HINTS ON LITERARY ESSAY WRITING

You will be expected to write an essay on each of your prescribed texts. In these essays you will be asked to examine aspects of the texts that have been either raised in lectures or discussed in tutorials. The main purpose of the exercise of essay writing is to help you to develop a critical sense and present your ideas analytically and methodically. For example, you will be required to comment on or make a judgment of (not merely describe) a character and to interpret the significance or meaning of actions and events. This exercise also helps to discipline and give shape to intellectual responses provoked by your reading and discussion of literary texts.

CONSEQUENTLY, IN NO ESSAY WILL IT BE NECESSARY TO RECOUNT THE PLOT OF A PARTICULAR WORK OR REPEAT BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS ABOUT THE AUTHOR CONCERNED.

You can safely assume that these are already known to your tutor and that what is being tested is your ability to organize ideas, argue ideas logically and arrive at appropriate conclusions.

RECOMMENDED PROCEDURE

Study your title carefully and the rubric which follows, e.g., "Discuss" or "examine" or "illustrate" etc. Make sure you know what the question means and its full implications for the text(s) to which it refers. Essay topics fall into two general categories:

a. The value judgment that needs to be discussed and defined, e.g., "The novel is too concerned with political ideas to be successful as a novel."

b. The question that requires you to examine some aspect of the text, e.g., Examine how the method of narration contributes to the novel’s success.

Make a rough plan, noting all ideas, first reactions that appear relevant to the topic etc. These may consist of personal impressions, observations by critics, etc. Critical works are useful in providing a fuller response to a text. Remember, however, that in any essay there is room for a diversity of opinion and you should only accept a critic’s opinions if you are persuaded of their validity. The critic is essentially a guide. Your priority must be to define your own response to the text and to convince! ALWAYS ACKNOWLEDGE CRITICS WHEN YOU USE THEIR WORDS OR IDEAS. PLAGIARISM WILL BE PENALIZED SEVERELY.

Make a definite and detailed plan. At this point you should have a clear idea of what is not relevant to your topic and also be sure of your response to the chosen topic. Your introduction and conclusion could now be written out. The former should be as direct as possible, setting out what you see as the main issues raised by the topic. No essay on Zobel should begin "Zobel was born in Martinique in the year..." Your conclusion should sum up and restate the main thrust of your arguments. Do not introduce any new ideas in your conclusion. The ordering and linking of paragraphs in the body of the essay is indicative of the development of your thoughts. Also, each paragraph must have its own subject that relates to an aspect of the essay topic being treated.

With your plan made, you are able to concentrate on style and expression when writing your essay. Avoid long, verbose sentences. Stick to a clear, formal English style. Remove all eccentricities from your style, whether they take the form of inflated, flowery English or an overly subjective approach using exclamations etc. Your ultimate aim in this regard is to achieve a style of your own which can clearly and persuasively articulate your ideas. And very importantly, check your spellings and syntax/grammar (e.g. agreements between subjects and verbs). So reread your work carefully; critical revision of your essay is the only way to ensure that it is free from basic errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation, errors which are unacceptable at this level and will therefore be penalized.

A note on quotations: All quotations should correspond exactly with the original and be relevant to your particular argument. Always acknowledge the sources of your quotations. When quoting poetry, a verse quotation of a single line should run on in quotation marks as part of your text. Short prose quotations could be treated in a similar manner.

GUIDE TO DOCUMENTING ESSAYS & RESEARCH PAPERS

In writing your essay, you MUST document everything that you borrow - not only direct quotations and paraphrases, but also information and ideas. You MUST indicate the source of any borrowed material that a reader might otherwise mistake for your own.

Placing Footnotes/Endnotes

To footnote a quotation or a statement in your paper, follow it with a number placed slightly ABOVE the line. Then use that number to introduce your footnote. Place footnotes at the foot of the page single-spaced with a triple space between the text and the first note - and number them consecutively - throughout the paper. (An alternative way of handling the notes is to group them together at the end of the paper.) Indent the first line of footnote five spaces. The footnote number should be slightly raised and should be separated from the note by one space. The first time a source is identified in a footnote, the documentation must be complete. As you will see in the examples below, you will need to vary the form according to the kind of source you are citing - books, compilations, articles in journals or newspapers, unpublished dissertations, and so on. Examine each form carefully to see what elements are included, in what order they appear, and how they are punctuated.

FOOTNOTES/ENDNOTES

A book by a single author:

¹ Barbara J. Webb, Myth and History in Caribbean Fiction: Alejo Carpentier, Wilson Harris and Edouard Glissant (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1992) 77.

A book by more than one author:

² James E. Brady and Gerard E. Humiston, General Chemistry: Principles and Structure (New York: Wiley, 1975) 42.

(If there are more than three authors, substitute "et al." for all but the first: Shirley Gorenstein et al.)

