......C....... .

The rest of the answer would explain, in some detail, the three effects: A, B, and C.

Useful transition words:

• consequently
• for this reason
• as a result

Comparison-Contrast

• "How does X differ from Y?"
• "Compare X and Y."
• "What are the advantages and disadvantages of X and Y?"

Q: "Which would you rather own—a compact car or a full-sized car?"

A: Thesis: I would own a compact car rather than a full-sized car for the following reasons: .......A......., .......B......., .......C......., and .......D....... .

Two patterns of development:

• Full-sized car

Disadvantages

• Compact car

Useful transition words

• on the other hand
• unlike A, B ...
• in the same way
• while both A and B are ..., only B ..
• nevertheless
• on the contrary
• while A is ..., B is ...
• "Describe how X is accomplished."
• "List the steps involved in X."
• "Explain what happened in X."
• "What is the procedure involved in X?"

Process (sometimes called process analysis)

This involves giving directions or telling the reader how to do something. It may involve discussing some complex procedure as a series of discrete steps. The organization is almost always chronological.

Q: "According to Richard Bolles' What Color Is Your Parachute?, what is the best procedure for finding a job?"

A: In What Color Is Your Parachute?, Richard Bolles lists seven steps that all job-hunters should follow: .....A....., .....B....., .....C....., .....D....., .....E....., .....F....., and .....G..... .

The remainder of the answer should discuss each of these seven steps in some detail.

• following this
• after, afterwards, after this
• subsequently
• simultaneously, concurrently

Thesis and Support

• "Discuss X."
• "A noted authority has said X. Do you agree or disagree?"
• "Defend or refute X."
• "Do you think that X is valid? Defend your position."

Thesis and support involves stating a clearly worded opinion or interpretation and then defending it with all the data, examples, facts, and so on that you can draw from the material you have studied.

Q: "Despite criticism, television is useful because it aids in the socializing process of our children."

A: Television hinders rather than helps in the socializing process of our children because .......A......., .......B......., and .......C....... .

The rest of the answer is devoted to developing arguments A, B, and C.

• it follows that

A. Which of the following two answers is the better one? Why?

Question: Discuss the contribution of William Morris to book design, using as an example his edition of the works of Chaucer.

a. William Morris's Chaucer was his masterpiece. It shows his interest in the Middle Ages. The type is based on medieval manuscript writing, and the decoration around the edges of the pages is like that used in medieval books. The large initial letters are typical of medieval design. Those letters were printed from woodcuts, which was the medieval way of printing. The illustrations were by Burn-Jones, one of the best artists in England at the time. Morris was able to get the most competent people to help him because he was so famous as a poet and a designer (the Morris chair) and wallpaper and other decorative items for the home. He designed the furnishings for his own home, which was widely admired among the sort of people he associated with. In this way he started the arts and crafts movement.

b. Morris's contribution to book design was to approach the problem as an artist or fine craftsman, rather than a mere printer who reproduced texts. He wanted to raise the standards of printing, which had fallen to a low point, by showing that truly beautiful books could be produced. His Chaucer was designed as a unified work of art or high craft. Since Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, Morris decided to design a new type based on medieval script and to imitate the format of a medieval manuscript. This involved elaborate letters and large initials at the beginnings of verses, as well as wide borders of intertwined vines with leaves, fruit, and flowers in strong colors. The effect was so unusual that the book caused great excitement and inspired other printers to design beautiful rather than purely utilitarian books.

From James M. McCrimmon, Writing with a Purpose , 7th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980), pp. 261-263.

B. How would you plan the structure of the answers to these essay exam questions?

1. Was the X Act a continuation of earlier government policies or did it represent a departure from prior philosophies?

2. What seems to be the source of aggression in human beings? What can be done to lower the level of aggression in our society?

3. Choose one character from Novel X and, with specific references to the work, show how he or she functions as an "existential hero."

4. Define briefly the systems approach to business management. Illustrate how this differs from the traditional approach.

5. What is the cosmological argument? Does it prove that God exists?

6. Civil War historian Andy Bellum once wrote, "Blahblahblah blahed a blahblah, but of course if blahblah blahblahblahed the blah, then blahblahs are not blah but blahblah." To what extent and in what ways is the statement true? How is it false?

For more information on writing exam essays for the GED, please visit our Engagement area and go to the Community Writing and Education Station (CWEST) resources.

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• Answering Essay Questions

How to Answer Essay Questions on an Exam

By: Angelina Grin

From high school English comprehension exams all the way up to college entrance exams and the GRE, essay questions are a mainstay. They can be broadly broken down into four categories: factual recall, analysis, synthesis, and opinion.

Understanding the Question

Identify the question category, writing your response, check yourself, short answer examples, how to answer long essay questions, tips on how to answer an essay question.

• How can you spot a good essay question?
• Why do students find essay questions challenging?
• What is the #1 takeaway for answering these questions?
• How can I write better answers?

You have one hour to respond to as many as five different short essay questions, each of which requires you to write a paragraph. Writing an essay requires you to break it up into several paragraphs. Within the allotted time, you might be asked to compose just one extended essay , or maybe even two of them.

In this article, we will show you how to answer essay-style exam questions.

What are the Steps for Answering Essay Questions Properly?

There are four basic steps you need to focus on.

You are strapped for time in every exam but understanding the question is the most important part. If you cannot understand what it is that you need to do, you will write a quality answer, no doubt, but it will be misguided and wrong, and you will have wasted all that time, resulting in poor test scores. Therefore, to save time in the long run, you have to understand what relevant facts are being asked of you before you commit to a course of action.

The strategy is to begin the exam by answering essay questions. You'll save time by dealing with the most stressful issue first. You should also pay particular attention to the questions themselves: read them 2-3 times to properly comprehend what they are asking of you, paying special attention to the verbs, and ask the examiner before the test begins if you have any doubts or confusions. It will also make answering the question much easier if you underline or highlight the essential terms inside it.

Speaking of relevant terms, that is what we will talk about next.

