Essay Plan tutorial

Question – you’ve changed the question at the top of your plan and it is now too vague and doesn’t include your primary text. This needs to be resolved before you do anything else… the previous question we had was: How are black people represented in the film Dope? Perhaps something about audience effect? E.g. How are black people represented in the film Dope (2015) and what impact might this have on audiences?

Introduction – lay out argument, primary text and any secondary/historical texts you will be discussing. Present your angle/hypothesis – will you be arguing that black representations are negative, damaging and stereotypical? If so, introduce that argument here. You don’t need a backstory for the actors etc. A one-sentence summary of the film will do (like an IMDB plot synopsis). 200 words.

Section 1 – Primary text: Dope. Textual analysis is the key in this section. Media key concepts, film language etc. Very detailed deconstruction please! Associated theories and research. Choose one or two key scenes (2 minutes max each) and analyse the hell out of them. How are representations created and what is it telling the audience? 500 words.

Section 2 – historical text. Boyz N The Hood. Good choice of historical text and I’m sure there are plenty of links there. Get some textual analysis in here too – again, deconstruct a couple of key scenes (perhaps the scene where Furious Styles is talking to the boys on the street corner?) Draw links and contrasts with Dope. Perhaps discuss how these films may seek to challenge negative stereotypes but perhaps accidentally reinforce them? 400 words.

Section 3 – Issues and debates – black representation in the media. This is where your research comes in. Loads of potential here to discuss academic research (BFI books perfect here), Guardian/MM articles. Wider media and social context – what impact do these representations have in society? 500 words.

Section 4 – Effects theory and research. What impact do films have on audiences? If you write this well, hopefully the research will follow on nicely from the paragraph above. This doesn’t need to be as long but bring some theory such as Gerbner and Cultivation Theory. 250 words.

Section 5 – New technology and black representations. Social media, Black Lives Matter campaign. Perhaps discuss self-representations too – do young black males inadvertently reinforce negative stereotypes in their own social media posting? How will this debate look in future? Trump and American right-wing? 400 words.

Conclusion – sum up your argument, snappy ending please! 150 words.

Next steps… update/finish your plan based on this tutorial. You don’t need to stick to the above by any means but hopefully it has at least clarified your thinking and provided a potential structure that will be easy to follow.

I need to have a quick read of your opening paragraph when it’s written but otherwise you are good to go.

This essay has great potential – the key is making sure that the research sections in the middle about black representation in the media and effects theory are really strong. You may need to do a lot of additional research to have enough to write about here.

Publish this tutorial to your blog with your next steps as usual