In this article you can find out:
- How to find a suitable angle after choosing an essay topic
- How to research and make useful notes for your essay
This resource is suitable for broadly discursive essay writing for S1, S2 and S3 (Third and Fourth Level Curriculum for Excellence).
What is your angle?
When you have identified a topical subject area that you would like to focus on, the next step of the broadly discursive writing process is to find a suitable angle from which to explore it.
The angle could be your personal response to a topic or a specific point of view.
There are many ways of approaching the same issue:
- Are you going to argue for or against the issue you are examining?
- Are you going to sit on the fence and present both sides of the argument?
- Are you going to focus on one really specific aspect of a much wider issue?
Research and note-making
Before you can identify an angle, you have to have done a bit of reading and note-making on the topic. This process should be tackled methodically:
Follow these steps when researching topics for your essay:
- Identify an interesting current affairs story.
- Summarise the key points.
- Outline the main arguments in the wider debate surrounding this story.
- Decide what you would argue/say about this topic. What is your personal response?
Examples
The table below shows you what your notes might look like in practice.
| News headline | Key point(s) | Debate surrounding issue | Personal response (angle) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'Gareth Southgate talks about respect in football' | FA has launched campaign called Respect. Aims to use football as way of promoting respectful behaviours | Disrespect is present in menâs and womenâs football. More could be done to protect officials being disrespected by fans | There are many ways to approach this: 'Discrimination has no place in football.' or 'Disrespect should be punished severely in football.' or 'Disrespect is engrained in football â nothing will change that' |
| âWorld's most valuable trainers: Record breaking footwear sold at auction and other expensive shoesâ | Two hundred pairs of Louis Vuitton and Nike Air Force 1 shoes sold for over ÂŁ18.5 million at auction this week | This was an astronomical sum for trainers. These trainers were designed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Nike Air Force 1 and money went to charity | You can focus on wealth, skill/art, collecting etc. with this topic 'Sneakers are not important cultural artefacts.' |
(Headlines taken from the Newsround website, April 27th 2021 and February 11th 2022)
In this exercise, personal response is important:
- If you feel strongly about an issue, you might write persuasively or argumentatively in favour or against it.
- If you are interested in the topic, but appreciate both sides of the debate, you might write discursively on the topic.
Only by considering the various sides of an issue can you work out what angle you will take.
Questions
- Think about each of the two news stories in the table above. What angle would you take on each of them and why?
- Read articles on your chosen topic. Think about the key points offered in each article and consider your personal response to these points. Do you agree or disagree with an idea? Are you in favour or against it? Can you see both sides of the argument?
More on Discursive, persuasive and informative writing
Find out more by working through a topic
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