The SAO Essay Writing Guide

Writing an astronomy essay for a non-specialist audience
A.N. Instructor, HETxxx, Swinburne Astronomy Online

Introduction

Have all the essays you've read lately been churned out by your thirteen year old son in one draft, on the night before the essay deadline, in between watching Video Hits and talking with his friends on the Internet? This essay is different: in it we will describe how to structure and write a scientific essay for Swinburne Astronomy Online (SAO), and how to gain high marks for it!

While a scientific essay shares many characteristics with essays in other disciplines, the desired emphasis can differ, as can the use of illustrations and tables. SAO essays are meant to be written for a generally well informed but non-specialist audience (like your fellow classmates!) and when you first start in SAO your essays can be "pitched" at a broadly similar level to that of articles in popular astronomy magazines but with references. As you progress through your degree program the level of your essays should steadily rise to match the style of a commentary in journals like Science or Nature. As we will see, adherence to any particular style guide is not required. However, careful, unbiased discussion of the evidence and theories underlying the topic is all-important, as are clarity, readability and originality.

What goes where

Your instructor(s) may choose to give you detailed instructions on essay structure. Generally speaking, the structure of an SAO essay should usually include an introduction, the body of the essay (which may be made up of more than one section), and a conclusion, all with their own headings (see Figure 1). Of course, there may be times when straying from the standard essay format are necessary: for example, when writing a creative fictional essay. In such cases, originality of approach is almost always desirable, as long as the structure and message of the essay remain clear to the reader.

The introduction should clearly state the topic at hand, and then very briefly lead in to the points that will be argued in the essay. You should not assume that the reader knows all about the topic: it is up the writer to introduce it. A good introduction should catch the attention of the reader and persuade them to read further.

The main body of the essay should contain the main arguments! Footnotes may be of use but don't go overboard^a. Although you may be arguing a particular point of view in your essay, counter-arguments should always be presented, with references given to supportive evidence for both sides. Originality is always highly regarded, but outlandish, unsupported claims are not looked upon favourably, even if they are original!

Diagrams, graphs, tables and images can prove to be very valuable in illustrating your arguments. Such illustrations should be numbered, and include captions describing their content and listing sources if the illustrations have been taken from books, websites or elsewhere. Illustrations can convey a great deal of information in a highly condensed form and thereby enhance the quality of your essay, but only use them where they are important for clarity, and do not use them as padding or "wallpaper". Make sure that you refer to each of them explicitly in the body of the essay.

Finally, the conclusion should "wrap things up", briefly summarising the main arguments. Feel free to state your own opinions and conclusions, but ensure they have been backed up in the main body of the essay. The conclusion is not the place to introduce new arguments or broad 'pushing back the frontiers of knowledge statements'. It should be possible for a casual reader to gain a reasonable idea of the purpose and conclusions (although not the details) of the whole essay merely by reading the introduction and conclusion.

Who said that? References and citations

Referencing can take several forms but for SAO we require the style adopted by the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), one the main astronomy research journals. This is detailed in the SAO Referencing and Citation Style Guide.

Do not merely summarise the writings of other authors: present your arguments in your own words unless, in the words of Penn (2008), "you are quoting directly from a named source". A list of references (books, articles, and/or URLs) is essential at the end of the essay, but it should include only references actually cited (referred to) in the essay: a supplementary reading list is not necessary. In general, statements of "common knowledge" such as may be found in any introductory astronomy textbook do not need to be referenced. Importantly, your references should not rely on the SAO Course Content, your Unit textbook or sources like Wikipedia. For high marks you should be referring to more specific resources in your literature/internet search.

Finding the right level

One of the learning outcomes for SAO units requires that participants should be able to explain the course material in a non-technical way to the wider public, and the essays are a good place to start practising. They are not intended to resemble scientific research papers closely in style. As stated in the Introduction, SAO essays should be understandable by the generally well informed but non-specialist reader, at a level of presentation at least broadly similar to that used in popular astronomy magazine articles. However as you progress through the SAO program we expect that your writing style will evolve to that more closely aligned to the scientific overviews and commentaries as given in peer-reviewed publications like Science or Nature. (Follow Science - Perspectives and Nature - News & Views links for two astronomy examples.) Such articles combine informed research-style overviews with latest scientific explanations and results with salient references.

Traditionally it has been assumed that all science writing should be in the third person, e.g., "The observation of the galaxy sample was carried out at 20 cm". However, first person accounts are now becoming widely accepted, e.g., "We observed the galaxy sample at 20 cm", leading to livelier, more readable prose in both essays and scientific papers.