Essay questions typically include a list of specific keywords that teachers and professors want students to focus on when composing their responses. For instance, an essay question that asks you to "describe" an issue will be different from an essay question that asks you to "argue" a position. Both of these types of questions are part of an essay. When you read an essay question, it is imperative that you locate and identify the corresponding keyword. The following are some of the most frequently used keywords:

• To analyze something means to explain its what, where, who, when, why, and how components. Include a summary of the benefits and drawbacks, the positives and negatives, etc.
• Compare means to talk about the parallels and dissimilarities that exist between two or more things. Remember to explain why the comparison is helpful in your response.
• To contrast is to discuss the ways in which two or more things are different from one another or to differentiate between them. Be sure to include an explanation of why the contrast is helpful.
• Define means to state what something is, what it does, what it accomplishes, etc.
• Describe means to enumerate the qualities or characteristics of something. It's possible that you'll also need to summarize something, such as an essay prompt that asks you to "Describe the major events that led up to the Civil War."
• "Discuss" calls for a more analytical approach. In most cases, you start by describing the topic at hand, and then you move on to presenting either pro or con arguments. You might need to conduct an analysis of the benefits or drawbacks associated with your topic.
• To evaluate something means to present both the advantages and disadvantages, the perks and drawbacks of a topic. You might be asked to analyze a claim to determine whether it is supported by logic or an argument to determine whether it has any flaws.
• To justify your position means to explain why or how something occurred or by explaining why you hold a particular opinion.
• "Prove" is typically saved for essays that are more scientific or objective. In order to build a case for a particular position or set of hypotheses, you might be asked to include evidence and research in your argument.
• To list the most important ideas or themes of a topic is typically what is meant when the term "summarize" is used. It is also possible that you will be asked to present the main ideas and thoroughly discuss them. The vast majority of questions will not ask for a straightforward summary with nothing else attached.

Okay, now you have a grasp on what the question demands from you. That’s great. The next step involves writing your answer. How to structure answers to essay questions? Let’s find out.

In most cases, sticking to the usual five-paragraph formula will work. This consists of an introductory paragraph, up to three body paragraphs, and a final paragraph where you summarize your arguments and conclude your answer.

There is no universally applicable standard for how to answer essay-type exam questions in college or university. One thing is certain, though: your introductory paragraph has to make a strong impact. It's the first thing people will read, so if it doesn't hook them, the rest of the essay better be excellent. It needs to be competent, at the very least. The introduction should take up about 10% of the total number of words in the essay. If you write a 1500-word essay, for instance, your introduction will be about 150 words.

The body of the essay will nearly write itself once you have a plan in place. All that's left to do is fill in the main ideas. Now that you know what they are, it's time to employ the key terms you found in the question. In order for the text to make sense, each paragraph needs to make some sort of connection back to the topic sentence. You will have access to far more data than is actually useful, so write only that which is absolutely necessary. Avoid fluff. You want to be comprehensive but not at the cost of putting your professor to sleep.

In the concluding paragraph of your essay, you will restate your main points. It is crucial, so make sure to always include one. The examiner will spend the least amount of time on this section, but it will have the greatest impact on the final grade.

You should restate the primary points you made and make direct reference to the question's keywords. The most important thing is that it doesn't add anything to what you've already said. It's too late to say anything else that hasn't already been said.

Following this structure for your essay answers is a good way to learn how to write a paper to answer a bunch of questions essay.

Even with the essay questions answered, you’re not finished yet. When you’re done with your essay answer, give yourself some time to go through what you wrote. No matter how carefully you craft the answer in your head and how quickly you write it, you are bound to make some spelling errors. Even if you go through it and find that you didn’t make any, you can now be sure that you didn’t! That in itself is worth the time to go through and proofread your well-rounded essay.

In this section, we will talk about answering multiple questions in essay format examples. By studying these illustrations, we will see how and why they work.

Hopefully, by reviewing these short essay question examples, you now have a better grasp on how you want to do things. These are the kinds of answers admissions officers look at on personal statements when you apply to graduate school.

In this section, we will take two essay answers that are on the longer side and dissect them. We will discuss what makes them good, and why you should try to model your style after them if you can.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve the essay answers you write. In this section, we will discuss the top five things you can and should do in order to write better answers for your tests.

• To begin an essay prompt response, you should try restating the question as a statement. To show that you have read and comprehend the question, you should begin your essay with an introduction like this. Changing the wording of the question forces you to focus on answering that specific question from the get-go. Take the following as an example of a potential question: "Should drugs be made available for recreational use? Defend your position by providing examples and explanations." You may rephrase that as "Recreational drug usage should be legalized." This is the main argument that you'll elaborate on and provide evidence for.
• In a compare and contrast essay, you still need to have a strong thesis statement. If you're arguing for or against legalizing recreational drugs, for instance, you need to answer the other side's position. However, your essay's position on the issue must be made clear. There are many parallels and contrasts between X and Y, which is a common theme in essay prompts. There is no distinct position presented, which can lead to a low grade.
• Bad punctuation, sentence structure, and poor grammar might lower an otherwise good grade on an essay question. There might not be time to go back and fix your grammar and punctuation, so make an effort to do it as you write. It's always a good idea to check what you've written if you find yourself with some extra time. If you need to write your response down, make sure it is easy to read. If your professor has trouble understanding what you've written, they may reduce your grade.
• Keep in mind that your thesis statement should be an answer to the issue that was posed, and that everything you say should support that simple statement. In a formal essay, you can afford to let your thoughts wander, but in an essay exam, you must respond directly to the prompt. If you don't include everything that's needed, you risk giving irrelevant details and getting fewer points. If you find yourself wandering away from the question, go back and read it, as well as any notes you may have made. After refocusing, proceed with the rest of your response.
• An excellent response to an essay question demonstrates your understanding of the topic at hand and provides a pertinent answer. Think about how you can use the information you've gathered in your research to come up with the most effective strategy for achieving this objective without overanalyzing. You might find it helpful to compile a list of the information you intend to include in your essay response. As you compose your response, you can then consult this checklist. Before you begin preparing your answer, it's a good idea to make a list of all the major points you want to make. In this method, you may double-check your work and make sure nothing important was overlooked.

Following these five tips will have shown you how to answer essay questions but they will also improve the overall quality of your test-taking experience as well. You should put these into practice when you take timed mock tests at home to prepare for the exam . The more you write essays, the better position you will be in when the date for the actual test rolls around.

