Fundamental Principles of GP Essay Writing

1. The Introduction

The introduction to your GP essay is crucial to your success in many ways:
i) it is the reader's first impression of your writing and first impressions count
ii) it tells the reader immediately whether or not you know anything about the subject
iii) it gives the reader an insight into the quality of your thought processes
iv) it effectively makes the remainder of the essay fall into place
v) it clearly defines the scope of your discussion

Let's look at the recent topic: Sport has lost its soul. Discuss.

The word which clearly sticks out here is soul. I know that people have a soul, but I've never heard of sport having a soul.
I know that when someone loses their soul it is a bad thing: they have turned from being good to evil (hence the idiom - to sell your soul to the devil).
Thus in some way I have to consider that sport has in some respects turned bad. I wonder what they are?
How do I go about defining the soul or good part of sport? Look no further than the:

Fundamental Principles of Olympism:

1 Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

2 The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.

3 The Olympic Movement is the concerted, organised, universal and permanent action, carried out under the supreme authority of the IOC, of all individuals and entities who are inspired by the values of Olympism. It covers the five continents. It reaches its peak with the bringing together of the world's athletes at the great sports festival, the Olympic Games. Its symbol is five interlaced rings.

4 The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. The organisation, administration and management of sport must be controlled by independent sports organisations.

5 Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.

6 Belonging to the Olympic Movement requires compliance with the Olympic Charter and recognition by the IOC.

OK there's loads of lofty aims and objectives here. We can see that sport is more than simply running around and I am sure I can find similar principles relating to the World Cup; Tennis; Golf; the SEA Games etc. Obviously we mere humans find it very difficult to live up to these aims.

Now let's look for a relevant quotation to get us going:

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? (reference a religious book).

So now I'm going to write my introduction.

The ancient quotation For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? shows that humans can lose their soul and that this is connected to becoming evil. The soul of a human must therefore be the essential good which is inside all of us. But how can sport have a soul? It is neither human nor plant nor animal, but rather an all encompassing concept. The answer is that the essential good of sport can be found stated in, for example, the lofty ideals of the Fundamental Principals of Olympism. Thus Article 2, The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity clearly tells us that the soul of sport is concerned with the good intentions of its organisers. Unfortunately the reality falls far short of these high ideals and today we can see the politicization of the Olympics (not a new phenomena by any means), the incurable curse of performance enhancing drugs, bribery and corruption at the highest levels, cheating and bad sportsmanship wherever we look.

You might think that this is a bit long but the principle is there for you to follow! The beauty of this introduction is that you have told the reader exactly what you will be writing about - MEGA MARKS for being on the ball and the rest of the essay is a piece of cake - er as long as you know something about the topic.