Language Matters

In class we have spent time speaking about the appropriate paragraph structure for an analytical English essay (STEW) and also the use of a more academic style language (nominalisation; qualifiers). However, we have not spent much time discussing the structure of the essay as a whole.

I like to think that writing essays is a creative activity – I personally get much pleasure from writing an analysis of a text. I get to express my views on a text and what I feel it is telling me about the world and why the responder wishes to convey this message in a certain way. The fact that I get to manipulate language myself in order to express these ideas is an added bonus.Because I find writing essays such a pleasurable experience, I don’t like being told how I have to do it. I like playing around with the form of an essay. Sometimes I’ll write from the first person, when I’m really passionate about a text (usually this is poem), and sometimes I’ll write in the third-person and imagine that I’m a university professor being paid to analyse my favourite piece of literature. Yet, I am a firm believer that one must KNOW the rules before one can effectively SUBVERT the rules. This applies to essay writing as much as it applies to life in a capitalist democratic society.

Of course, not everyone is as English-geeky as me. Some people (OK, lots of people) find analysing a text and then writing about it quite difficult and therefore need some rules to abide by. It’s easy when you’re doing something for the first time, or for something really important (like an assessment task) that you have a guide or a model to look at.

Sooo … I have always taught AOS essays in a specific way. Most of you guys would be familiar with this style. I’ll outline it below:

Introduction: Respond to question. List your texts. Outline your three thesis points to be addressed.

P1: Thesis One. Text One.

p2: Thesis One. Text Two.

p3: Thesis Two. Text One

p4: Thesis Two. Text Two.

p5: Thesis Three. Text One.

p6: Thesis Three. Text Two.

Conclusion: Summarise your points, relist your texts. Awesome concluding statement.

Now this has worked well when comparing TWO texts. But when more than two texts are compared, the essay can become quite long and the analysis is quite superficial – you just don’t get any depth to your argument. Another problem arises when the ‘thesis points’ are quite distinct – in that they don’t allow for any logical development in your argument. An argument is what drives your essay – it is the reason that you have written an essay in the first place (apart from the obvious ‘teacher made me do it’ reason). You are asked a question by the examiner, and you need to take a position and support it with evidence and analysis. That’s why you write an essay – to argue a point of view.

So, an alternative structure that I have derived is shown below:

Introduction: Respond to question. List your texts. Outline your one over-arching thesis points to be addressed. Outline your TWO sub-thesis points specific to each text.

p1:Text One. Specific Thesis Point. First and second examples.

p2: Text One. Specific Thesis Point. Third and Fourth examples.

p3: Text Two. Specific Thesis Point. First and second examples.

p4: Text Two. Specific Thesis Point. Third and Fourth examples.

Conclusion: Summarise your points, relist your texts. Awesome concluding statement.

The structure above links the texts through one general thesis point (e.g. It is in the act of discovering the truth that the most significant conflicts arise.) Each text reflects this notion of conflict (discovery of truth as catalyst for conflict) yet in differing ways (e.g. Oedipus discovers truth of his parentage and Plath’s persona discovers failing of religion to provide hope).

I have found a great website that suggests another way of structuring a comparing/contrast essay, and I really like it. It is similar to both of the structures outlined above, yet it makes a point of stressing the importance of an argument coming to a logical conclusion. See the site to help you see what I mean: http://karolus.net/contr.html

Looking over the essay of top students from the last few years, I feel that there is no ‘correct’ essay structure. What you must ensure is that you spend some time planning your response BEFORE you start writing. You need to think about HOW your texts connect in relation to conflict, and also how they do not. As you write your essay you should attempt to link between your texts using those ‘transitionary phrases’ (A comparison can be drawn between ‘Opedipus the King’ and ‘Nick and the Candlestick’ in that they both explore the notion of an internal conflict catalysed by external factors OR Interestingly, Plath suggests that organised religion is the source of conflict, whereas Sophocles suggests that it is man himself). So really, you’re intertwining them throughout your essay.

Off now to write a post on possible related texts as this seems to be of interest to a number of you.