How can you spot a good essay question? 🔥

You can tell whether most essay questions are good just by reading them. It will be clear about what it wants and to the point.

Why do students find essay questions challenging? 😓

Time management. Reading the essay, noting information, understanding the question–all of these take time, and that makes it tough for middle school students to master and leads to a desire for essay question help.

What is the #1 takeaway for answering these questions? 🥇

Answering questions in essay form can be hard. The main thing you need to do is understand what the question wants. Once you get that, it’s only a matter of writing it down. So give yourself some time while you read it to understand it effectively.

How can I write better answers? ✏️

The key to answering essay questions is to think fast and write fast. You have to recall the main topic from the passage and apply it quickly. And you also have to give yourself enough time to check your answer for errors afterward.

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Exam Strategies: Short Answer & Essay Exams

Essay exams involve a significant written component in which you are asked to discuss and expand on a topic.  These could include written responses in the form of a formal essay or a detailed short-answer response.

• Short answer vs essay questions

Preparing for an essay exam

Answering essay questions.

Check out our visual resources for " Test Taking Strategies: Short Answer & Essay Questions " below!

What is the difference between a short answer and an essay question?

• Both short-answer and essay questions ask you to demonstrate your knowledge of course material by relating your answer to concepts covered in the course.
• Essay questions require a thesis (argument) and supporting evidence (from course material - lectures, readings, discussions, and assignments) outlined in several paragraphs, including an introduction, body, and conclusion.
• Short-answer questions are more concise than essay answers - think of it as a “mini-essay” - and use a sentence or two to introduce your topic; select a few points to discuss; add a concluding sentence that sums up your response.
• Review your course material - look for themes within the topics covered, use these to prepare sample questions if your instructor has not given direction on what to expect from essay questions.
• Create outlines to answer your practice questions. Choose a definite argument or thesis statement and organize supporting evidence logically in body paragraphs. Try a mnemonic (like a rhyme or acronym) to help remember your outline.
• Practice! Using your outline, try using a timer to write a full response to your practice or sample questions within the exam time limit.
• Review the question carefully. Think about what it is asking - what are you expected to include?  What material or examples are relevant?
• Underline keywords in the question to identify the main topic and discussion areas.
• Plan your time. Keep an eye on the time allowed and how many essay questions you are required to answer. Consider the mark distribution to determine how much time to spend on each question or section.
• Make a plan. Take a few minutes to brainstorm and plan your response - jot down a brief outline to order your points and arguments before you start to write.
• Include a thesis statement in your introduction so that your argument is clear, even if you run out of time, and help structure your answer.
• Write a conclusion , even if brief - use this to bring your ideas together to answer the question and suggest the broader implications.
• Clearly and concisely answer the question :
• In your introduction, show that you understand the question and outline how you will answer it.
• Make one point or argument per paragraph and include one or two pieces of evidence or examples for each point.
• In your conclusion, summarize the arguments to answer the question.

"Test Taking Strategies: Short Answer & Essay Questions"

Does your next test have short answer or essay questions? Let's look at how to prepare for these type of questions, how to answer these types of questions, and strategies to keep in mind during the exam. Fight exam writer's block and achieve your best marks yet!

• "Test Taking Strategies: Short Answer & Essay Questions" PDF
• "Test Taking Strategies: Short Answer & Essay Questions" Video

Looking for more strategies and tips? Check out MUN's Academic Success Centre online!

Carnegie Mellon University. (n.d.). Successful exam strategies. Carnegie Mellon University: Student Academic Success. Retrieved April 1, 2022 from https://www.cmu.edu/student-success/other-resources/fast-facts/exam-strategies.pdf

Memorial University of Newfoundland. (n.d.). Exam strategies: Short answer & essay exams. Memorial University of Newfoundland: Academic Success Centre. Retrieved April 1, 2022 from https://www.mun.ca/munup/vssc/learning/exam-strategies-essays.php

Trent University. (n.d.). How to understand and answer free response or essay exam questions. Trent University: Academic Skills. Retrieved April 1, 2022 from https://www.trentu.ca/academicskills/how-guides/how-study/prepare-and-write-exams/how-understand-and-answer-free-response-or-essay-exam

University of Queensland Australia. (n.d.). Exam tips. University of Queensland Australia: Student support, study skills. Retrieved April 1, 2022 from https://my.uq.edu.au/information-and-services/student-support/study-skills/exam-tips

University of Waterloo. (n.d.). Exam questions: Types, characteristics, and suggestions. University of Waterloo: Centre for Teaching Excellence. Retrieved April 1, 2022 from https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/developing-assignments/exams/questions-types-characteristics-suggestions

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A strong analytical question

• speaks to a genuine dilemma presented by your sources . In other words, the question focuses on a real confusion, problem, ambiguity, or gray area, about which readers will conceivably have different reactions, opinions, or ideas.  
• yields an answer that is not obvious . If you ask, "What did this author say about this topic?” there’s nothing to explore because any reader of that text would answer that question in the same way. But if you ask, “how can we reconcile point A and point B in this text,” readers will want to see how you solve that inconsistency in your essay.  
• suggests an answer complex enough to require a whole essay's worth of discussion. If the question is too vague, it won't suggest a line of argument. The question should elicit reflection and argument rather than summary or description.  
• can be explored using the sources you have available for the assignment , rather than by generalizations or by research beyond the scope of your assignment.  

How to come up with an analytical question  

One useful starting point when you’re trying to identify an analytical question is to look for points of tension in your sources, either within one source or among sources. It can be helpful to think of those points of tension as the moments where you need to stop and think before you can move forward. Here are some examples of where you may find points of tension:

• You may read a published view that doesn’t seem convincing to you, and you may want to ask a question about what’s missing or about how the evidence might be reconsidered.  
• You may notice an inconsistency, gap, or ambiguity in the evidence, and you may want to explore how that changes your understanding of something.  
• You may identify an unexpected wrinkle that you think deserves more attention, and you may want to ask a question about it.  
• You may notice an unexpected conclusion that you think doesn’t quite add up, and you may want to ask how the authors of a source reached that conclusion.  
• You may identify a controversy that you think needs to be addressed, and you may want to ask a question about how it might be resolved.  
• You may notice a problem that you think has been ignored, and you may want to try to solve it or consider why it has been ignored.  
• You may encounter a piece of evidence that you think warrants a closer look, and you may raise questions about it.  

