Literary and Cultural Studies:Writing academic texts

How do I find a good topic?

A good piece of academic work challenges existing views. There is more than one way do do this. You can attack general notions, you can offer insight into a subject matter that has been underestimated and hint at blind spots in existing research, you can question existing debates by opening new ones, you can just as well support a position... these are thoughts for a dissertation rather than a 15 page seminar essay, yet they give you an idea of the direction you are supposed to take during your studies.

For student purposes it is enough to find a topic you will be able to advertise as interesting - your interest can be personal, yet to sell it to others you have to find arguments why others should share your fascination, and these must be independent from all personal views.

A very good thing to to is to look back. What were your first thoughts about the subject matter? Dis your views change? Are there questions you would no longer answer the same way?

A topic is most often inspired by research - you read someones statements and you feel you would not arrive at the same view if you had to present the case. Why did your author arrive at his or her view? Why did he or she not reach the conclusions you would draw?

If there simply is a thing you'd like to know more about - wonder why you might want to know more and try to find out whether others have already done the research with the very result you would aim at (you must not do work others have done with very same result).

Before I begin...

First: check research. Secondly think of simple and more complex answers on your question. The good essay will take different views into account, it will show that you have anticipated criticism - of your topic, of your work and of your opinion. The good essay stands the test of criticism, because its author is able to answer that criticism right at the beginning.

How do I structure my work?

Beginners are often tempted to offer a standard solution: You do not understand my topic if I do not give you an introduction about the period, the author, the work in question - once I'll have done this introduction (maybe two pages on each of these heads) I'll answer the question I am supposed to answer. The result is an essay of 15 pages filled with background information and very short remarks on the original question.

First advice: drop the standard solution. Deal with the question - directly. Open the question, show why it is interesting to ask this question, think of the best sequence of sub-questions and -answers to answer it.

The opening section

...should raise the question, give a first view of possible answers, tell your reader how your essay will proceed.

Secondary literature

Try to give an overview of the general perspective and evaluate this perspective.

Good headlines, good chapters

You might have a question and three texts to look at - and you might feel tempted just to create three chapters for the three texts: Chapter one, text one, chapter two text two and chapter three, text three.

Think back: Why did I decide to take a look at these three texts (these three characters, episodes, aspects...)? Each chapter should be written with an awareness of what you wanted to prove with your investigation. Good headlines will tell your reader why he should take a look at this text now - what he is going to find out.

Good chapters will look back after each step you took: Did you arrive at the result you promised? Do thinks look more difficult after your research? Have they become much more simple? Both can be interesting results.

The conclusion

A good essay leaves me with the awareness that things are much more difficult than considered at first - it inspires more work, shows you involved in a debate.

You can just as well arrive at the conclusion that the question was asked the wrong way - can you present the question thet should have been asked?

You can come to the conclusion that the answer did not get you to where you thought you would get - and that the whole topic is problematic as not leading us any step further. Even professional authors have reached such conclusions (see e.g. the epilogue to John J. Richetti's Popular Fiction before Richardson. Narrative Patterns 1700-1739. Oxford, 1969, in which the author considered all the books he had read to be not worthy a second investigation - the result was on the contrary a wave of research proving him wrong, yet a wave turning interest to his book and his conclusion).

Do not think that you have to give the right answer and that's it. Do rather think of a conversation in which your contribution might be one others will like to return to as a good starting point.

Can I risk to state my own opinion - even if it contradicts my professor's?

by all means! The most interesting work is the one which leads to second thoughts.

The problem is the essay in which you simply state your opinion, offer your arguments for it and think that's all you have to do. If your professor reads your essay with a growing number of remarks he would make - you have lost. The good essay has a position yet it is written with an awareness of other possible views on the problem. It 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: you are not really interested in the topic, all you wanted is to look like interested. The good step within any confrontation is the one that leads one step further - that leads to a new understanding of the real problem debated here.