Literary and Cultural Studies:Writing academic texts
Contents
Preliminary thoughts
Why scientific research if I only want to become a teacher?
Papers you hand in on the university level are supposed to show that you have understood the rules and conventions of academic research.
Why should this be necessary – if you are just thinking of becoming a teacher? Basically because this is the self awareness you should by all means overcome: “I am only a teacher”. You will feel self confident if you can handle all kinds of research of your subject English, from grammar and linguistics to didactics and literature.
You are therefore required to develop skills in these fields – skills which will enable you to evaluate prefaces of books, scientific literature, school curricula on the basis of research you yourself did.
Understand your paper as a (possible) contribution to scientific research
The humanities (the sciences from philosophy and history to the philologies) produce a scientific debate. Researchers make statements of how the debate and its science should continue. They do this on the basis of their research.
Your own work, whether seminar presentation or seminar paper of 15 pages, has to do the same. The final question will be: what is your position in the debate you opened, and can you defend this position with first hand knowledge you acquired for that purpose.
Do not aim at a scientific revolution – there are numerous moderate, yet efficient ways to contribute to scientific research
The dissertation level will require new results. All your work until then can play a more moderate role. You may support existing views; you can doubt them; you can add new knowledge that leads to the same (or slightly different) conclusions; you can evaluate what others said on the basis of what you know of the subject matter.
Two things will remain necessary:
- You will have to define your position within the scientific debate (there exist other debates as well, yet they are only of interest if you turn them into an object of scientific research).
- Your work must be designed to support your position in the scientific debate with the help of observations you gathered in an analysis of primary sources.
Structuring your work
A good piece of academic work is a text other participants of the scientific debate could quote. Your reader is the colleague whose research you mention (not your teacher, who is supposed to consider how far you managed to write for an audience of colleagues in the field of research).
- Did you ask a question of interest within the scientific debate? (React on, communicate with research to make that sure!)
- Can you define the result of your work, your standpoint towards existing research, now that you have done your own research?
- Did you focus your paper/presentation on your question?
- Can you defend the structure of your paper?
- Can you critically evaluate your own work when it comes to the solidity of your observations?
Define an interesting question
A good question is one that actually needs research. Think of a question that allows more than one answer, think of simple answers against which you can position the more complex answers you have reached with your insight into the materials. Think of the discussion your results could raise.
Check research
See our Literary Studies:Research guide for further help.
Streamline your presentation in oder to present your observations and to make your points
There might be knowledge you feel comfortable with - knowledge on the author, his or her times, the works he or she wrote, or basic knowledge about your field of research.
Any knowledge the reader can get with a look into Wikipedia is common knowledge and can be handled as such: Your reader can close gaps with a look into these resources. Do not repeat and recapitulate such knowledge, it be then that you do this in order to attack it as flawed by a common misconception you want to address with more scientific research.
Every chapter you write must strictly refer to your question and promise a step which will already modify some of the views you mentioned in your introduction. You are throughout your paper expected to modify or solidify views on the basis of your own observations. All chapters that do not do this are off-topic.
You are writing on the minor characters in Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra? This is the structure you should strictly avoid (though it might reflect your own steps into this work). Chapters 1-5 will not need any research of yours but simply be a kind of writing together of information you found (though not at all on your question, yet, you hope, possibly useful to some who have never heard of Shakespeare or his period). Chapters 5.1 to 5.12 will focus on materials, but the headlines promise summaries not results. The conclusion (7) will be the first chapter where you will wonder what all this might have shown - it will (as you are expected to do all this on 15 pages) fill less than one page and fail to make any interesting statements at that late stage of your work:
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- All this will be done on 15 pages, with some chapters consisting of merely one ore two paragraphs. All these chapters will be too short for statements - for statements which you could support with quotations and with a discussion of your observations - against the backdrop of alternative interpretations of such passages (which alone would allow you to determine whether you can actually support your views)
Rather think of your question and possible answers. What roles do these characters play? Maybe this is the outcome of your research:
- Option 1: They have by and large a functional role - they are needed to move the plot.
- Option 2: They critically evaluate the actions of the main protagonists and thus add different viewpoints the main protagonists could not offer without becoming too reasonable to make their tragic mistakes.
- Option 3: They are used to teach us (being subordinates and minor characters ourselves) strategies how to deal with those in power.
- Option 4: Shakespeare uses them to criticise those in power.
If these should be your results you should design your paper in order to present and discuss them. Use your headlines to make these statements, give an introduction to prepare your readers for your results. Think of quotations with which you can prove these statements, and evaluate each of your observations.
Finally: consider to what extent your observations support or re-evaluate scientific research on the problem. Is there research on the minor characters in Anthony and Cleopatra? (If so to what results?) Is there research on the minor characters of other plays of the period? (If so: did it come to similar results? - if not: did these plays differ, or did the researchers fail to understand these characters better?)
Nota bene: It can well be that you write the paper with a structure like the first only to realise in your conclusion, how you should have structured it, now that you know the four results - in that case: rewrite it to bring it under this very structure. A revision of 15 pages is done within two days and a pain everyone working in the field is expected to take; it is as vital as the spell check at the end - a sign of respect.
Make sure your chapters offer orientation
Each chapter should begin with an anylsis of the problem it tries to solve. It should end with an evaluation of your results written in a way to lead into the following chapter.
The conclusion and the introduction
Write the introduction to lead into the question and to give a summary of research. Use the conclusion to think of questions you have and you have not been able to answer.
Can I risk to state my own opinion - even if it contradicts my professor's?
Yes! The most interesting work is the one which leads your readers to second thoughts.
The problem is the essay in which you simply state your opinion, offer your arguments for it and think you have done your job. If your professor reads your essay with an awareness of all the criticism and questions you invited and simply did not think of - you have lost. The good essay anticipates the criticism and deals with it.
The worst of all essays is the mild compromise - an essay in which you say: "Both sides are right once they accept the arguments of the others." The worst case is that your reader comes to the conclusion that you were simply trying to appear wise - feeling that it is wise not to get involved in any argument. The good step within any confrontation is the one that leads the participants one step further - the step which leads to a new understanding of the real problem debated here.
How do professors evaluate our work?
- Is the question asked with precision?
- How is the question positioned in the scientific debate? Is its relevancy reflected?
- How stringent and coherent is the line of argumentation?
- How fluent and differentiated are language and style?
- How relevant are your sources? How accurate is your documentation (quotes, bibliography)?
Basically we aim at performances you can offer anywhere else publicly. Hence, do avoid references to "our seminar" and all thoughts of your professor as your reader. Think of a public audience. Try to write for the reader of an article published in a scientific journal.
Secondly we evaluate your work first of all with a look at what you were aiming at: Did you achieve your goals as explained in the outline and the summary of your texts? It is part of this perspective that we wonder whether you choose goals you could be expected to achieve - not too trivial and not too ambitious.
Practical hints / Style sheet
- Observe the Literary and Cultural Studies:Style sheet
- Take a look at the Literary Studies:Research guide
- Remember the advice that helped you in your first assignments