Once you’ve identified a point of tension and raised a question about it, you will try to answer that question in your essay. Your main idea or claim in answer to that question will be your thesis.

• "How" and "why" questions generally require more analysis than "who/ what/when/where” questions.  
• Good analytical questions can highlight patterns/connections, or contradictions/dilemmas/problems.  
• Good analytical questions establish the scope of an argument, allowing you to focus on a manageable part of a broad topic or a collection of sources.  
• Good analytical questions can also address implications or consequences of your analysis.
• picture_as_pdf Asking Analytical Questions

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How would you format one essay that asks two different, separate questions?

Traditionally, I've only written essays that have one thesis statement that are supposed to answer one question. Now I'm being asked to answer two separate prompts in one single essay.

First prompt: Compare/Contrast two works in [textbook A]

Second prompt: Pick two works from one era in [textbook A]

Instructions: Your answer to each question should include a thesis statement that answers the question asked, no introduction other than the thesis statement, and 2-3 fully developed paragraphs that offer specific support for the answer. Be specific in naming literary, art, and musical works as well as in giving details that involve the context for the works you are discussing.

How do I format this? Prof wants two distinct essays in one essay.

• academic-writing

• 2 well, if this can be assumed right it seems that the 2 prompts go hand in hand. One simplying asking you to pick 2 works, the other asking you to compare 2 works. Nothing that you have told us states that the works have to be different for each prompt. Why not use the 2 you select in the 2nd prompt for the first prompt comparison? That pretty much solves your issue. –  ggiaquin16 Commented Oct 18, 2017 at 20:30
• No, they have to be different. I have to answer two separate questions, I cannot reuse the works. –  Hi ho Commented Oct 18, 2017 at 22:14
• Are you sure these aren't either/or prompts --do one or the other? Or prompts for two separate essays, one right after the other? 2-3 paragraphs seems brief to handle both prompts in one. –  Chris Sunami Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 16:11
• Yes I'm sure. Why would I lie about that? Professor says I have to answer both questions in one essay. –  Hi ho Commented Oct 22, 2017 at 4:22

My instincts were exactly like ggiaquin's comment. I am putting it as an answer so you might see it more easily. That is exactly what I would have done, as a student.

Aha, you say you can't do that.

If you cannot do that, I'd write the ~8 paragraph essay as two Qs back to back, and assume I would not get an A. And I would complain just as you are doing.

• I am not entirely convinced that he can't do that. The instructions seem copy pasted in or at the very least he typed it up verbatim. So unless the professor said it verbally he cannot do that, I don't see why this is still not a valid solution. Even if you do it as you suggested with the 8 paragraph or so format, it's not how essays are written and teaching improper mechanics. So I question this whole situation in general. –  ggiaquin16 Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 15:55
• I've been in education (and you've mentioned academics I think) and I've seen fantastic educators. But I've also seen burned out educators. I would still do what you suggested in your comments. It seems like the obvious thing to do. –  SFWriter Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 15:59
• Also to clarify for readers of this post, what I mean by improper is that you don't put a new thesis or any thesis in the middle of a paper. A quick google search will pull up results from various US based universities following that notion. It's OKAY to have 8 paragraphs in an essay, but it is not okay to introduce a new thesis half way through. –  ggiaquin16 Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 16:00
• Yes, I was a tutor in my uni years and never have I seen a question where you were asked to do 2 essays in one. I have seen teachers give 2 prompts and ask people to do 2 essays and to put them in the same word file for sake of conserving time/space but never seen someone ask for 2 prompts be a part of the SAME essay. I don't know if this is a burnt out educator, but there is definitely some piece of information missing because as it stands now, this all seems very off. I suspect this teacher may have also done as I stated earlier asking for 2 essays in 1 document that are separate. –  ggiaquin16 Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 16:03
• I don't know why you think I would lie about this. I've included the information that I was given. I know this formatting is unorthodox which I why I wanted feedback; I've never seen anything like this either. Prof won't clarify. Not every educator is a saint or even wants to help. –  Hi ho Commented Oct 22, 2017 at 4:25

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Short Answer & Essay Tests

Strategies, Ideas, and Recommendations from the faculty Development Literature

General Strategies

Save essay questions for testing higher levels of thought (application, synthesis, and evaluation), not recall facts. Appropriate tasks for essays include: Comparing: Identify the similarities and differences between Relating cause and effect: What are the major causes of...? What would be the most likely effects of...? Justifying: Explain why you agree or disagree with the following statement. Generalizing: State a set of principles that can explain the following events. Inferring: How would character X react to the following? Creating: what would happen if...? Applying: Describe a situation that illustrates the principle of. Analyzing: Find and correct the reasoning errors in the following passage. Evaluating: Assess the strengths and weaknesses of.

There are three drawbacks to giving students a choice. First, some students will waste time trying to decide which questions to answer. Second, you will not know whether all students are equally knowledgeable about all the topics covered on the test. Third, since some questions are likely to be harder than others, the test could be unfair.

Tests that ask only one question are less valid and reliable than those with a wider sampling of test items. In a fifty-minute class period, you may be able to pose three essay questions or ten short answer questions.

To reduce students' anxiety and help them see that you want them to do their best, give them pointers on how to take an essay exam. For example:

• Survey the entire test quickly, noting the directions and estimating the importance and difficulty of each question. If ideas or answers come to mind, jot them down quickly.
• Outline each answer before you begin to write. Jot down notes on important points, arrange them in a pattern, and add specific details under each point.

Writing Effective Test Questions

Avoid vague questions that could lead students to different interpretations. If you use the word "how" or "why" in an essay question, students will be better able to develop a clear thesis. As examples of essay and short-answer questions: Poor: What are three types of market organization? In what ways are they different from one another? Better: Define oligopoly. How does oligopoly differ from both perfect competition and monopoly in terms of number of firms, control over price, conditions of entry, cost structure, and long-term profitability? Poor: Name the principles that determined postwar American foreign policy. Better: Describe three principles on which American foreign policy was based between 1945 and 1960; illustrate each of the principles with two actions of the executive branch of government.

