How do you structure an essay to meet all of the assessment objectives?

Firstly, read the question a couple of times and highlight key words such as 'explain' or 'compare' to familiarise yourself with what you are being asked to do. Write some of your first initial thoughts when you read the question and turn to the source book to read the extract. Highlight quotes that you think answer the question. Write the introduction which will consist of the genre, function, field and tone of the extract. You could also use some more sophisticated punctuation such as semi-colons, to try and boost your grade. Then start to produce a rough plan by using the steps, PETER (point, evidence, technique, explanation, reflect). Make a clear, general point in answer to the question and keep this train of thought running through your answer. Then you go back to the extract and choose the most appropriate evidence (a quote). You would identify the language technique used in the quote and comment on the effect this has. For the explanation, it will become more precise as you start to pick out single words for analysis (perhaps talking about their connotations or what the writer is implying). Finally, you reflect and refer your analysis back to the question and comment on the text as a whole. You would repeat this method a few times, splitting your analysis into paragraphs depending on how many marks the question is worth, then write the conclusion. The conclusion should sum up your final answer to the question, although you can have two sides to the argument.