It can be hard to get a feel for what your teachers expect from you as you advance in your academic career. Your essays are clearly going to have to explore topics in greater detail than your earlier efforts did, but it can be quite daunting to compare what you write to published articles written by professional scholars.
If you’re a sociolinguistics student, that’s where Lifespans and Styles comes in. Edited by Lauren Hall-Lew, this journal is published by the University of Edinburgh in order to promote good undergraduate writing. There are some excellent essays (including one co-written by our very own Victoria Dickson back in 2015) that are well worth your time.
If you’re ready to move on to your dissertation, the Edinburgh Research Archive is for you. The PPLS dissertation collection might be be a good place to start. When you click on the sub-community that’s relevant to you, you’ll have access to a variety of collections. The only thing to watch out for is that not all students have made their dissertations available to the public. A black lock icon by the filename means that you’ll have to look for another piece of writing.