If you want students to consider certain aspects or issues in developing their answers, set them out in separate paragraph. Leave the questions on a line by itself.

Use your version to help you revise the question, as needed, and to estimate how much time students will need to complete the question. If you can answer the question in ten minutes, students will probably need twenty to thirty minutes. Use these estimates in determining the number of questions to ask on the exam. Give students advice on how much time to spend on each question.

Decide which specific facts or ideas a student must mention to earn full credit and how you will award partial credit. Below is an example of a holistic scoring rubric used to evaluate essays:

• Full credit-six points: The essay clearly states a position, provides support for the position, and raises a counterargument or objection and refutes it.
• Five points: The essay states a position, supports it, and raises a counterargument or objection and refutes it. The essay contains one or more of the following ragged edges: evidence is not uniformly persuasive, counterargument is not a serious threat to the position, some ideas seem out of place.
• Four points: The essay states a position and raises a counterargument, but neither is well developed. The objection or counterargument may lean toward the trivial. The essay also seems disorganized.
• Three points: The essay states a position, provides evidence supporting the position, and is well organized. However, the essay does not address possible objections or counterarguments. Thus, even though the essay may be better organized than the essay given four points, it should not receive more than three points.
• Two points: The essay states a position and provides some support but does not do it very well. Evidence is scanty, trivial, or general. The essay achieves it length largely through repetition of ideas and inclusion of irrelevant information.
• One point: The essay does not state the student's position on the issue. Instead, it restates the position presented in the question and summarizes evidence discussed in class or in the reading.

Try not to bias your grading by carrying over your perceptions about individual students. Some faculty ask students to put a number or pseudonym on the exam and to place that number / pseudonym on an index card that is turned in with the test, or have students write their names on the last page of the blue book or on the back of the test.

Before you begin grading, you will want an overview of the general level of performance and the range of students' responses.

Identify exams that are excellent, good, adequate, and poor. Use these papers to refresh your memory of the standards by which you are grading and to ensure fairness over the period of time you spend grading.

Shuffle papers before scoring the next question to distribute your fatigue factor randomly. By randomly shuffling papers you also avoid ordering effects.

Don't let handwriting, use of pen or pencil, format (for example, many lists), or other such factors influence your judgment about the intellectual quality of the response.

Write brief notes on strengths and weaknesses to indicate what students have done well and where they need to improve. The process of writing comments also keeps your attention focused on the response. And your comments will refresh your memory if a student wants to talk to you about the exam.

Focus on the organization and flow of the response, not on whether you agree or disagree with the students' ideas. Experiences faculty note, however, that students tend not to read their returned final exams, so you probably do not need to comment extensively on those.

Most faculty tire after reading ten or so responses. Take short breaks to keep up your concentration. Also, try to set limits on how long to spend on each paper so that you maintain you energy level and do not get overwhelmed. However, research suggests that you read all responses to a single question in one sitting to avoid extraneous factors influencing your grading (for example, time of day, temperature, and so on).

Wait two days or so and review a random set of exams without looking at the grades you assigned. Rereading helps you increase your reliability as a grader. If your two score differ, take the average.

This protects students' privacy when you return or they pick up their tests. Returning Essay Exams

A quick turnaround reinforces learning and capitalizes on students' interest in the results. Try to return tests within a week or so.

Give students a copy of the scoring guide or grading criteria you used. Let students know what a good answer included and the most common errors the class made. If you wish, read an example of a good answer and contrast it with a poor answer you created. Give students information on the distribution of scores so they know where they stand.

Some faculty break the class into small groups to discuss answers to the test. Unresolved questions are brought up to the class as a whole.

Ask students to tell you what was particularly difficult or unexpected. Find out how they prepared for the exam and what they wish they had done differently. Pass along to next year's class tips on the specific skills and strategies this class found effective.

Include a copy of the test with your annotations on ways to improve it, the mistakes students made in responding to various question, the distribution of students' performance, and comments that students made about the exam. If possible, keep copies of good and poor exams.

The Strategies, Ideas and Recommendations Here Come Primarily From:

Gross Davis, B. Tools for Teaching. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1993.

McKeachie, W. J. Teaching Tips. (10th ed.) Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 2002.

Walvoord, B. E. and Johnson Anderson, V. Effective Grading. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1998.

And These Additional Sources... Brooks, P. Working in Subject A Courses. Berkeley: Subject A Program, University of California, 1990.

Cashin, W. E. "Improving Essay Tests." Idea Paper, no. 17. Manhattan: Center for Faculty

Evaluation and Development in Higher Education, Kansas State University, 1987.

Erickson, B. L., and Strommer, D. W. Teaching College Freshmen. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass, 1991.

Fuhrmann, B. S. and Grasha, A. F. A Practical Handbook for College Teachers. Boston:

Little, Brown, 1983.

Jacobs, L. C. and Chase, C. I. Developing and Using Tests Effectively: A Guide for Faculty.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992.

Jedrey, C. M. "Grading and Evaluation." In M. M. gullette (ed.), The Art and Craft of Teaching.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984.

Lowman, J. Mastering the Techniques of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984.

Ory, J. C. Improving Your Test Questions. Urbana:

Office of Instructional Res., University of Illinois, 1985.

Tollefson, S. K. Encouraging Student Writing. Berkeley:

Office of Educational Development, University of California, 1988.

Unruh, D. Test Scoring manual: Guide for Developing and Scoring Course Examinations.

Los Angeles: Office of Instructional Development, University of California, 1988.

Walvoord, B. E. Helping Students Write Well: A Guide for Teachers in All Disciplines.

(2nded.) New York: Modern Language Association, 1986.

We use cookies on this site. By continuing to browse without changing your browser settings to block or delete cookies you agree to the UW-Whitewater Privacy Notice .

How to Write a Question and Answer Format Essay

Answer a simple, yet important question posed by a teacher. The purpose of an essay question is not only to engage the interest of the reader but also test the student’s curiosity in the topic being written about.

It is important for the essay question to be clear, grammatically correct, and to express your opinion on the matter. It also gives the student an opportunity to display his or her critical thinking by giving the student a chance to present his or her own opinion. You will also be able to establish an interesting and engaging personality when you use a question and answer format essay as your resource for your next assignment.

