Excerpt
Read and digest
Studying literature you are bound to read a lot of texts from different periods and genres, both "primary" and "secondary literature".
Underline passages? Leave little notes alongside the text?
Most of us feel compelled to underline passages while reading. Beginners tend think, the moree thy underline, the more sense they will make of the whole. In the end they have a text with 90% marked passages all in different colors - and of no use at all. Once they are through with the text they have to re-read the underlined passages, and then they realise, that they do have to read the non underlined passages as well to make sense of the underlined passages.
If you read an article in a scientific journal restrict your text marks to a minimum. Ask yourself: what are the central massages and what are passages one has to quote to document these messages?
Get the information out of the text!
You cannot learn and remember everything - it is important you remember where you saw the interesting piece of knowledge. That is why you have to get the information out of the text - into a medium you yourself organise. If you work on a topic open a file in which you gather notes telling you where you found relevant information.
If you read an article or book, create an excerpt that will help you later to trace back relevant information.
How to write a good excerpt
Identify your text
Page references are extremely short living. You read an edition in the library or your private copy of the book - note the edition you used, so that you can get back to that edition later.
Length and contents
If your text is a long book give a short note about how it was organised - this is especially important if you deal with older books: how many pages? what format? was there a dedication? a preface? an introduction? an index?
Produce a kind of quick diary while reading the text
While reading it is good to take quick notes - with page references: What happens on these pages, what has happened in the chapter you have just read? in the act or the scene of your play? Taking notes is the only way you make sure you somehow digested the text. Take a piece of paper, note page numbers (act or scene references) on the left and take notes referring to these page numbers.
After reading the text: sumarise and reconsider
Do eventually give a short summary of the plot, name the most important protagonists, sumarise your personal impressions. In a year or two you will no longer remember the plot nor the who is who. Notes about what happened page by page will become difficult to understand: You mentioned protagonists and what they did - yet what was the context? Why did these people do these things?
If you are writing about a topic you might begin to think of passages you might decide to refer in order to make certain points in yotr paper - that is the best step from the text you are reading into the paper you have to write.
What do I do with my excerpt
- Open your page like this one (See EEBO link for the following - write the language(s) you find convenient for later reference:
| 1566 | ||
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William Painter Clarke. The Palace of Pleasure. London: Henry Denham, 1566. | ||
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