|
|
WRITING ESSAYS ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE A
short guide |
Introduction. Most of the essays in English Language will not
ask you to devise your own theories, but to understand and apply other
people’s terms and ideas and to arrive at your own assessments of them.
What is original is how you interpret the ideas, or how to apply them, or your
critique of these ideas. You will therefore be judged on how well you have done
these things.
Relevance. You need, first of all, to identify
what kind of an essay you have been asked to write — is it
• to
analyse or describe a phenomenon?
• to discuss or evaluate a theory, approach, or
finding?
• to argue for or against a theory or approach?
• to apply a theory or approach to a particular
situation?
It is simply not acceptable
to put down all you know about a topic. Plan your essay so that only what is
needed is put down.
Clarity, coherence, and organisation. You must plan and write your essay
so that your reader can understand your points clearly. This means you have to
use clear language, and explain any claims you make. It is important that your
reader should grasp your main point(s) at the end of your essay. To help your
reader, you should say what the point of your essay is in the
introduction and conclusion of your essay. You can also help your reader along
by using appropriate connectors — like however, similarly, on the other
hand — to show how all your subpoints are
related.
Referencing. Some concepts and ideas are accepted by the
academic community of linguists as a whole, and need not be attributed to particular
people. Most theories and ideas in English Language studies, however, are not
agreed upon by consensus, but have been proposed by particular individuals.
When you refer to these theories, you must say who they ‘belong
to’, by referring to the documentary source of the idea. There are three
main reasons for doing this:
• If you acknowledge your sources, you
tutor can see which are your own ideas and give you credit for them. If you do
not acknowledge your sources, you give the impression that these ideas are
yours, and might lead to an accusation of plagiarism, for which you will be
heavily penalised.
•
Some terms have been used differently by different people; it helps your reader
if you mention your source, so that it will be clear whose use of the
term you are referring to.
•
Different people writing on the same topic might disagree. If you do not say
that these opposing views come from different sources, you might give the
impression that you are contradicting yourself.
When you
refer to what someone else has written you may either quote it or paraphrase
it. If you want to quote something of two lines or less, use inverted commas:
Aitchison notes that, in the
child’s development of language, ‘direct teaching seems to be a
failure’ (Aitchison 1976: 74).
If you want
to quote something longer than two lines, you should begin a new line, and
indent it about ½ inch (about 1.3 centimetres) from
the margin. At the end of the quotation, put down the writer’s surname,
the publication year, and the page(s) from which the quotation is taken.
Dick Leith also refers to
‘British Black English’, which he describes as
the [variety] used by
descendants of West Indian immigrants who were born in English cities and towns
such as London, Manchester, Bristol, Bedford, and the West Midland conurbation
which includes Birmingham and Wolverhampton. (Leith 1987: 307)
Note that
quotations should not stand independently, but be integrated grammatically
within your own sentence. This might mean you will have to alter the form of
the word used in the quotation (eg the tense). You can indicate that you
have done this by using square brackets. (See above.)
Warning on plagiarism. The following constitutes
plagiarism:
• using attributable ideas without
acknowledgement;
• copying of sentences or passages from one or more sources without
acknowledgement;
• closely paraphrasing sentences from your sources or from another
student’s work without acknowledgement; or
• handing in another student’s essay.
The
Department takes a very strong view of this, and the policy is that all
plagiarised work will be failed. The Department will report serious cases to
the Dean for more drastic disciplinary action.
Bibliography (Reference List). At the end of your essay, you should
include a bibliography; this is a list of all the books and articles you have
consulted for your essay, arranged alphabetically. If you quote a lecturer or
lecture notes, ‘lecture notes’ should not appear in the
bibliography. You should simply put the lecturer’s name in brackets after
the quotation or paraphrase. Titles of books and journals are normally
underlined or italicised; titles of articles and theses can be put within
inverted commas. Items in the bibliography should take the following form (take
note of the punctuation, and where italicisation is used):
For books: [Surname], [Initial(s)] [(Year)] [Title]
([City/town of publication]: [Publisher]).
Example: Langford, D (1994) Analysing Talk (
For
articles in journals: [Surname], [Initial(s)] [(Year)] [‘Article
title’], [Journal title] [Volume], [Issue]: [Page numbers].
Example: McWhorter, J H (1995) ‘The scarcity of Spanish-based creoles
explained’, Language in Society 24, 2: 213–44.
For
articles in books: [Surname of article writer], [Initial(s)] [(Year)]
[‘Title of article’], in [Name/s of editor/s] (ed.) [Title of
book] ([City/town of publication]: [Publisher]), pp. [Page numbers].
Example: Haynes, J (1989) ‘Metre and discourse’, in R Carter and P
Simpson (eds.) Language, Discourse and Literature (
For
web pages or web sites: [Surname of author], [Initial(s)] [(Year)]
[‘Title of Web page’], available from [URL], ([access date]). If
the name of the author is unavailable, you can omit it. If the year is not
included on the page, right-click your mouse and select View Info; this
should give you the date when the document was last modified.
Example: Barth, J I (1997)
‘The Importance of a “Pure” Eurasian Identity To Singapore's Multiracial National’, available from http://www.ozemail.com.au/~rbarth/christao/hons1.html
(accessed:
Note that
the quality of material available from the Web can be very variable, and the
rule of thumb is that more weight should be given to material in book or
article form.
Language. Check your essay for errors in
grammar and punctuation, and for any lack of clarity in expression. In
particular, pay attention to:
• tense:
use the present tense to refer to arguments and theories advocated by someone
who is already dead (eg, ‘Saussure makes
a distinction between “langue” and “parole”.’).
Use the past tense only when there is good reason to do so (eg, describing
the procedure of an experiment, describing historical events — eg,
‘The Normans invaded
•
concord: make sure that there is subject-verb
agreement, etc.
•
punctuation: when you cite words, terms and
forms, they should be set apart somehow — e.g., use inverted commas or
underlining or italics. Use square brackets for phonetic transcriptions, oblique
signs for phonemic transcriptions, and angled brackets for graphemic
symbols (eg ‘the phoneme /t/ in English, normally spelt <t>,
has the allophones [t ] and [t h]’).
•
spelling: spelling should normally conform to
British conventions (as represented in, say, the Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English). Most word-processing software comes with a spelling
checker. Do make use of this facility, after you have selected the appropriate
language. In Word97, you should select the whole text (shortcut: press <Ctrl>+<A> together), then click on <Tools> then select <Language> then select <Set
Language> then
select <English (British)>.
Style and Tone. Good style is important; you need to
put down your ideas effectively; pay attention to your sentence structure and
your choice of words. If in doubt, do consult a dictionary.
Most essay topics also
encourage you to give an opinion. There is no need to write ‘I
think’, or ‘in my opinion’, because we assume as much. There
is no general prohibition of the use of the first person singular, but many
students are understandably humble. Aim at a modest, but firm tone.
Many students believe that
they should agree with their tutors’ or lecturers’ opinions —
or at least, that it pays to do so. Tutors can vary widely in the readiness and
vigour with which students express these opinions. However, it is your
opinion that we seek; we expect it to be well informed, clearly expressed and
supported by evidence and argument.
When you have written you
essay, your tutor might make use of some proofreaders’ marks on the text
of your essay. If you have never seen proofreaders’ marks, have a look at
this document: proofreaders’
marks.
Back to the lecture schedule.
Back to the module description.
View a
sample essay.
Comments on essays done.
Essay
Questions for Sem 2, 00/01.
Email me with your comments.
© 2001, Peter Tan
Last updated: 5.1.01