Written Assignments

In anailysing this topic you must decide upon:

The general area of content - insect Phriolo8Y and mor­phology

The particular focus - adaptation of the insect body to life on earth

The issue to be determined - is the insect body `the most suc­ cessful' adaptation?

The method to be used - evidence drawn from insect and other animal species. So now you realize you are not being asked to write a general essay on insects or even the insect body. You are being asked to make a judgement about degrees of adaptation, evaluating the success of in­sects against that of other animals. So your reading, and your essay, w ill focus on the problem of defining `successful' adaptation to life on earth, using insects and other animal species for evidence.

Do you remember, from Chapter 4, the first criterion lecturers , use in assessing an essay: It is expected that the essay will be clearly focused on the set topic and will deal fully with its central concerns? This first step of analysing the topic is a move towards meeting that expectation.

b. Reading and note-taking: The second criterion for assessing an essay was It is expected that the essay will be the result of wide and critical reading. This stage involves the systematic gathering, select­ing and evaluating of the material that will eventually form the basis for your essay. In the process of researching for the essay, you go through the steps of skimming, reading closely, and taking notes selectively - always with the aim of collecting only those points which seem relevant to your topic. While it is impossible to be specific about the amount of notes