Prepared for the students of literature by Tarun Tapas Mukherjee
Writing for Exams
Writing for exams is necessitated by either evaluation of a course in any stage of learning or measuring the credit of a course after its completion. In the case of a literary course, examiners reward marks on the basis of the following criteria:
- Mastery over the language
- Analytical skills of the learner
- Expansion of knowledge
- Accuracy level of expression
- Musicality
- Handwriting
So what do you need to do?
Address the issues while writing answers
How to?
Mastering the language
Mastery of any language involves using it in a naturalized manner, that is, the language is not foreign any more to you and you have lived long enough inside it to claim it your own.
How to master?
There can be no exact method. But naturalizing depends on the psychological acceptance of the language or being at home with the language. In order to do so, we need to get rid of the inhibitions imposed on us by the culture and our primary language and love the foreign language.for, if you do not love something, it will always remain strange to you.
Then you can proceed with the skills necessary for speaking and writing.
First, be a good listener and then a reader. Writing comes at last.
We all know about enriching the vocabulary. But a dictionary or a thesaurus is not something to be followed or memorized in isolation from the culture of idioms of the language. As language is a product of a culture, it develops idioms over a long time as a result of interesting cultural twists. English is a heavily idiomatic language and so it is essential to understand the context of the idioms, phrases and group verbs and their usage in appropriate places.
This kind of approach can bring in mastery over the language.
Analytical skills
Analytical skills depend primarily on the logical sense of the writer. Logic is the key whick unlocks new areas of interpretation. However, in the Humanities in many cases long-held logical fallacies control our thinking and we end up in circularity of thinking. For this students need to understand the logical fallacies (from Wikipedia etc) and revise their old perceptions and conclusions.
An acute sense of logic makes understanding theories less difficult and sometimes fallacies are detected in theories. For instance, patriarchal insertions.
However, apart from scientific logic there is aesthetic logic which may not always follow the former. But in this case one must be aware of the fact that aesthetic logic should not go against any human interests and rights. Pornography cannot be called beautiful since it involves exploitation of certain humans.
Contextualization: Understanding depends much on proper Contextualization of any being or becoming or doing. Situating in the context of time, place and other important cultural factors makes the perspective bigger and sharper.
Comparison: comparing a literary piece with other art forms helps in better understanding the aesthetic properties and principles and also the theoretical aspects. Comparing Keats’s “Ode to Autumn” with Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony no 6 can bring out the aesthetic reactions in a more effective manner before the examiner.
Scientificity: students of literature have long followed an ardour of almost religious nature in writing. This has no place now, no place for ambiguity and prophecy. Better to include perspectives from the social sciences, evolutionary Aesthetics and evolutionary Psychology and genetics. Data mining can be done through the internet.
Expansion of knowledge
Expansion of knowledge is measured up by the examiner. However it should not be a matter of showoff or display. Knowledge needs to be presented in an organic manner. That is, including things in a naturalized manner.
Accuracy level
Quality of answers depends largely on the accuracy level. Accuracy depends on a fine grasp of the subject and the skill of putting it in language. This is not an innate quality, rather a social skill to be honed through practice. What matters most in a well-written piece is appropriate use of words, phrases and idioms. This makes the piece lucid in contrast to vague or complex pieces of writing.
Musicality
English is very much musical in nature owing to a great tradition of literature and wide-ranging global use for a long time. A writer needs to understand this quality from the practice of great writers, particularly from keats letters, and apply it to writing. For this, follow the iambic and trochaic practices and try to understand how certain patterns of ups and downs create melody in a piece of writing.
Handwriting
If it is handwritten, all know it is important to have good Handwriting. Search the web and see youtube videos on Handwriting.
Finally the spirit of of writing
Remember the simple formula: Explain a part or the whole in relation to the central idea or thesis or main theme of a literary piece. It is like creating a spiral out of a point, which is the centre of the spiral. For instance, the character of Macbeth needs to be analyzed in relation to the main theme of the play, that is, power-play. It is essential to understand the central theme of any literary piece and then apply yourself with your knowledge, analytical skills, language skills and musicality.
In the course of practice, the skills develop to become naturalized and expressions come along naturally.
How to Write a Term Paper
Please note writing term papers is your first step towards higher research in future.
Guidelines
A. Select your topic
B. Abstract: Include a thesis statement in the abstract: the central point of what you intend to discuss, argue, discover, establish etc. Briefly introduce the theme and tell the readers how you intend to proceed. The thesis statement or research question must be original and novel and not outdated, cliched. Avoid making the article a commentary or critical appreciation or review.
C. Introduction: Introduce the scholarly problem/discovery/points of analysis.
D. Developing argument: Develop your arguments or establish your points by a detailed analysis supported by the textual references and the established critical opinions. Use inside-the-body citations. Verify the citations of authorities also as things may change with the change of time and new discovery/insights may come out.
