 Writing an essay can be a really daunting task and this is the same for either very short essays, comparative essays if you're thinking about comparing poetry or even literature and even slightly longer essays say for coursework. Now what I want to show you is that it doesn't need to be daunting, it's actually really straightforward and the main thing you need to understand is the PEE method which you can apply to any essay and this is useful not only for your English GCSE but this cuts across all other topics and disciplines so I'm going to show you a really easy way to approach writing any kind of essay using the point evidence explanation method. So let's get started. So now the first thing when you're answering any kind of essay first look at the question, focus in on the question but more specifically look at the key words. The key words are words within a question which tell you what kind of answer that the examiner is specifically looking for. Of course this is relevant to English but this can be for any topic and you focus in on that because that's exactly what you need to hone in on when you're answering the essay. Now I'll give you an example. So this is from a past paper and this is to do with English literature. So the question asks starting with this speech explore how Shakespeare presents ambition in Macbeth. You don't need to know this more than anything what I want to illustrate to you is the keywords that you focus in on. If you're looking at the whole sentence it can be really really confusing however if you focus in on the keywords it becomes so much easier to understand how to even position your essay. So as you can see in this question the first keyword is speech so what's been presented before you is a speech. The second keyword tells you to explore. In other words talk about for instance does Shakespeare use any interesting language does he use any interesting descriptions talk about that that is you exploring and the third keyword is ambition. The reason why I haven't highlighted Shakespeare on Macbeth is because you're not going to get any other texts you're not going to get around 20 different texts therefore you already know that when you're sitting and answering that question you're focusing in on Shakespeare on Macbeth. The keywords are the things that are less obvious hence why I focused in on that. Let's look at another example of what keywords mean. Now this is again another past paper question you don't need to know what this question is about in terms of the background. What is useful is to think about if you were to read this question out of context what you think might be the keywords. So it states how does priest use a character of the inspector to suggest ways that society could be improved. Here the keywords are firstly character the second inspector the third society and the fourth improved. Again I haven't mentioned priestly because it goes without saying you'll be given a text a piece of an extract written by him himself so you're not going to have to choose from different writers therefore that's not a keyword that is already implied. However what's not immediately obvious is number one character so being told to focus in on a specific character you're then given the name of the character this is an inspector so we can presume that there's lots of other characters but actually this question is asking you to focus in on this particular character the inspector. The third keyword is society so what message is being conveyed to you and the final is are you being told to focus in on how the inspector is showing ways that society can be improved. Let's look at a slightly longer question. So this states you need to think about the whole of the source. This text is from the middle of the short story how does the writer structure the text to interest your reader. This question is a little bit more abstract and a bit more vague. Now the reason why the first thing of highlighted is the whole of the source is because presumably this extract has is taken from a book or a play or even a poem because we don't know what the source is however you're not being asked to cut a specific paragraph or specific stands you have to look at the whole thing so you need to make sure you focus in on the whole thing from start to finish. The second of course is the source again it's very vague we've not been given a specific name so it could be lots of sources maybe from this question that you've been given so you're looking at that specifically that's why it's a keyword. The third keyword is it's from the middle of a short story so you didn't know it was from the middle and you've been told this so that's important information you need to highlight. The other point is a story so actually as I've mentioned before it was a poem but now we realize it's not a poem it's a story therefore that's not immediately obvious highlight that. The other keyword is structured how does it begin how does it develop and how does it end. The other keyword is interest what is it about this source that maybe would make you think hmm I want to learn more and the final thing is you are being asked for your opinion so the pronoun you you have to highlight that because you have to talk about what is your opinion this is one of the questions that actually asks you as a reader to say what would you pick this up. Now once you've gotten the keywords out of the way you focus on exactly what the question wants to look for and you've really made your focus laser thin by highlighting the keywords you now need to start by writing an introduction to your essay especially for the longer essays. Your introduction and this is for each paragraph and this is now to do with the point evidence explanation method the first line is a sentence that states the question as a statement the sentence will also have to have the keywords included and you'll end your introduction by stating