Literary and Cultural Studies:Writing academic texts

What to aim at: Your paper has to be a contribution to the ongoing scientific debate

Your paper is supposed to be a contribution to the ongoing scientific debate. It is good to deal with it with an awareness of ongoing public debates.

• Can you summarize the ongoing public debate? (In media like Wikipedia, forums, blogs, newspapers - a question to inspire your curiosity.)
• Can you summarize the scientific debate? (You will have to do this so that your reader understands your position in this debate.)
• Where does the scientific debate differ from the debate you find in blogs or Wikipedia? (You do not have to address these public debates in your work, but they might give you a wider awareness of possible perspectives on your topic. Do speak of public views if there is an interesting discrepancy between them and scientific views.)
• If scientific research did not deal with your question: Why did it avoid the topic? Why do you think it still should deal with your question? Can you prove that a scientific answer can be given? (If not, do not continue with the question as you are possibly on a course to offer your personal opinion as one others have to accept as simply your personal opinion without a further debate).

Looking back on your work: Can you define what kind of contribution you eventually made with your work? There are different options:

• You may have recapitulated the debate in order to evaluate the different present positions
• You may have supported an existing argument with your own look at a certain text
• You may have modified a perspective you found in public statements choosing a more scientific approach
• You may have promoted research in a certain direction
• ...

The Preface

Has to be rewritten in the end:

• Lead into the topic: Why is it interesting? What are present problems? How far have they been solved?
• What is your contribution?

• What statement can you make?
• What kind of look on the problem did you offer (method)
• What results were you aiming at?
• What steps of argumentation did you chose in oder to deal with the problem?

Research done by others

Summarise the present view(s) in a section at the end of the introduction, or (if more specific) in greater detail at the beginning of a respective chapter

• Are there different viewpoints?
• Is it possible to present them in a discussion?
• Did certain arguments evolve in the course of the debate? (This will enable you to state more clearly where you are with your contribution.)

Quote research (only) where this is necessary

• Common knowledge (as presented in dictionaries and handbooks) remains unquoted. Mention it casually where it clarifies a point you make (Marlowe wrote his Jew of Malta, 1589 or 1590, without knowing Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, 1600). Leavi it as soon as you realise it might be interesting to students or pupils who know as much as you knew in the beginning but not to those who have followed the discussion).
• Common perceptions and views (on "the Elizabethan period" or "morals of the Victorian age") have to be treated as a field of circulating opinions propagated mostly by a public who has itself never dealt with the materials. Refer to them where you want to get beyond them; they are is otherwise the most boring subject matter you can offer to readers who are already involved in the scientific debate.
• Knowledge we would not have without the work of a particular scholar (e.g. archival information he/she made available, a book he/she first moved into the debate) has to be referenced with that respect for the academic work of the particular scholar
• All Views and opinions must be evaluated: What led this scholar to formulate such a view? Does your research substantiate this view?

A golden rule on this topic: Consider your own paper and reflect where you would I feel exploited and disrespected by a readers using your thoughts, your analysis... without stating that they received this insight from your paper.

See our Literary Studies:Research guide and our Literary Studies:Style sheet for specific hints.

Streamline your presentation

Avoid any knowledge you just want to add for readers who have never heard about the period, the author, how people lived in these days

Any such "knowledge" is extremely controversial. Your two pages on "The Victorian Era" or "The Elizabethan Age" will contain less information than the respective Wikipedia articles. You should neither offer such views from Wikipedia nor out of the best books you found. Your reader is a participant of the scientific debate; he or she wants to see how you react on his or her arguments. He or she does not want to learn anything on Shakespeare and his age from your work, on "The situation of man in the 20th century", on "The history of the role of women in this our age" or any other such topic. (If it was helpful for you to get some such knowledge, this is the moment to step beyond the learner's position, do not even look back on it).

Chapters

Every chapter you write must strictly refer to your question. Begin each chapter with a look back on the question. You move from chapter to chapter with a look at what you were able to prove and what questions arose with these your observations.

Headlines

Use your headlines

• to state the respective field of your observation and
• to make a statement in the respective question

The conclusion and the introduction

Use the conclusion to think of questions you have or might not you have been able to answer. Evaluate your own work.

• It can be that the question imploded - there is no bigger work to write on this, you did not forsee the result
• It can be that you realised one has to do quite different work to answer your question - state what kind of work that would need, so that others can do it (or you yourself in a bigger piece of research)

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 real problem is the interpretation you expect others to accept as your personal interpretation. Any view you want to protect with the statement that one can have different views, of course, but that this happens to be your view (and if others come to other readings, that's their decision, literature and culture are subjective and so are all views dealing with them) - remains simply personal. We might discuss the personal creations of artists, but our analysis is organised to proceed analytically, in an inter-subjective scientific debate. Any move towards personal interpretations is reserved to famous critics (who have discussed their general assumptions elsewhere), it is even where they speak essentially unscientific and it will be opposed by your professor as unacceptable even if he or she should share your personal value systems and your interpretation.

Make sure that your evaluations and judgments remain based on a logic you are interested to defend.

How does your professor evaluate your work?

He or she will try to understand what you wanted to do and with what circumspection you did it.

• The excellent piece of work is one fully aware of present research and assuming a position in it - up to the point that your reader realises: you would defend this your work against critical questions - you anticipate them, you know why you would still say what you said as you have an aim to continue with that thought.

• The good piece of work shows that you have learned to evaluate research and to make your statement. The self critical option is not there, your work is not yet designed to lead you on.

• The moderate piece of work shows you understood the question, you were able to summarise other thoughts, you could arrive at at least one of these views with your own work.

Basically we aim at performances you can offer anywhere else in the public. Hence, do avoid references to "our seminar" and all thoughts of your professor as your reader. Think of a public audience.

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

Links

• Jack Lynch's advice to his students at Rutgers