In this type of essay, your writing will often take a turn from the usual objective, argumentative essay writing that takes place in standard academic writing. If you are a student and you have never written in this style, don’t worry; this style of essay writing is easy and can be learned.

The first part of the question and answer format essay is the “topic.” This is where you provide information on what the questioner is looking for. This question, in itself, can be a challenge, since most people will be looking for an unbiased opinion on an issue. For example, a college student may ask you, “What are the pros and cons of getting your college education online?” The more information the better!

As the essay proceeds, you should start answering the question. The most important aspect of the question and answer format essay is to come up with an interesting way to answer the question. If you feel the answer is not interesting or you cannot provide enough information to support the question, it may be best to write a separate essay on the topic instead.

In addition to writing your essay questions in the form of short answers, there are times when it is best to take the questioner completely by surprise and answer it in the middle of your essay. One common scenario is when a student asks, “Why is it that, in your opinion, students should spend more time studying rather than partying?” While you might have an opinion that partying is not good for students’ grades, it may seem like a stupid question, but it still makes for an interesting essay question and answer.

You will be asked to provide answers in the essay’s body as well as throughout the essay itself. So make sure to take your time when answering essay questions.

In summary, essay questions are an excellent way to give your students an interesting and thought-provoking material. It allows them to show their intellectual and analytical skills, and it also provides an opportunity to learn. In the final analysis, you can only write an interesting and meaningful essay if you follow the basic rules of essay writing.

Before writing an essay, decide what the purpose of the question is. What is the purpose of answering this question? Is it to help the reader understand something that they do not understand themselves, or to get them thinking about something important?

If the question and answer format essay are to help the reader understand something, provide them with a solution to the problem and provide an opinion or recommendation. It is often best to begin a new material with a question and answer format essay, as this allows you to explain what you are writing before giving an in depth explanation of your material.

When writing the first part of the question and answer format essay, be as informative as possible. Do not provide the reader with your own opinion on the matter of which college is better, but rather give them the facts. The more information you provide in your essay, the more information you have to support your opinion.

The most important part of the question and answer format is to provide the student with a question that you can honestly answer. If they ask, “Is there anything else that I can learn from you,” then you must provide a specific piece of information to support this. Otherwise, the reader is left with the impression that you are trying to give them something they don’t want.

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Last Will and Testament Guide for 2024

Key takeaways.

• A last will and testament is a legal document that states how a person wishes to distribute their assets upon their death.
• Although requirements vary by state, usually your will needs to be in writing, signed by the testator, and witnessed by at least two other people.
• If you die without a will, your state’s laws will dictate how to distribute your assets, and your estate may have to pay a death tax.
• Using an attorney to draft your will can end up costing more than $1,000. If you’re looking for a more affordable option, will creation services are available online. Trust & Will starts at $199.

One of the most important estate planning tools is a last will and testament, often referred to as a “will.” In a will, you state where your assets should go when you die and, sometimes more importantly, where they shouldn’t go. Whether you choose to leave your assets to your loved ones or support your favorite cause, you should have a will.

In this article, we’ll explain what a last will and testament is, the benefits of having one, the different types of wills you can create, and how to create one. We’ll also give you a list of helpful estate planning terms and address frequently asked questions about beginning the estate planning process.

Why you can trust us

Our Reviews Team consists of trained lawyers who have spent hundreds of hours researching estate planning and using the services we recommend. We only recommend services we find to be helpful and accurate. To develop our reviews and guidance, we:

• Spent 300 hours researching and using online estate planning services
• Consulted with legal experts, probate attorneys, and financial planners to learn the best practices in estate planning
• Went behind the paywall to gain firsthand experience with five of the top online will creation services to review and compare them with each other
• Read hundreds of customer reviews on trusted third-party websites, such as Better Business Bureau (BBB) and Trustpilot

What is a last will and testament?

A last will and testament is a legal document that allows a person to plan how to distribute their assets after they die.

When someone dies, their assets usually go toward funeral expenses and probate court fees. Then, if the person has any outstanding debts, the executor uses assets from the estate to settle them.

What happens to the rest of someone’s property after that? This is where a last will and testament can be helpful. It will give your loved ones guidance on what to do with your remaining assets.

Benefits of creating a last will and testament

April M. Townsend , Esq., is an estate planning attorney based in Pennsylvania with more than 12 years of experience. Townsend said that, “creating an estate plan, including a will, offers significant advantages and peace of mind. By taking these steps, you gain control over how your property is divided after [you die], ensuring your wishes are followed.”

Having a last will and testament in place for when the time comes makes this process easier and less expensive. Your will tells the court exactly what to do with your belongings, so there’s less for the court to sort through. Less work for the court means your assets will be distributed quicker, and you’ll pay less in administrative and probate costs.

Without a will, all your belongings would be distributed according to your state’s “intestacy” laws. Intestacy refers to dying intestate, or without a will. The biggest problem with intestacy is that state laws won’t take into account your preferences on how you want your assets distributed. Close family members and estranged family members can potentially have access to the same amount of your estate.

For example, in New Jersey, if you die without a will, your spouse is entitled to your entire estate —even if you were separated but not yet divorced. [1] Mercer County. Administration of Estate (No Will). Found on the internet at https://www.mercercounty.org/government/county-surrogate/administration-of-estate-no-will. That means if you want to leave something behind for your children, siblings, or parents, they won’t get anything unless you have a will that provides for them.

Helpful hint: Intestacy laws don’t provide a means for you to appoint a legal guardian for dependents. If you’re a caregiver for any minor children or pets, you’ll need a will to arrange their support. Otherwise, the court will appoint a guardian for those who need one, without considering your preferences.

