What is the most effective way to structure an essay?

Essays are an examination of your knowledge, understanding and response to a particular topic, subject or text. In planning an essay that pertains to a specified question, relate your opening hypothesis directly to the concepts, themes or texts mentioned in that question. In doing so, expand or unpack any dense or complicated topics within the question's statement, and relay them to relevant examples within your chosen texts. This in turn will allow you to broaden the scope of your own argument by connecting the textual examples with wider contextual themes or influences. A good way to ensure coherence in your essay is to structure your introductory argument in a sequence, with components that can be unfolded and explained in turn, allowing for a layering effect to develop within your essay whereby each major point comes to substantiate its predecessor and, subsequently, will come to introduce and inform the points made after it. This is a structure that can be replicated in miniature when approaching the essays conclusion, ensuring that all components of both the essay question and your argument's response to it are emphasised in the closing paragraphs.