Break your discussion into paras on the basis of reasoning in order to make the article thematically coherent and critically sound. All the paras need to be thematically linked.
E. Conclusion: Conclusion should not be a summary of what you have already said before. You need to provide new insights/arguments/discoveries etc on the basis of your arguments supported by the text and the critical opinions. So be confidently critical and definitive. Vagueness is to be avoided.
F. References: You need to prove that you have consulted enough critical opinions in order to make your points. Use at least 10 references [not just names]
Full length: A full-length article needs to be 2000 words ideally for M.A standard.
Avoid first person view and pronouns, activistic utterances, gender/language/culture bias, overstatement.
Please note writing term papers is your first step towards higher research in future
You can also follow
https://m.wikihow.com/Write-a-Term-Paper
https://www.aresearchguide.com/write-a-term-paper.html
Writing for Magazines
Magazines evolved as a site of reflections of the hopes and aspirations of the middle class. For this writers needed to address the issues involved in such fulfillment. This made the writers develop a style of presenting the contents that would facilitate a class communication in a stereotypical manner. The class alignment also made it possible to become an ideological site and tool as well for the classes in power. Of course, there were exceptions who made magazines a site for exchanging ideas that would change society with ‘ideas’.
After developments of several centuries magazines have now turned into a site for popular contents, things which the literate mass will understand and relate to their own lives.
Because of this kind of nature magazines demand popular writings. Now if you want to write for a magazine, you will have to obey the popular rules set by the editors of it.
- Selection of content: in a magazine generally content areas are decided by the editorial board and authors need to respond to the call by keeping in mind the specific instructions. A magazine writer needs to make preparation accordingly.
- Time bound nature: writing for a magazine is mainly a time-bound task.
- Word limit : Print magazines have limitations of page run. So length of any piece is vital for the editor.
- Language and style: A magazine author needs to adopt a style suitable for the mass and the language needs to be free from jargons.
- Contemporaneity: Magazines publish writings more on contemporary subjects. Rarely do magazines publish things of the past except for in-memoriam type.
- Flexibility: Magazines however possess greater flexibility than scholarly journals in that magazines can publish scholarly and creative writing as well.
Writing for Academic Journal
An academic journal is purely a place for publishing original research works or new insights or short surveys and reviews following certain international standards that arose from the culture scientific treatises following the spirit and guidelines of the Enlightenment. It has never been a place of repetition and in-memoriums. Academic journals never serve the popular taste nor endorse current ideology. Its free nature encourages free thinking fresh insights based on scientific temperament.
Why and when write for journals?
As already stated academic journals are for publication of original research for the existing scholarly readership which is comprised of experts in the field and new researcher. So before writing for a journal one must be thoroughly acquainted with the established researches in the field through books and journals. After spending sufficient time, a researcher in the Humanities can proceed to present individual original insights, discoveries and researches preferably in consultation with a supervisor or expert. Number of publication does not matter much. What matters most is the originality of research, depth of insight and rigorous scholarly discipline.
Peer review
The conce of peer review arose among the scientific communities for the sake checking validity of research and the outcomes. When the humanities started following it, it came to refer to a group of experts in the field, who can judge the importance and validity of research. They are called reviewers in a journal. In peer review, reviewers are expected to show their scholarly integrity and professional ethics. It is more a matter of guiding budding scholars than a matter of exercising power from high altar.
Guidelines
- Include a thesis statement in the abstract: the central point of what you intend to discuss, argue, discover, establish etc. Briefly introduce the theme and tell the readers how you intend to proceed. The thesis statement or research question must be original and novel and not outdated, cliched. Avoid making the article a commentary or critical appreciation or review.
- Introduction: Introduce the scholarly problem/discovery/points of analysis.
- Developing argument: Develop your arguments or establish your points by a detailed analysis supported by the textual references and the established critical opinions. Use inside-the-body citations. Verify the citations of authorities also as things may change with the change of time and new discovery/insights may come out.
- Break your discussion into some parts on the basis of reasoning in order to make the article thematically coherent and critically sound. All the parts need to be thematically linked.
- Conclusion: Conclusion in a journal article should not be a summary of what you have said before. You need to provide new insights/arguments/discoveries etc on the basis of your arguments supported by the text and the critical opinions. So be confidently critical and definitive. Vagueness is to be avoided.
- References: You need to prove that you have consulted enough critical opinions in order to make your points. Use at least 20 references [not just names]
- Full length: A full-length article needs to be 5000 words ideally.
- Avoid first person view and pronouns, activistic utterances, gender/language/culture bias, overstatement.
- The language should be of international standard.