Types of wills

You can choose from five main types of wills when creating your own:

• Simple will: A straightforward will lists your assets and beneficiaries. You can easily create your own simple will online.
• Living will : This is different from a simple will in that it doesn’t deal with your assets or how the court will distribute them upon your death. Instead, a living will gives instructions for your medical care and other end-of-life decisions, such as whether you want medical staff to use life-extending measures.
• Joint will: This is a will that used to be common among spouses where both parties agree to grant all their assets to the surviving spouse. With a joint will, once one spouse dies, the surviving spouse can’t change the terms of their will. This restriction makes joint wills less popular—there are other options that provide more freedom for the surviving spouse.
• Testamentary trust: This is a will that creates a trust that won’t take effect until after your death. A testamentary trust is commonly used to provide support for minor children over a long period of time.
• Holographic will: This type of will is only recognized in 28 states . [2] Trust & Will. What is a Holographic Will (& Why It’s Not the Best Choice). Found on the internet at https://trustandwill.com/learn/holographic-will It must be handwritten and signed by the testator —it can’t be typed or written by someone else. [3] Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Holographic will. Found on the internet at https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/Holographic_will Since the handwriting in the will matches the handwriting in the signature, most states that recognize these types of wills don’t require additional signatures from witnesses. This raises a potential for mistake or fraud, so they’re commonly contested in probate court.

How to create a last will and testament in six steps

With all the free resources available online, most people won’t need estate planning attorneys to craft a will for them. Creating your own will is a relatively straightforward process that can save you time and money.

Since state law governs wills, each state has its own requirements to create a will. Still, most of these state requirements boil down to three conditions: Your will must be in writing, signed by the testator, and witnessed by at least two people. We’ll explain how to satisfy these minimum requirements and create the best will for your estate planning needs.

Step 1: Make detailed property records

Since your will contains a plan for how you want to distribute your assets, you’ll need to make a list of all the property you own. When compiling these property records, consider the following:

• Land or real estate
• Business stocks or bonds
• Cash in bank accounts
• Valuable personal property, like jewelry, vehicles, or art

If you’re worried about forgetting to list some of your assets, you can include a residuary clause ⓘ A residuary clause identifies a person or institution that receives any assets that aren’t accounted for in your will. This is important to have if you don’t want state law to distribute any remaining assets. in your will. A residuary clause works as a catchall for the rest of your property, so the executor ⓘ An executor, also known as a personal representative, is the individual responsible for carrying out the instructions left in someone’s will. knows what to do with any belongings you didn’t specifically name in your will.

Another thing to keep in mind is some assets may already have designated beneficiaries, like life insurance policies or qualified retirement plans.

Helpful hint: When listing all your assets, don’t forget to include any debts you might have (for example, unpaid taxes, credit cards, student loans, or mortgages). Usually, if a debt is unpaid at death, the estate is responsible for paying it. This will give you a better idea of how much of your estate you’re leaving for your beneficiaries.

Step 2: Name an executor

An executor, or personal representative, is someone legally obligated to administer a person’s estate. In other words, an executor is the person responsible for following the instructions you left in your will.

To be an executor, you have to be at least 18 years old and of sound mind . You may need to have additional qualifications depending on your state’s rules. [4] Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Holographic will. Found on the internet at https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/Holographic_will

When naming your executor, try to choose someone you’re close with, so they truly understand your intentions during the probate process. You should also consider naming someone healthy who will likely live long enough to take on this role. It’s a good idea to name a “successor executor,” or a backup executor, in case your first choice is unavailable. Being an executor is a lot of responsibility, so make sure you choose someone who is able to address estate matters quickly and efficiently.

Step 3: Add beneficiaries and designate property

A beneficiary is a person designated to receive something from an estate or trust. Simply put, a beneficiary is any person you’re leaving property to in your will. You can name any person or institution (such as a charity) to be a beneficiary in your will. Once you’ve named your beneficiaries, you’ll have to decide what property they should receive.

A general bequest is when you want to leave behind some money from your estate to a beneficiary. For example, if you want to make sure your child is well-supported after you’re gone, you can make a general bequest that designates a certain amount of money from your estate to go directly to that child.

A specific bequest is when you want to leave behind a particular piece of your property to a beneficiary. For example, if you want to leave your stamp collection to your nephew who collects stamps, you can make a specific bequest.

Another useful type of bequest is called a contingent bequest. This allows you to put conditions on whether a beneficiary receives property from your will. For example, if you want to encourage your grandchild to go to college, you can make a bequest to your grandchild on the condition they go to college. If your grandchild doesn’t attend college, they won’t receive that bequest, and it will return to your estate.

Step 4: Formalize your will on paper

All states require you to put your will on paper. This memorializes your intentions, so your executor can refer back to it during the probate process.

Online templates can help you format the document correctly, or you can use an online will maker service that will generate the correct document for you.

Helpful hint: Some people like to include letters for their loved ones with their will. The executor will deliver these letters of love and support upon your death. It’s a thoughtful way to say your final goodbyes and give your loved ones closure.

Step 5: Sign the document

Once you’re happy with your will, you have to sign the document to make it official.

At least two people must witness you sign the document. After they see you sign your will, they’ll have to place their signatures on the will to prove its authenticity. Only two states slightly modify this requirement:

• Louisiana requires a notary to sign your will in addition to the two witnesses.
• Colorado allows you to have your will witnessed by only one person if the person is a notary.

Helpful hint: Regardless of requirements, getting your will notarized helps to ensure your will holds up in court. You can find a notary at your bank or some FedEx or UPS locations, or you can hire a mobile notary to come to you.

Step 6: Maintain and update the document as needed

While you can keep your last will and testament in a safe place at home, you need to make sure these estate planning documents outlast you. We recommend taking extra precautions, such as using a fireproof lockbox (like this one for $30) or a safe deposit box at the bank.

Some states allow you to file your will with the probate court to ensure the document is safe and available when needed. If you do this, only you, your attorney, and your executor will be able to access the will during your lifetime. But once you die and your case goes through probate, your will becomes publicly available information. If this raises privacy concerns for you, keep in mind that all probate court matters become public record once they’re closed—even if you don’t have a will.

You don’t need to wait for an important life event to create or update a will. Townsend advised that you should “think of your estate plan as a living document. Give it a regular check-up every three to five years, or whenever life’s chapters change.” She added that some examples of changes are:

• Marriage or divorce
• The birth of a child or grandchild
• Financial changes
• Evolving legal requirements in your state

You can use something called a codicil ⓘ A codicil is an amendment to a will. It allows you to add, subtract, or modify something in your will, without having to create a brand new one. to make changes to your will down the line if you ever need to. A codicil can be used to supplement, modify, or even revoke a will.

All you need to do is write down what you want to change about your will, sign it, have at least two witnesses sign it, and keep it with your original will. After your death, the executor will read and interpret both documents together.

