What to include in an Essay Appendix

A short piece of information that you include in your essay in order to support your analysis, give a more thorough explanation regarding the research question, or give some insights or validation to the conclusions you have reached, is called the appendix. It is not a mandatory part of your essay, rather it has supplementary functions, in most cases.

An essay appendix is just a supplementary part of the essay, so all the information necessary to derive the results or support the thesis should be present within the body. And the essay should NOT need to rely upon the appendix.

An essay appendix should be included,

• When you have some information that is not essential, but supportive and that might affect the narrative flow of the essay, or jumble up the paper and distract the reader,
• When there is any supporting material that might be helpful to the reader but would make the essay too long and detailed and mess up the essay structure.
• When you refer to another person’s works, but don’t quote them (e.g. see Essay appendix B)
• When you have lengthy raw data that cannot be included in the paper without disrupting its structure
• When you are allowed a limited number of words in your paper

Essay Appendix Developing Criteria

The essay appendix section of a paper has no word limit and it is not included in the word count.

You can add any of the following items in your essay appendix if needed;

• Supportive Evidence

Any evidence that is not essential in deriving your result but supports your analysis and which might be useful to give a  more thorough understanding of your research question. e.g. raw data is placed in the essay appendix

• Specialized data

The key data or summarized facts, that are essential in order to draw your conclusions, are added in the body of the paper. While the rest of the specialized data that further explain the data or information you discuss in the paper should be added in the appendix.

• Contributory Facts

The essay appendix can also include any contributory information from other sources, that can help you validate your results. All the data and ideas taken from other sources needs to be properly cited in order to give their respective authors their due credit.

• Sample calculations

Any calculations that you refer to in the text, but are not essential to the paper itself, can be added in the appendix

• Technical figures, graphs, tables, statistics

All the visuals which are not mandatory to draw results in your paper, but can help in understanding or validating the results can be referred to in the text and added in the appendix.

• Detailed descriptions

Detailed descriptions should be added in the essay appendix. However, all the essential details must be added to the text itself. 

• Research Instruments
• A detailed description of the research instruments that you used during your research is added in the appendix section.
• Maps, charts, photographs, drawings

All the supportive illustrations which you are referring to in the text, are placed in the appendix.

• Letters, emails, etc.

Any form of correspondence that you refer to in the text should be added in the appendix. For example, any letters or emails to your research subjects should be added in the Essay appendix.

• Questionnaire/survey instruments

The results of any questionnaires and surveys must be added in the main text but the actual questionnaires and surveys are placed in the appendix.

• Complete transcripts of interviews

In the main body of the paper, you just need to add the summary of the interviews, while the complete transcripts for any interview that you conducted are added in the appendix section.

• Specification or data sheets

Same as interviews, the data sheets are summarized in the main text while the complete specification or data sheets are placed in the appendix.

• Complete field notes from observations

In the main text, just write down the key information while the complete field notes from your observations should be placed in the appendix section.

• Lengthy lists

Long lists should be placed in the appendix while their shorter versions are added in the main text.

• Instructions to participants; tests, scales, inventories

Like your correspondence with your research subjects, your instructions to them are also included in the appendix section. All the results are added in the main text.

• Demographic details for subpopulations studied by the paper

Although the important data needs to be added in the main body longer details about the research subjects (I.e., their demographic details) should be added in the appendix section.

What NOT to Include in an Essay Appendix

Never include the information that is essential for drawing up the results for your research question in the appendix. Only add the supplementary information.

Never include data that hasn’t been referred to in the body of the paper. All the data included in the essay appendix should be referred to in the main body so that your readers will know that there is relevant information in the appendix.

Never include data from other sources without appropriately citing them.