this essay will examine the keywords in detail okay so make sure you clarify that so your first point in your introduction is always highlight the keywords that are included and then you end your introduction by saying this essay will examine so on. So for instance let's look at this example starting with the speech explore how Shakespeare presents ambition in Macbeth let's talk about the introduction paragraph the introductory paragraph you can frame it as such Shakespeare effectively uses the speech so I've mentioned the first keyword speech to present ambition so the presentation is tied to explore and of course I've then mentioned the other keyword ambition through using many literary techniques this can be for example alliteration metaphors and so on I don't need to go into that detail but I'll mention the keywords in that first sentence I've then added my own twist to it ambition is presented as destructive in Macbeth as it leads to his downfall look at how I finish my introduction this essay will examine how Shakespeare explores ambition in depth this is really important to bear in mind now once you've written your first introduction so of course this is for the much longer essays you then need to apply the PEE method to structure each of your paragraphs now when you begin your paragraph you start off with a point and this is the line that opens your paragraph it's short snappy and it goes straight to the point some words you can use to open your first paragraph so the PEE method is in my opinion if you're asked for your opinion or if you're not asked for your opinion you want to keep it in third person narrative so in other words the writer using third person pronouns it he she you can begin the writer uses or similarly this could be say for your second point or your second paragraph if it's for your first point firstly second point that follows secondly and so on so these are some ideas of how to start your point then once you've stated your point you give evidence this is taken from the text and referring back to the text and quoting showing it's just not your opinion a way to introduce evidence is by stating things like for example an example of this this is shown in the quote this can be seen and so on then you finish your paragraph by giving an explanation and adding analysis to this explanation you talk about where or why the evidence rather is significant how it affects the reader what technique is used and how this links back to the question so explanation is the bulk of the marks this is where you talk about why is the quote significant what effect does it have on us as readers what technique has a writer used but even within this for instance if it's for literature you can talk about context you can add all of that and how to introduce your explanation is this shows this suggests this implies sometimes you can hear about teachers referring to peel method point evidence explanation and then link however in this method you can also add the link within the explanation so you've talked about why the quotation is significant why it impacts us to the reader and then you link it back to the question but this is all within your explanation and of course when you're thinking about other ways to introduce it you could say you know this route makes the reader feel this has been used because use all of these terms to make your explanation clear and to clarify your points and also of course to add a depth of analysis then of course once you've written your separate paragraphs you've started a really good introduction you've linked it back to the question you've highlighted the keywords you've then written separate paragraphs using the point evidence explanation method you now want to round off your essay with a conclusion your conclusion bear in mind is actually fairly similar to your introduction it doesn't need to be very complicated however the only difference is rather than introducing the question as a statement and mentioning the keywords that you're going to use and what you will talk about in your essay you restate the question it's keywords and then say in your conclusion you've actually discussed all of these issues you've been asked in the question in depth and you round it off so for instance let's look back at the question starting with the speech explore how Shakespeare presents ambition mcbeth this is how you could write the conclusion to conclude Shakespeare's effectively used the speech to present ambition through using many literary techniques ambition has been presented as destructive in mcbeth as it leads to his downfall this essay has examined how Shakespeare explored ambition in depth it's as simple as that another example is going back to the priestly case how does priestly use the character of the inspector to suggest ways that society could be improved in conclusion priestly has effectively used the character of the inspector to suggest to ways that society can be improved by using many literary techniques society has been portrayed as a need of improvement as there are social inequalities this essay has examined how priestly uses an inspector to suggest social change in depth very simple you have essentially used very similar elements that would go in your introduction but you've stated it and rephrased it as your conclusion statement but essentially said and very different from your introduction that you have already done this in the body of your essay so that's all hopefully this shows that writing an essay shouldn't be something that's really complicated this is relevant to know especially the pe method not only for english but this applies to lots of your other topics so do learn this technique practice it over and over again because it has a really important impact not only on english but on all your other topics if you have to write an essay for those topics you need to use this method thank you for listening