Estate planning terms to know

As you learn about what a last will and testament is, it may be helpful to know what certain legal terms mean.

• The testator is the person who created the will.
• Beneficiaries are individuals or institutions that receive something from the execution of a will. In other words, beneficiaries stand to benefit from the will.
• Adding a codicil to a will updates the will by adding a document at the end rather than rewriting a portion of the will. A codicil can explain, modify, or revoke part of a will.
• A decedent is the term used in estate planning for a person who has died.
• An executor, or personal representative, is the individual responsible for “executing the will,” or facilitating the probate process.
• An estate is anything a person owns at the time of their death. This can include real estate and personal property, like jewelry, vehicles, and other items of value.
• Power of attorney means you’ve given authority to another person to make legal and financial decisions for you if you’re unable to do so.
• A residuary clause identifies a person or institution that receives any assets not accounted for in your will. This is important to have if you don’t want state law to distribute any remaining assets.
• Attach a self-proving affidavit to a will to “prove” to the court the will is valid. Executors must sometimes go through a hearing—potentially requiring witnesses—to prove to the court the will belongs to the testator and is valid. A self-proving affidavit does this automatically, but it’s not an option in every state. Some states consider a valid will to be self-proving, so an additional affidavit isn’t necessary.

Bottom line

For many people, the most important document in their estate plan is their last will and testament. This document will give you a say in how an executor should handle your assets upon your death. Without a will, your estate will be subject to state-created intestacy laws, which don’t take into account your preferences. You also won’t be able to make specific arrangements for your spouse, children, pets, or anyone else you care for without a will.

To create a valid will, you’ll have to memorialize your final wishes by putting it on paper. You can do this by using an attorney, an online will creation service, or following templates you find online. An attorney is the most thorough option, but it’s also the most expensive. Following templates online is usually free, but there’s the risk of filling out the templates incorrectly. An online will maker service is a middle-ground that will result in a legally binding document at a lower cost than hiring an attorney. Read our guide to learn how to make a will without a lawyer .

You and at least two other people must sign it to make it a valid will. Your signature will show you intend this document to be your last will and testament. The two other people must sign the document as witnesses to authenticate your signature. Keep your will in a safe place, so your executor can find it when they need to start distributing your assets. You should also make copies of the document and give them to your executor and anyone else you think should have one.

Additional estate planning resources

Learning about estate planning tools, like the power of attorney, can be intimidating, but it’s an important part of safeguarding your affairs. For more resources on how to begin preparing for your future, check out NCOA’s AgeWell Planner . If you’re taking care of a loved one, read our advice about managing someone else’s legal, financial, and medical decisions. And be aware of estate recovery , how it works, and how it can affect you or a loved one.

Plenty of resources offer affordable legal aid . Also, nonprofit organizations, such as the Veterans Legal Institute , will provide pro bono legal assistance to current and former service members.

Frequently asked questions

In general, a legal will is written, signed, and witnessed, though each state can have its own specific requirements.

“In writing” means the will isn’t verbal. The paper makes it formal. The testator, or person making the will, must also sign the will. This shows approval of the asset distribution plan and certifies this is the last will and testament. Finally, you must have at least two witnesses when you sign the will. These witnesses attest, or confirm, the testator was of sound mind when they were creating their will and the testator’s signature is their own. The witnesses must then sign the will to make it valid. Witnesses can’t be beneficiaries.

The most simple definition of a last will and testament is a legal document that records how a person wants to distribute their assets upon their death.

In estate planning and probate law, the ultimate goal is to mirror the testator’s intentions and dispose of their assets in the manner they desire. Your last will and testament formalizes these intentions on paper, so the executor can follow them as closely as possible when the time comes.

If you’re drafting your will on your own, you can create one for free or use an online will making service, which usually costs around $40–$300.

If you’re hiring a lawyer to draft your will, you can expect to pay, on average, anywhere from $300–$1,000. This cost depends on the complexity of your estate.

No, you don’t need an attorney to create a last will and testament. You can create your last will and testament by using online resources.

You can distribute your assets through many different ways while minimizing your risk and tax liability. If you have a complex estate plan, a lot of valuable assets, or just want to ensure your will is completely correct, you can hire an estate planning attorney.

Yes, you can create your last will and testament online.

You can either find will templates online and create one yourself, or you can have an online service make your will for you. Some services will even connect you with an estate planning attorney and offer continued support in case you need to update your will down the line. We have tested and reviewed these online will creation services, so you can choose the best one for your needs

Your last will is a way for you to decide what happens to your assets after you die. A living will, also known as a health care directive, is a statement of your wishes regarding medical treatment in circumstances where you’re no longer able to make decisions or communicate effectively. A living trust holds your assets until a predetermined time and provides instructions for management and distribution.

Unlike a living will, your last will doesn’t express what medical treatment you want to pursue if you’re ever incapacitated—unless you included a medical power of attorney in your will. It’s also unable to hold assets for you, unlike a living trust.

Typically, you should avoid including property that you’ve already assigned to someone, like:

• Life insurance or annuity proceeds
• Retirement plan proceeds
• Transfer-on-death property
• Property held in living trust
• Property held with a right of survivorship

The most common example is life insurance proceeds. When you get a life insurance policy, you have to designate a beneficiary to receive the policy payout. By including the proceeds in your will, you can create a situation where you’ve designated two different people to receive the same property. This usually leads to the two beneficiaries going to probate court. Even if you name the same beneficiary in both documents, you’ll have to make sure both documents match if you ever want to make any changes in the future.

Have questions about this review? Email us at [email protected] .

• Mercer County. Administration of Estate (No Will). Found on the internet at https://www.mercercounty.org/government/county-surrogate/administration-of-estate-no-will .
• Trust & Will. What is a Holographic Will (& Why It’s Not the Best Choice). Found on the internet at https://trustandwill.com/learn/holographic-will
• Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Holographic will. Found on the internet at https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/Holographic_will
• North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts. Estate Procedures for Executors, Administrators,Collectors By Affidavit, and Summary Administration. Found on the internet at https://www.nccourts.gov/assets/documents/forms/e850-en.pdf?VersionId=wAfy5o3sqw7oCN0qFSPp5N1aWnKA7nNK