Introduction Content

How do you evaluate the content of a GAMSAT essay's introduction? You want to look at three elements. First, is does the introduction have a contextual hook. A contextual hook is the first sentence or sentences of an introduction and they function to both grab the reader's attention and to provide some context for the essay. To evaluate the content of the contextual hook, see if it does provide context to the rest of the essay. If it doesn't, that's not a good contextual hook. Similarly, does it try to engage with the reader? There are many ways to engage; these could include using rhetorical questions, relating the topic to big picture events or philosophical ideas or even to a personal or universal experience people have felt.

The next element is the summary of the contention. This is what the writer of the essay is trying to argue in their essay and to evaluate the content of the contention, try to identify two things. First, how common is this opinion? If you searched through the web, how common is it that people would agree with this position? Secondly and most importantly, how well does it relate to the theme of the above essay prompts. All GAMSAT essays are written based on prompts, and correctly writing a contention about the right theme is essential. If it's the wrong theme, it's a very poor contention and generally essay content wise.

Lastly, does the introduction have a summary of the arguments? If so, that's good! If not, that's poor content wise. Next, how do they summarise the arguments; for example, do the arguments seemingly relate clearly to the contention? Do they independently support the contention? Are they easy to follow and understand? If yes to all these questions, then that is a good sign.

Overall look at the content quality of all three aspects and determine your feedback through this way. If on average it's good, then the content of the introduction is good.

Introduction Structure

The purpose of the introduction is to captivate the reader, outline the contention and a summary of the arguments of the essay. Optionally, you can delve into a little bit of context regarding the theme before introducing the contention. So, when giving feedback to users, we first identify what is the contention of the user’s essay?

Find the contention by seeing what is the overall opinion of this essay. You can look out for phrases like “in this essay, I will argue” or similar phrases; alternatively, the see what phrase is summarising the main point of view of the author. What is the author trying to tell or persuade you? There must be a clear contention so the reader understands what to expect; thus a vital component for clarity and direction for not just the introduction but the rest of the piece.

So, once you correctly identified the contention in the introduction, analyse the rest of the introduction. For example, do they have a small context statement that can serve as a engaging hook describing the theme of this essay? Pay close attention to how engaging this context statement is; it will be engaging if it poses a challenging narrative, uses some rhetorical device or relates the theme to big topics like human nature. Once you identified the contention and gauged the engagement level of the context statement, the final aspect of the introduction to investigate is the summary of arguments.

A good introduction will have a summary of arguments that is clear, and most importantly, directly supports or relates to the contention. If the summary of arguments don’t relate to the contention, then the essay needs to be improved. You can identify if the summary of the arguments relates to the contention by analysing if you hypothetically didn’t know what the contention was, could you hypothetically imagine what the contention would be? If yes, then the summary of arguments do support the contention! Those are the key aspects of a structured, great introduction.

The context statement needs to cover wider social, cultural or economic issues related to the essay theme. For example, if the essay’s theme is about war, then the context statement ideally should touch on how war relates to modern society, such as a context statement describing how war’s dynamics or prevalence has changed recently or something to that effect.

It’s extremely important for the introduction to be concise. Most students will either have a bad introduction because it doesn’t have the key components of a proper introduction (such as contention) or very commonly, they write too much. You don’t have much time to write an essay and every word counts; introductions should not be more than 200 words long. If the essay’s introduction is too long, two serious problems emerge. Firstly, considering all the GAMSAT essay authors only have a finite amount of time to write these essays based on the prompts, writing too much in the introduction consumes time, and therefore has taken away time away for writing other parts of the essay like the body paragraphs. The body is the most important part of the essay, and having less time to write them hurts the marking of the essays. Second, if the introduction is too long, it becomes often much less clear. A short and succinct contention is clear. So, how can we identify if the essay’s introduction is too long (other than through word count)?

First analyse how necessary are each of the sentences of the paragraph. Remember, each introduction phrase should be impactful and direct. If the sentences are not clearly part of the context statement, contention or summary of arguments, then it is likely redundant. For example, if an essay’s contention was “That to solve the problems of climate change, we need a radically different alternative to capitalism”, then this short version is good. It’s straight to the point, clear, and logical. However, if the author instead wrote “Given the various problems facing climate change from extreme weather to hurricanes, from longer droughts and unpredictable seasons, then the only, the best and viable solution to addressing the issues of climate change needs to be something different from what caused climate change in the first place, which is capitalism”. See how the second one is much longer, and does something that is poorly looked upon for essays; it included and elaborated in length about examples. Introductions don’t need examples. Moreover, the second example is just too lengthy, without a clear logical conclusion (that an alternative to capitalism is needed). Thus, the best introductions captivate the audience, relate strongly to the theme and are succinct.

