Now check through your draft and mark where there are problems. These problems could include:

• grammatical errors
• incorrect or lack of formal academic style
• a need to make the language more accurate and concise
• a need to improve the coherence of the writing, and
• incorrect citation details and references.

For example, consider the corrections that are needed in the sample essay. The problems have been indicated using the following key to assist you.

Problems key:

• grammatical errors
• formal academic style
• ways to make the language more accurate and concise
• ways to improve the coherence of the writing
• citation details and references

Rough draft introduction

We have been asking ourselves what happiness really is for a very long time. Two different ways of thinking of what it is have been a point of debate, these ideas are on the one hand that happiness is a feeling that a person experiences at a particular moment in time, and on the other hand that it is something more complex that relates to how we remember or make sense of our lives as meaningful stories. This essay will firstly look at evidence for the idea of happiness that is about experience right now. Then it will look at evidence for the other approach. Then the two definitions of happiness will be compared and contrasted to see which one is the more true meaning of happiness. This essay will argue that the significant contrasts found between these two approaches indicate that they are referring to two quite different things that historically have both been named happiness.

Rough draft of first body paragraph

What do you think happiness is? Most people think happiness is a feeling like joy or delight that you feel at a particular moment in time. Matt Killingsworth (2011) developed an iPhone app called Trackyourhappiness as a method of tracking large numbers of people’s feelings at random moments to try to understand more about how the momentary experience of happiness feels, what causes it, and what stops it. The app only asks questions relating to how a person is feeling currently, so it only explores the momentary experience way of thinking about happiness. Killingsworth discovered that feeling happy in the moment is closely correlated with being tuned in to the present activity and that mind-wandering is correlated with a reduction in happiness. So this research finds that not only is happiness something that occurs at the present moment, but that it occurs most when a you are most attuned to right now. Killingsworth describes happiness as ‘having a lot to do with our moment-to-moment experiences’ (Killingsworth 2011).

Rough draft of second body paragraph

Rough draft of third body paragraph

There are significant aspects that these two conceptions of happiness appear to have in common. Both ideas are familiar as ways that happiness is commonly spoken of. Both ideas of happiness can explain some of the factors found to contribute to happiness. For example, both theories are able to encompass the contribution of relationships with other people to an individual’s happiness, which is noted as a significant contributing factor in studies such as O’Rourke Cooper and Gray who investigate the happiness of children in Western Australian primary schools. Both can also account for the influence that giving and gratitude have in increasing happiness, as found by Norton (2011). There are however, some factors, such as focussing on the present, or helping others despite a loss of amenity in the present, that have been found to relate to happiness that can only be explained by one of these two models.

Rough draft of fourth body paragraph

Contrasts between the two theories are striking. What would we do if we believed each different idea? Understanding happiness as an experience in the moment implies that happiness would be increased by activities such as meditation upon the present moment, and activities that provide momentary joy or pleasure. Thinking of happiness as a meaningful narrative implies happiness would be increased by engagement in activities that contribute to life having more valuable meaning, such as the achievement of goals, or contributions to improving something. Both ways of understanding happiness are concerned with experience, but the nature of experience is different in each case. One concept of happiness takes experience to be the conscious realisation of a present state of being; the other takes it to be a constructed narrative that makes a period of time meaningful after it has happened. These contrasts suggest that these two conceptualisations are really describing two different things, rather than being two competing ways of describing the same thing.

Rough draft of fifth body paragraph

While the similarities between the two concepts are explainable by their common usage for a long time, the differences indicate that there is a significant gap between them. Kahneman has argued that what’s really happening is we are just confusing two different ideas of the self when we speak about happiness. He refers to these as ‘the experiencing self’ and ‘the remembering self’ (2010) and explains that these two different selves are made happy by different things in different ways. He argues that research into happiness needs to recognise this distinction, to avoid confusion and error. This position is supported by the fundamental nature of the differences between the two perspectives. As argued above, they each understand the nature of experience differently. The two ways of understanding happiness appear to have little in common because they are explaining different, but equally meaningful things.

Rough draft conclusion

In conclusion, happiness has frequently been described in two conflicting ways, as either the experience of pleasant feelings in the present moment, or as a sense of satisfaction with experience as it is remembered and made meaningful through narrative. These two ways of understanding happiness have been compared and contrasted. Although there are similarities between the two conceptualisations, these are not as significant as the differences. The two perspectives of happiness differ in fundamental ways, viewing the nature of experience differently, or as Kahneman describes, having different ways of thinking of the self. Because of these fundamental differences, the two ways of understanding happiness can be described as essentially different, rather than competing, concepts.

References

Norton, M 2011, ‘How to buy happiness’ TED

Matt Killingsworth, ‘Want to be happier? Stay in the moment’ TED, viewed 17th June 2013, <http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_killingsworth_want_to_be_happier_stay_in_the_moment.html>.

O’Rourke, J, Cooper, M and Gray, C 2012, Is being “smart and well-behaved” a recipe for happiness in western Australian primary schools? International Journal of Psychological Studies, vol. 4, no. 3 pp. 139-52.

Einarsdottir, J 2012, ‘Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork’ International Journal of Quantitative Studies in Health and Well-being vol. 7 pp. 1-9

Oishi, S, Graham, J, Kesebir, S, Costa Galinha, I 2013, ‘Concepts of happiness across time and cultures’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin vol. 39 no. 5 pp. 559-77.

Kahneman, D 2010, ‘The riddle of experience vs. memory’ TED viewed 17th June 2013, <http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html>.