YOUR GUIDE TO THE ESSAY ON BULLYING

Table of Contents

• Defining the Concept of Bullying
• Videos on Bullying
• Potential topics for an essay on bullying
• Structure of Your Essay 
• Using Statistical Graphics
• Sample Essays

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Defining the Concept of Bullying

In October 2006, a single event put a permanent spotlight on bullying. Megan Meier, a 13-year old, committed suicide after being bullied on Facebook by several mean girls and, shockingly, one of their mothers. While schools, parents, and psychologists had been dealing with bullying for years, the nationwide coverage of the suicide and the events leading up to it spearheaded a national discussion of the topic that continues today. A large part of that discussion concerns defining bullying, along with how to identify it, how to prevent it, and how to deal with it once it is occurring. 

The National Centre Against Bullying defines it as, “When an individual or a group of people with more power, repeatedly and intentionally cause hurt or harm to another person or group of people who feel helpless to respond.” Given this definition, the “field” of bullying has a far and wide range and can be either in-person and/or through the use of technology. 

Bullying is defined as "When an individual or a group of people with more power, repeatedly and intentionally cause hurt or harm to another person or group of people who feel helpless to respond."

And thus, bullying becomes a frequent topic for essays and papers – either as assigned or by choice. If you are planning to write an essay or paper on bullying, what follows will help you craft a great one.

Videos as a Source of Information

To completely understand bullying and to then narrow your choices in terms of topics, YouTube has a huge number of videos on the subject you can check out. 

In the External links section you can find an example of a presentation by sociologist Brook Gibbs, that will broaden your understanding of the concept, especially the idea of dominance behavior. 

Once you have viewed a few of these videos, you will probably have a much better idea of where you want your essay or paper to go, and the possibilities are almost endless.

Potential Topics for a Bullying Essay

Most students decide to write a bullying in schools essay of some sort, because this is where it frequently occurs. And this is fine. But the topic is far too broad. Will you narrow it to elementary, middle or high schools? Will you focus on causes, identification, prevention, or responses? 

And bullying also occurs outside of the school environment, especially online and even in the workplace with adults. It also occurs in the adult world outside of work. Painting a Nazi symbol on the garage of new Jewish neighbors or a KKK symbol on the home of new Black residents are prime examples of societal bullying. 

Here is a list of potential topics that will let you focus on more specific aspects of bullying.

• What causes someone to become a bully?

• How to reduce bullying in schools

• How to identify bullying behavior

• What is dominance behavior?

• Most effective ways to prevent bullying (either in school or in the workplace)

• How can schools prevent bullying?

• Effective responses to verbal bullying

• Early education on bullying

• The psychology of bullying – perpetrator and/or victim

• Differences between cyber, physical, and verbal bullying

• Impact of bullying on the victim

• Bullying as acts of aggression

These are just a few of the myriad of topics from which to choose. And, depending on the type of assignment (basic essay, research essay, research paper, etc.) you will have to decide how deep you will go into the topic.

Structure of Your Essay

Whether you are writing a short essay or a lengthy research work, the structure will be the same as that of all academic works – introduction, body, and conclusion. But before you even begin to write, you know there are several steps you must take.

1. Coming Up with that Thesis Statement

Once you have your topic and have done the basic research you need, you will have to come up with a thesis for your essay or paper. This is, of course, the point you intend to make. Suppose you have decided to write a piece on what makes a bully a bully. Your thesis statement might be something like this: “Kids or adults who become bullies need to exert dominance over others they see as weaker and vulnerable, in order to feed their need for power.”

If this is your thesis statement, then the body of your essay or paper must relate directly to the psychological aspects of dominance and how that is achieved through bullying. 

Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.

2. Choosing the right information to include in the body and getting it organized

This comes from research. Once you have completed the research and have the sub-topics you need to cover, it is time to organize the points you will be making. This is best done by some form of outline – formal or informal – so that you have a logical map for presenting those sub-topics. This is nothing new to you. Every good essay or paper begins with some sort of organizational activity. Do not skip this step – it will keep you focused and on track. 

A research paper outline on bullying in schools with a focus on what makes a bully might look like this:

Title: What Makes a Bully?

1. Introduction: Some statistics on bullying in schools – the most startling ones

2. Body

• The psychology of dominance needs and behaviors – alpha males and females within groups

• Bullies have often experienced bullying themselves – the link between discipline from adults and development of bullying behaviors

• Role of low self-esteem in bullying

• Need to be in control of a part of their lives

• Prospects for changing bullying behaviors

3. Conclusion: Rehabilitating the bully

Using Statistical Graphics

If your essay is longer and based upon research, there is nothing better than to include some graphics to “prove” your points. There are a host of graphs and charts that show varying aspects of bullying.

Showing frequency

Or this one reporting the results of a study of cyber-bullying:

Look for statistical graphics that directly relate to the points you are making, and your essay or paper will be far more powerful.

Sample Essays on Bullying

It is always a good idea to review some sample essays on the topic you have chosen, and these can be found all over the web. Of course, you will never plagiarize the work of others (you will get caught), but these will give you ideas about organization, resources, and even a great example of research title about bullying. See examples in the External links section.

Follow these guidelines and tips, and your piece on bullying will deserve a great grade.