Simple Finance Essay Format Guidelines to Acquire High Marks

Finance essay format differs from the format of other types of essays in that it relies heavily on data sources, equations, and tables to elucidate the point of the essay.

However, the most successful finance essays contain adequate contextualizing and analysis to inform data sources, equations, and tables and promote readability. If you have been assigned an essay in finance, use the following guidelines to help you format your paper correctly:

• Write an Introduction that contains the following items: a clear statement of the financial problem that your paper will discuss, any proposed solutions to the problem, the economic context of the problem, and any market projections or future market developments that you anticipate will affect the outcome of the problem. A good finance essay demonstrates the student’s ability to articulate financial problems succinctly. Avoid employing equations in the Introduction. Rather, reserve the Introduction for a concise overview of the purpose of your paper.
• Include a short summary of the paper in the final paragraph of the Introduction. Detail how the paper will be laid out, and specify which areas of the finance essay will discuss certain areas of the problems.
• Use a statement that sets up the equation, such as Firms select the quantity of lending, L, and outside financing, e, to generate the highest profit. Finance essays naturally contain a great deal of equations and tables; however, the student will lose marks if the equations and tables are presented without proper context. 
• Utilize footnotes as a space to direct the reader. Finance essays need to follow a concise approach to the delivery of information. However, essays in finance often benefit from contextualizing data and information that is extraneous to the main point, yet useful to the reader. In these cases, footnotes provide an effective tool to clarify certain complex points and explain equations, refer to relevant case studies or the work of other scholars that offer in-depth discussion on a point that pertains to the problem, and point to examples from the present or past that demonstrate the problem in a real world setting.