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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:
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Aitchison
notes that in the child’s development of language ‘direct teaching seems to
be a failure’ (Aitchison 1976: 74). |
Please note the position of the
full stop after the reference. 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.
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Dick Leith
also refers to ‘British Black English’, which he describes as |
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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) or even alter the word (eg use a lexical word instead of a pronoun) for the sake of
clarity. You can indicate that you have done this by using square brackets.
(See above.) Please also note the position of the full stop from the quotation,
before the reference. This is one of
the differences between the non-block style quotation and the block style
quotation.
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 dissertations/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: McArthur,
T (1998) The English languages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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 (London: Unwin Hyman), pp. 234–56.
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: 30 July 2000)
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 Britain in 1066’).
• concord: make sure that there is
subject-verb agreement, etc.
• punctuation: when you cite words, terms
and forms, they should be set apart somehow – eg 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 Word 2003
or Word 2007, you should select the
whole text (shortcut: press <Ctrl>+<A> together), then either, in Word 2003, click on <Tools> then select <Language> then select <Set
Language>
then select <English(UK)>
or, in Word 2007, click on <Review>, go to the <Proofing> box and click on <Set
Language> then
select <English(UK)>.
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. Alternatively, go to Conrad’s reference of proof
correction marks (http://www.ideography.co.uk/proof/marks.html) and click on the relevant
link; this is based on the new British standard (BS 5261).