Essay Writing: A-level vs Undergraduate

Progression from A-levels to an undergraduate course at university is a big step for many reasons. There are so many new things to get used to, from finding accommodation and getting a sense of the campus to the sudden onslaught of student societies vying for your attention.
And that’s before giving due and proper attention to freshers week!

Academically speaking, you will also notice that the norms and expectations around essay writing will shift, too.

At this point, it seems important to say that this only really applies to essay writing subjects. Having said that, essay writing is an invaluable skill for more than just English Literature! All sorts of academic disciplines rely on essay writing for assessment. Nursing students need to be almost as capable of writing high-quality essays as philosophy students!

It’s counterintuitive, but your first year of an undergraduate degree is probably going to be less intense than A levels. At A level, you are studying multiple subjects, and marking is standardised, which means you need to learn multiple disciplines and follow inflexible marking criteria.
In your first year at university, many courses give you space to acclimatise to your speciality, so you can think of your 1st year as a ramp into your chosen area of study even more so if you chose a degree with a foundation year built in. 

That’s not to say that you can afford to slack. One area that requires some focus is the shift from A-level essays to university essays. They can be quite different in how they are marked, which, of course, means that the strategy needed to get top marks changes.

Research vs Textbook

Essays at A-levels tend to be more formulaic and descriptive. Often, if you can master the formula, you can do well. It’s different at the university level. As an undergraduate, your lecturers expect you to write analytical and argumentative essays based on research.

The evidence of that research will be reflected in your essay writing. Researching a topic from many different sources takes time; therefore, essays at the university level can take longer to prepare. 

Each essay needs to be approached according to the discipline and the question you aim to answer. In other words, the goalposts are more prone to moving about the pitch at university as the essay writing at university is essentially marked by the strength and depth of your argument rather than box ticking!

Essential and Further Reading Lists

During your A-level studies, you primarily rely on textbooks approved by a board. These will contain almost all of the content you will need to write your essay. At the university level, there is no textbook from which you can extract all the required information.

You are expected to make your argument based on various academic sources. This can include books on your subject area and research papers written by researchers and specialists in your chosen field. Your university professor will guide you in the right direction by providing you with an essential and further reading list.

You will be exposed to more than enough information from these sources to extract the content you need to write your essay. Another consideration is that the lecturer is God when it comes to deadlines. You’ll generally lose marks for handing work in late, unless you apply for mitigating circumstances. 

Evaluating your work

Revisiting your essay after a day or two of writing it with a fresh mind can give you new perspectives to include in your essay. You should try to build a network of peers on your course so that you can learn from and support each other. Your peers can offer insights and suggestions of aspects that you might have missed or point out weak or undeveloped points. This is the start of an invaluable academic practice-peer-reviewing. 

If you’ve gotten comfortable with writing A-level essays then it’s not as though you will have to learn a whole new skill set. However, you should be open to allowing your academic writing to evolve. If you are the sort of person who likes to be prepared, then the best thing you can do is work through the reading list! 

Style guides and referencing

One of the biggest differences between A-level and undergraduate essay writing is the style guide and the need to quote your sources via referencing. At A-level, you will likely have had to include a bibliography to ensure that the teacher can see what texts you have used, and this will likely have been quite limited. At undergraduate level you will need to provide footnotes to highlight your sources, using the correct referencing format as well as a full bibliography. 

Style guides are standardised but you will need to know which one your university uses to ensure that you are using the correct formatting on your essays. The style guide will include everything from the font and size text you can use, to how you capitalise certain names of people and institutions. It is worth downloading the style guide early and reading it in full before you attempt your first essay, and keeping a copy on hand throughout your course. Straying away from the style guide won’t cause you to fail, but it can lose you marks which can become the difference between getting a first and second. 

If this blog post has you feeling worried, don’t be dismayed. Most universities will have lectures, seminars, or online resources to help you get to grips with essay writing and teach you all about referencing, quoting, and style guides. If you chose to complete a foundation year then this will also all be covered in detail as part of that course.  

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