How to Write an Essay :: essays research papers fc

1. What is an essay?An organised collection of YOUR IDEAS about literary texts nicely written and professionally rescueed . In other words, the essay moldiness be well structured (ie organised) and presented in a way that the reader finds easy to follow and clear it must look tidy and not present any obstacles to the reader. It must have a clear readable inte easinessing style. But, above all, it must consist of your ideas about literary texts. This is the centre of it this, and this only, gets the marks. Not quotes from critics, not generalisations at second hand about literary history, not filling and padding your thoughts, that you have had while in the act of reading specific bits of literary texts, which can be adduced in the form of quotations to back up your arguments.2. Why write in this way?2.1 Learning how to write professionallyIn the slope Department you learn how to respond to literary texts. This is an interesting and worthwhile thing to do, but unless you become a t eacher of English remarkably few tidy sum in later life will be interested in your thoughts about Jane Austen. What they will be interested in (Im talking about probable employers at once, but not only them) is your ability to talk, to think, and to write. This part of the course is where you learn to write professionally. The guidelines that follow tell you how to do it, or rather how to learn to do it. They set a higher standard than is usually asked of a first year undergraduate essay in this Department. This is for the following reasons. (1) I think its my argument to offer you the best advice I can, not to tell you how to get by. (2) If you learn what these guidelines teach, you will get better marks in all the essays you do from now on until finals. You will surprise the markers with the quality of your presentations, by producing a better quality than they expect. (3) You will learn a skill, a not-very-hard-to-learn skill, that will last you for the rest of your life.3. Co llecting the materialThe first task is to get the material together. The material comes in two kinds primary and secondary sources. Primary sources in this case be literary texts the actual material that you work on. Secondary sources are works of criticism. Here is your Second Important Message