Introduction Scoring

To score an introduction section into the categories of "poor", "good" or "excellent" you need to evaluate both the structure and content. The criteria are weighed practically equally. For example, if the content is poor but structure is excellent, you give an overall good score. However, if you have a close tie, let's say the content is poor and structure is good, then you the overall score is poor because while both criteria have equal weighing, when there's a tie-breaker or you have to prioritise one criteria over the other, you always choose content. So in this example, the score would be overall poor.

Body Paragraph Content

This is the most important section of the GAMSAT essay, more than the introduction and conclusion combined for reference.

Body Paragraph Structure

Now I will teach you how to analyse the structure of body paragraphs in the essays. For the GAMSAT, students will often write either two very large body paragraphs or three body paragraphs as the main bulk of the essay. Sometimes they can write more, although this is rare and comes at the risk of each individual paragraph being too shallow. To evaluate the structure of these body paragraphs, we shall use the classic TEEL body paragraph structure. TEEL stands for “topic sentence”, “evidence”, “elaboration” and “link”. If a student effectively uses this TEEL body paragraph structure in their essays, then they have great essay structure.

How can the TEEL structure be identified? Let’s start with the first aspect (T); the topic sentence. This sentence should generally introduce what the argument of the essay will be about. This can be identified through various means; for example, students often start introducing the topic at the beginning of the paragraph. However, not all first body paragraph sentences are topic sentences; so to ensure you correctly identify the topic sentence, try searching for a single sentence that encapsulates the overall message of the body paragraph’s argument. The argument remember is one of the reasons that support the overall contention. Sometimes there can be some context next to or tied with the topic sentence; make sure this context giving background to the topic sentence is not too large, unclear or distracting. If the topic sentence is hidden by context, this is worsening the body’s structure because it’s making it less clear. However, if the context clarifies the significance of the topic sentence or aids in enhancing the meaning of the topic sentence in a succinct manner, then it could be aiding the structure of the body paragraph.

The Topic Sentence

The topic sentence will often include an argument about wider society; whether it be economical, social or cultural. It could look like this: “Medical advancements are slow primarily because there are poor incentives for medical researchers to translate research into product”. This medical advancement topic sentence has a clear argument relating to a clear contention (e.g. that medicine is not advancing fast enough).

The best essays have topic sentence structures that are clear and relate to the overall contention.

Evidence

The evidence does not need to be a in a particular spot in the body paragraph except ideally it shouldn’t be in the beginning or the end of the sentence; instead it should be somewhere in the middle. It can be short or a couple of sentences long; however, if the evidence begins composing the majority of the body paragraph, then it is likely too long and therefore, is worsening the body paragraph’s structure since it is taking space away from the other TEEL structure components of the body paragraph and if it is too long, it is highly likely to be too full of frivolous details or potentially being irrelevant. Another method to detect if the evidence is being too long or distracting is to see how many examples are used within the evidence. Most body paragraphs will only need 1 or 2 examples of evidence maximum. Anymore and it usually becomes distracting the previous examples should be strong enough evidence.

For example, if the body paragraph is arguing that “Social media is harming young people because it is addictive”, then the evidence could be something such as “Social media is deliberately made to be addictive as companies like Tik Tok and Meta designed various aspects of their platforms such as video ‘reels’ to be attention grabbing through providing high gratification, endless supply of personalised videos that can easily be accessed continuously. As a result, researchers such as Jin Xie from the Beijing Normal University in their 2023 article ‘The effect of short-form video addiction on undergraduates’ academic procrastination: a moderated mediation model’ discovered that Chinese students using these platforms were more addicted to their apps and less motivated to do anything else”. This example uses the maximum amount of examples for evidence - two. The first one was “Social media is deliberately made to be addictive as companies like Tik Tok and Meta designed various aspects of their platforms such as video ‘reels’ to be attention grabbing through providing high gratification, endless supply of personalised videos that can easily be accessed continuously.” and the second was “As a result, researchers such as Jin Xie from the Beijing Normal University in their 2023 article ‘The effect of short-form video addiction on undergraduates’ academic procrastination: a moderated mediation model’ discovered that Chinese students using these platforms were more addicted to their apps and less motivated to do anything else”. Anything longer than this example in any kind of body paragraph can be excessive and worsen the structure. If the evidence is too short (less than two sentences) or non-existent, this also harms the structure of the body paragraph.