The writing style for SAO essays should aim for clarity while engaging the reader. It is also important that essays be correct both in grammar and spelling. As far as grammar is concerned, we make allowances for participants whose first language is not English, but clarity is still vitally important. When grading your essay, the basic criteria that your instructor will consider are

• degree of understanding of the topic displayed,
• clarity of explanations,
• quality and depth of internet/literature research carried out and referencing skills, and
• overall presentation and originality.

Finally, always remember that you are writing an astronomy essay. Aspects other than astronomy which are covered by your essay may make it more readable and set it in context, but it is your handling of the astronomy content that will score most highly with your instructor at grading time.

Spelling, Grammar, Abbreviations

At SAO, we generally use UK (British) rather than US spelling. However, either is acceptable but you must be consistent throughout a piece of work. You may be penalised for too many spelling mistakes or "typos". Note that the word "data" is plural. In sentences, use the word "and", not the ampersand (&) however '&' can be used in references both in the essay text and the reference list. Common abbreviations such as "i.e." and "e.g." are accepted. These two are generally followed by a comma, e.g., as in this sentence!

Necessary technical terms, especially acronyms, should be explained and jargon should be avoided.

Minus Signs, Hyphens, Dashes

• Where possible, use a minus sign with numbers, rather than a hyphen, e.g., -23 (not -23).
• A hyphen is used to link words, e.g., ground-based, or in a person's name, e.g., Newton-John.
• Use an en dash (about the width of the letter N) for linking words used as a compound adjective, e.g., Bose–Einstein condensate (two linked names), or for a range, e.g., 15–20 kg.
• The em dash (about the width of the letter M) is sometimes used in place of parentheses—also known as round brackets—by various authors. Some writers prefer to use en dashes – with or without surrounding spaces – for this type of punctuation. Be consistent!

Submitting the final draft

Now you've written the essay, what are the last steps required before submitting it? The first thing to consider is the word limit (1500–2000 words, or 2000-3000 words in some Units), which you should really think of as 1750±250! The word count does not need to include the list of references, but should include any lengthy footnotes. Both Maddison & Mackie (2007) and Fluke et al. (2008) confirm that students will be penalised for submitting essays above or below the recommended word limit. Remember that excessively long essays are unlikely to be as clear and readable as concise ones. The process of editing an essay down to the required word count almost always improves it, and any great piece of writing has gone through several drafts, although burning the first draft is probably a little extreme (Arson 1965). Therefore leave yourself plenty of time to write more than one draft in order to improve the clarity, content and style of your essay.

You need to check that you have explained all the technical terms you have used, that you have kept to the topic, and that all quotes used have been clearly marked and referenced (SAOweb 2008). You should use 11 or 12 point font and single line spacing. A final check: have you included your name plus that of your SAO unit prominently at the top of the first page of the essay, and are the pages numbered?

Coversheet: all SAO essays must include an SAO coversheet, which includes the declaration "all of the work contained in this essay is my own original work, unless otherwise clearly stated and referenced".

Essays must be submitted by the due date, preferably in electronic form as Microsoft Word documents (.doc), rich text format (.rtf) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) via Blackboard. In order to keep the essay file size below 5 MB, try to save all images as jpegs (.jpg) or gifs (.gif) rather than bitmaps. Please ensure that electronic submissions are virus-free.

Conclusion

In this essay we have outlined the basic attributes of a good SAO essay, emphasising clarity of explanations, originality, structure, presentation of competing arguments, and use of references, especially to acknowledge sources of quotes. SAO essays are generally meant to be understood by a well informed but non-specialist reader, and so all necessary technical terms should be defined and all jargon avoided where possible. As you progress through your degree, the level of your essay should steadily increase. If you are unsure at what level you should pitch your essay, talk to your instructor for advice. Editing and re-drafting an essay almost always improves it and clear, concise essays that stick closely both to the topic and to the recommended word count are likely to score higher marks.

Looking ahead, the experience gained from writing the essay, plus the constructive feedback you receive from your instructor, are likely to be invaluable to you when writing your SAO project report.

References
Arson, F. 1965, Fire and Punishment, Vol. 3 (2nd ed.; Melbourne: CFA Press)
Fluke, C., Kilborn, V., & Waugh, M. 2008, ApJ, in press, (astro-ph/0809.5623)
Maddison, S., & Mackie, G. 2007, Journal of Online Essay Writing, 46, 135
Penn, P. P. 2008, MNRAS, submitted
SAOweb: Swinburne Astronomy Online Home Page, http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/sao/ (accessed 17 Apr 2008)

© Swinburne University of Technology
(Note: The above sample essay is approximately 1850 words in length.)

^aThe body of the essay should make sense even if the reader does not bother to read the footnotes.