A work in more than one volume:

³ Richard B. Sewell, The Life of Emily Dickenson (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974) II, 251-58.

An edition other than the first:

4 Lewis A. McArthur, Oregon Geographic Names, 4th ed. (Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1974) 664.

An edited work:

⁵ S. Y. Agnon, Twenty-one Stories, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1970) 27.

A selection, chapter, or other part of a compilation:

⁶ Richard McKeon, "Rhetoric in the Middle Ages," in Critics and Criticism, ed. R.S. Crane (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1952) 271.

A translation:

⁷ Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Trans. Colin Smith (London: Routledge, 1962) 88-90.

A reprinted book: ⁸ Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985; rpt. New York: Routledge, 1991) 66-67.

A signed article in a newspaper:

⁹ Steve Cady, "Dreams Grow from Asphalt," New York Times, 13 July 1975, Sec.5, p.3, cols. 6-7.

An unsigned article in a weekly newsmagazine:

¹⁰ "Nixon's Fight for Life," Newsweek: 11 Nov. 1974, 27.

An article in a monthly magazine:

¹¹ Walter Litten, "The Most Poisonous Mushrooms," Scientific American, March 1975, 90-91.

A journal article:

¹² Walter J. Ong. "The Writer's Audience Is Always a Fiction," PMLA, 90 (1975) 19.

(Because this journal is paged continuously throughout the calendar year, the volume number is given and only the year of publication is provided.)

A journal article with corporate authorship:

¹³ NCTE Commission on Composition, "Teaching Composition: A Position Statement," College English, 36 (October 1974) 219.

(In this case, because the volume does not coincide with the calendar year, the month is included. See the previous example.)

A signed encyclopaedia article:

¹⁴ S[tanley] We [intraub], "George Bernard Shaw," Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia 16, 1974.

 

A book review:

¹⁵ Michael Wood, "Incomparable Empson," rev. of William Empson:" The Man and His Work, ed. Roma Gill, New York Review of Books, 23 Jan. 1975, 30.

An unpublished dissertation:

¹⁶ Frances Nicol Teague, "Ben Jonson's Stagecraft in His Four Major Comedies," Diss. Univ. of Texas, 1975, 7.

Published proceedings of a conference:

¹⁷ Alan M. Gordon and Evelyn Rugg, eds., Actas del Sexto Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas celebrado en Toronto del 22 al 26 de agosto 1977 (Toronto: Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, Univ. of Toronto, 1980) v-vii.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Authors' names that begin entries are inverted for alphabetizing. When no author is given, the first important word of the title is used as the key word for alphabetizing.

The first line of each entry in a bibliography is begun at the left margin, and succeeding lines are indented five spaces.

A book by a single author:

Webb, Barbara J. Myth and History in Caribbean Fiction: Alejo Carpentier, Wilson Harris and Edouard Glissant. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.

A book by a single author and a second book by the same author:

Katz, Jerrold J. The Philosophy of Language. New York: Harper & Row 1966.

__________. Semantic Theory. New York. Harper & Row, 1972.

(Instead of repeating the author's name, use a ten-space line followed by a full stop.)

A book by more than one author:

Brady, James E., and Gerard E. Humiston. General Chemistry: Principles and Structure. New York: Wiley, 1975.

(Do not reverse the names of co-authors following the first author's name: Bryant, Barbara, William Jensen, and Ann Wagner. If there are more than three authors, substitute "et al." for all but the first: Gorenstein, Shirley, et al.)

A work in more than one volume:

Sewell, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickenson. 2 vols. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974.

(If books in a multivolume work are published over a period of years, give the full span: 1904-49)

A signed article in a newspaper:

Cady Steve, "Dreams Grow from Asphalt," New York Times, 13 July 1975, Sec.5, p.3, cols. 6-7.

An unsigned article in a weekly news magazine:

"Nixon's Fight for Life." Newsweek, 11 Nov, 1974, 26-29.

An article in a monthly magazine:

Litten Walter. "The Most Poisonous Mushrooms," Scientific American, March 1975, 90-101.

A journal article:

Ong Walter J. "The Writer's Audience Is Always a Fiction," PMLA, 90 (1975) 19.

(PMLA is the title of the journal, and 90 is the volume number. Because the journal - unlike most newspapers and magazines - is paged continuously throughout the calendar year, only the year is given, in parentheses, after the volume number. But if the volume does not coincide with the calendar year, as in the following example, the month is included.)

A journal article with corporate authorship:

NCTE Commission on Composition, "Teaching Composition: A Position Statement," College English, 36 (October 1974) 19 - 20.

A signed encyclopaedia article:

S[tanley] We [intraub], "George Bernard Shaw, "Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia 16, 1974.

A book review:

Wood, Michael. "Incomparable Empson." Review of William Empson: The man and His Work, ed. Roma Gill. New York Review of Books, 23 Jan. 1975, 30-33.

 

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