Literary and Cultural Studies:Writing academic texts
First thoughts
Make a statement: Academic work is written to be quoted
A good piece of academic work is a text others could quote - either for its new and substantial information or for its new evaluation of a situation.
A text others can quote has to be written with a preconception of what you think your readers should quote. Your readers must become aware of the question you studied, they must be able to summarise your result or your position in the debate you entered. If you want that people can quote you on something they must become able to summarise your work in a few sentences before they quote you on it.
The interesting question
Research answers questions - yet not all questions are interesting. You can challenge the results of someone else's work - that will be fascinating if you attack thoughts most of your readers will share. You can just as well answer a question no one hast asked before - in which case you will have to make sure that your audience realises why one should be interested. Both - the question and the possible answers - must be interesting. You will have to write an introduction to create this interest.
On the dissertation level this can only be done with a look on research and the current debate. On the student level it will be sufficient to begin with a surprising contradictory, startling aspect out of which you develop your question:
- Le Morte Darthur (1471/1485) is published as Christian Arthurian epic, yet the heroes of this epic fight mostly without even asking for a just cause. They kill other knights at random - strangers they meet on their ways - as if to avoid the fight would be dishonourable; they fight for their honour even if the accusations against them are, objectively, justified. How is this extreme and often indiscriminate violence justified?
...that is already all you need to go ahead and to wonder how one would answer such a question.
Develop your question: Get into a situation in which you can offer more than one solution
You are not demanded to give your perfect answer. Your work is much rather evaluated with a look at the awareness with which you worked. Do you just recapitulate what you read elsewhere? Do you just give your thoughts? These are the bad options.
The interesting piece of academic work reaches a point, at which you can give more than one solution. Think of different answers
- the answer your reader is likely to give
- the answer you would have given three weeks ago, before you invested more work on it
- the answers research has already given,
- the different answers one gets depending on what kind of research one applies.
It will be good to write the opening passages of your work with the feeling that you could have done it in more than one way - and that you choose quite another structure if you wanted to make the points others would make.
You will write a good opening section once you feel you know what kind of work others would have written - and why you rather invested a bit of more work to write the work you ultimately wrote.
Before you begin...
Check research - see the Literary Studies:Research guide for further help).
How do I structure my work?
Beginners are often tempted to think of a standard solution: "One does not understand my topic if I do not give an introduction to the period, the author, the work in question - once I'll have done this, I'll answer the question I am supposed to answer." The result is an essay of 15 pages filled with background information (which can be taken from Wikipedia or the greatest professors in the field without much of a difference) and remaining remarks on the original question.
First advice: drop the standard solution. Deal with the question - directly. Speak of the question and its implications, show why it is interesting to ask this question, think of the best sequence of follow-up-questions needed to answer it.
Speak about the period, the author, the general appreciation of his work - only if you feel that your work is problematising any of these heads.
A second problem is that beginners think of the materials they have to analyse: If a, b, and c are my materials, well then my structure is clear: First chapter: I analyse a; second chapter: I analyse b; third chapter: I analyse c; last chapter my conclusion.
Do rather structure your work with the aim to settle certain questions and to look at certain interesting aspects which help you to answer your question.
The opening section
- should open the question. Eventually your reader should understand why one should try to answer this question.
- should offer the answer one might give at first sight and take the step into a deeper analysis. It is good to know the more complex answer your essay will lead to at this point (and it is hence best practice to revise the introduction in the last step of your work.
- should tell your reader how you will proceed with your investigation - a passage you should write with an awareness of different options you had when structuring the paper.
Secondary literature
It is good practice to summarise scholarly views right at the beginning rather than to lead a continuous battle between your view and other views throughout the essay. If you are dealing with a big topic try to present secondary literature as a progressing discussion, not as a mixture of individual statements. Think of the debate that produced this research as an exchange of different parties.
Good headlines, good chapters
Think back: Why did I decide to take a look at these topics (these plays, these characters of the play, these aspects of a particular problem...)? Each chapter should be written with an awareness of what you wanted to find out with your investigation. Good headlines will tell your reader why he should take a look at this text/character/aspect - what he is going to find out when reading your chapter.
Good conclusions of the individual chapters should reflect your work: Did you arrive at the result you promised? Do things look more difficult at the end of your research? Or have they become more simple? Both can be interesting results.
The conclusion
A good essay leaves its reader with an awareness that things are much more difficult than considered at first - it inspires more work, shows you got involved in a debate.
You can just as well arrive at the conclusion that the question was asked the wrong way in the beginning - can you present the question that should have been asked at the end?
You can come to the conclusion that the answer did not get you to where you thought to arrive - and that the whole topic is problematic as not leading us any step further. Even professional authors have reached such conclusions; see for example 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 reading - the result was quite on the contrary a wave of research proving him wrong, yet a wave turning an immense interest to his book and his conclusion.
Do not think that you have to give the only and true right answer and that's it. There might not be such an answer. 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, 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 allows you to defend any position you want to defend as 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 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.
But if I am not interested in academic work?
Well actually it is a mark of professionalism if you can start research with the aim to get involved. After all you are expected to do this for the rest of your life: make sure that others get interested in what you are doing. Scientific work is not designed to motivate pupils - it is much rather a test whether you can get the attention of someone interested in the subject matter and whether you will be able to risk a mature tone, a tone in which you are no longer a pupil but a colleague. If you simply feel you are not interested you have possibly just avoided to do the amount of research which would have involved you. Once you have a certain knowledge and understanding of a subject matter you will feel tempted to take part in the exchange. (It can of course happen that you will finally tell the participants of a controversy that they have so far asked the boring questions only...)
How do professors evaluate our work?
Basically we aim at performances you can offer anywhere else publicly and as professional work - at a conference, (or less professionally:) if you had to write a Wikipedia article on the subject matter - though we know of course that you are only writing for us. We wonder whether your text would make sense outside the seminar context. (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 evaluate your work first of all with a look at what you were aiming at: Do 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 simple and not too ambitious ones.
A very good indicator is whether your reader can possibly summarize your work: What was the topic, what points were you trying to make, how did you defend the individual arguments.
Your professor feels in a safe position if he or she could show your work to a colleague (who will not have read the texts you are dealing with) - the virtual or real colleague should be able to make sense of your work and he or she will ideally come to the same evaluation:
- that's very good piece of work - I did not know much about the subject matter, yet I came to realise that this is an interesting topic and I am beginning to understand why people work in this field...
- that's good work, I understood it, and realise the student took a good step with this piece of work.
- that's a satisfying piece of work - the student understood the topic, the questions he or she asked were reasonable, the answers convincing though not very creative, it serves its purpose
- the topic was handled with less care than it deserved, the considerations were not always conclusive, one can accept this piece of work, however, as the student has managed to avoid gross errors
- ...
Practical hints
- Observe the Literary Studies:Style sheet
- Take a look at the Literary Studies:Research guide
- Remember the advice that helped you in your first assignements