The structure is often compact and focused on using societal level examples, whether it be studies, experts, statistics, history or quotes. Similar to the above example that “Social media is deliberately made to be addictive as companies like Tik Tok and Meta designed various aspects of their platforms such as video ‘reels’ to be attention grabbing through providing high gratification, endless supply of personalised videos that can easily be accessed continuously”.

Elaboration

Elaboration (also known as explanation) is the most important component of the body paragraph and key pillar of its structure. Elaboration delves into the mechanisms of action regarding how and why the argument works. Elaboration is the logic of the argument. Thus, given its importance, elaboration should compose a large segment of the body paragraph, roughly a third of the paragraph or alternatively, around 2-4 sentences. For essays that have two main body paragraphs, the elaboration can be on the longer side (can be more than 4 sentences sometimes).

Essays with good structure need elaboration segments. The great essays will have prominent elaboration segments that are on the longer side while still being clear, without unnecessary details or, especially important, without excessive repetition. The best essays will have body paragraph structures where the elaboration segment include a mini-rebuttal to the main logic of the body paragraph. For example, if a body paragraph is arguing that “religion has been instrumental the development of humanity by unifying people under a common cause, and thus, ushering a pioneering camaraderie spirit” then a fantastic elaboration sentence could be: “Religion, due to being an organised, collective set of believes and values, can often bridge divides that halted progress from tribal warfare to national conflicts or government animosities. Religion can transcend these other categories because religious set of believes are often more praised due to their moral or divine character, which appeals to people as most individuals want to see themselves as good people. Thus, the fact religion has this unique power to transcend these other societal categories allows it to be an exceptional unifier of otherwise distinct societies; this critically allows for society to progress as it can allow for more cross-border, cross-culture intellectual sharing, collaboration and diverse innovation or alternatively, reduce progress-destroying conflicts”. Moreover, for the above example, a mini rebuttal could be added as part of the elaboration such as “Some may mention examples like the the 4th Crusade which led to the destruction of Constantinople, a city of great knowledge and importance. However, the fact these terrible events happened is not solely because of religion’s unifying effect but rather, because of these groups such as the crusade leaders prioritising glory and greed and using religion as a tool to a means of an end”.

Overall, the elaboration is a critical component of the body paragraph and should be a prominent segment and can be identified as the sentences explaining why the argument is true, and how it works, often supported by some evidence examples. Very importantly, just because a section looks superficially like an elaboration doesn't mean it is; if the "elaboration" sentence is simply a bundle of assertions rather than intertwined, related sentences explaining the logic of the argument, then the elaboration is poor. However, if the student's essay has an elaboration section where the sentences clearly follow from one another, creating a logical flow justifying or explaining the argument, then that elaboration section can begin to be considered good or above. Your AI feedback tends to be very generous with marking this section, ensure you are objective here.

Linking Sentences

Linking sentences are very important for body paragraph structure because they do two key functions; they summarise the overall argument and clearly relate the argument back to the overall contention. Thus, body paragraphs that lack linking sentences have almost automatically poor body paragraph structure.

Linking sentences can be identified in the following way; they are in the end of the body paragraph, relatively short (1-2 sentences) and often have some key words or phrases such as “overall”, “so”, “summary”, “in short” and such synonyms. Most importantly for identifying linking sentences is they will do the aforementioned critical functions; summarise the body paragraph’s argument and relate to the essay’s overall contention. You can identify if a linking sentence does relate it back to an overall contention by analysing if linking sentence shows any clear connections or links between the argument and contention. For example, an exemplary linking sentence for a body paragraph arguing “music can help people’s social lives” as part of an example essay’s contention of “music is critical for a life well lived” is this: “Overall, music can be an extremely empowering tool to bring people closer together, share moments, stories and form strong bonds that can bring unique joy for a lifetime”. In this short linking sentence, the argument is linked to the overall contention because music is bringing more joy, thus critical for a life well lived.