This chapter deals with the writing of comparatively extended pieces of written work: reports, presentations, essays, and theses. To these are added brief sections on research, on presenting material in lists, and on writing a list of references or a bibliography, tasks which may be relevant to any of these types of writing.
A period of time for research will need to be built into the schedule for most extended pieces of writing. In the case of a doctoral thesis for a university, the collection of data usually takes a number of years. The brief suggestions made here relate more to research for which a shorter time is available.
To plan your research you will need to compile a list of what information you need to obtain and what questions you have to ask to obtain it. From this you can then draw up a list of possible sources: people involved in the activity you are researching, well-informed personal contacts, publications, previous research reports, etc. The various types of research take different amounts of time. Interviewing or surveying a group of people will in most cases demand more time than reading publications or searching the Internet. Allowance for all of these needs to be made in scheduling.
There are two matters that are important when you set out to obtain research data directly from individuals by means of interviews or questionnaires. The first is the principle of ‘informed consent’. The people you speak to should be told the purpose of the research and how the data you collect from them will be used. It may be useful to compile a short written statement of your aims that you can send to people or give them to read before the interview. Likewise, it is courteous to offer to send to people whom you interview at length, or who make a major contribution to your project, a brief summary of your findings when the exercise is completed.
The second important matter is that of confidentiality. It is vital to obtain consent, preferably written consent, from people if you intend to use their real names in a published work. In many cases, however, fictional names or lettered or numbered references (Respondent A, Interviewee 2, etc.) are used in place of real names to ensure confidentiality. If you are going to use fictional names, you should explain the procedure you are adopting to your respondents and, again, obtain their consent to it. Remember that organizations may be wary of being referred to by name as well, and that if you do refer to an organization by its real name and then use a job title to denote an individual, that is tantamount to identifying that individual by name.
Teachers and lecturers frequently provide a book list to assist students in researching an essay topic. It is not usually possible or even necessary to read every word of every book on the list. Use the contents page and the index to locate the sections that relate specifically to the topic you are interested in or skim-read the book, scanning mainly the first lines of paragraphs, to locate the relevant material. If you are pressed for time, it may be counterproductive to get too involved in a book – however intrinsically fascinating and worthwhile – if large sections of it are of no direct use in your project.
Make a careful note of the publication details of every book you consult, when you consult it, so that you do not need to go back to the book again when you are preparing your bibliography (see the section ‘References’, pp. 291–2).
The Internet gives access to a vast amount of information on almost every imaginable subject. To locate material on the Internet, go through your service provider to one of the main search engines. Typing in a keyword (e.g, Shakespeare, biodiversity, Gettysbury (battle of)) will then produce a list of sites you can visit, often including sites with links to further related sites. The results are usually valuable, but the process is somewhat hit and miss, as search engines sometimes list sites that are no longer operative. Researching via the Internet is not necessarily quicker than reading books.
The taking of accurate notes, of course, is crucial for all types of research. For advice on that subject, please see the section ‘Note-taking’, pp. 295–300.
The size and scope of reports differ widely. They may fill only one or two pages; they may extend to the size of a small book. The term ‘report’ may suggest something that is entirely factual and objective. This is not always the case, however, as the reporter might be intending to use the opportunity to put forward a particular point of view or to propose a particular course of action. It is vital to distinguish in report-writing between what is objective fact and what is opinion, what was observed or obtained from tests and surveys, and what are conclusions drawn by the reporter or recommendations that he or she wishes to make.
No two reports will necessarily have or demand the same structure -though if the preparation of reports is a task that you have to undertake frequently, some degree of standardization is advisable. The following is intended as a general outline. Some of these sections can be dispensed with in some reports, especially shorter ones.
List of contents
Summary
Introduction – terms of reference, background
Facts
Analysis and discussion of factual material
Conclusions
Recommendations
Appendices
References
Any report of more than a few pages will benefit from having a list of contents. Though it comes first, it should be prepared last, when all the material is complete. A list of contents is of little use, however, unless a consistent system of headings and numbers has been applied to the various sections of the report.
Each section of even the shortest report should have a heading. Generally speaking, subsections should be given a heading as well, one that is typographically distinct from the section headings. Section headings might, for example be given all in large capitals:
1. INTRODUCTION or in bold: 1. Introduction. Subsections could then be headed in italics: 1.1. Terms of reference or in italics and underlined: 1.1. Terms of reference.
The commonest and most generally useful numbering system for reports and similar pieces of writing is a decimal one. Each section has a number, each subsection has a number within the section, each paragraph has a number within the subsection. For example:
3.1. Results from questionnaires
3.1.1. The results from the questionnaires were collated…
It is important that the numbering and the system of headings should be consistent throughout the report.
The summary, like the table of contents, is one of the things you write last. (For general advice on writing summaries, see the section ‘Summaries, pp. 300–304). Its purpose is to summarize the whole report, including any conclusions and recommendations, in the space of approximately a single page. The reader should be able to gauge from the summary (together with the contents list) what has been discovered and decided and whether he or she need read the whole report.
The most important part of the introductory section is a setting out of the terms of reference of the report: a precise definition of the report’s scope. In most cases someone else will have decided what is to be looked into, which particular aspects of the subject are to be covered, and how far the reporters are supposed to go in drawing conclusions and making recommendations. If you are compiling a report at your own initiative, then you will need to set your own terms of reference and state them clearly – they determine the scope and shape of the report and it is impossible to produce an effective report without a clear objective. Such a statement might read:
To investigate the various means of heating the planned new council premises in Shadow Lane, to assess each in terms of its suitability, cost-effectiveness, and environmental impact, and to make appropriate recommendations to the council.
In addition to setting out the terms of reference, the introduction should provide any background information the reader might require. This will generally include:
a description of the circumstances that led to the production of the report;
a statement of the existing position;
a history of the events that brought about the present state of affairs;
an account of the methods used to gather information and assess it; and
a list of the people who conducted the investigation and are presenting the report.
The body of the report contains both the factual material gathered by investigators and their analysis of that material. It will depend on particular circumstances whether fact and analysis are presented in separate sections or whether analysis proceeds alongside the presentation of facts. This part of a report will typically consist of a mixture of ordinary discursive prose and information presented in the form of lists and tables. For advice on the latter, see the section ‘Lists’, pp. 279–83.
A report should be readable and easy to follow. It should be written in a fairly formal style – as, for example, in the extract from a fund manager’s report below – without being too pompous, impersonal, or technical:
Outlook and Future Policy
With UK interest rates at or near their peak, it appears that the Bank of England may have managed to engineer a ‘soft landing’ for the economy. Having been through its first business cycle since independence from the Treasury, the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) will be anticipating that the… company earnings outlook should enable acceleration in growth instead of a drift back towards recession. In summary, the prudent management of the UK economy seems to be providing an encouraging environment for further growth in equity markets…
(Barclays Combined Income Fund, Manager’s Interim Report, September 2000, Barclays Fund Limited)
Headings and subheadings break up the page and make it easier on the eye, as well as acting as an outline guide to the progress of the argument. In order to keep the reader’s attention on the main thrust of the report, it may be useful to put any particularly detailed pieces of information, research data, or case studies into footnotes or appendices. It should be borne in mind, however, that if readers who are in a hurry omit anything, then notes and appendices are likely not to be read.
For discussion of the use of paragraphs, see pp. 231–5.
Even if conclusions and recommendations emerge, or begin to emerge, in the body of the report, they should still be gathered together and presented in two separate sections at the end. Not all reports are required to produce recommendations but when they are asked for they should be given a separate section.
The purpose of an appendix, as mentioned above, is to take particularly complex data or information from the main text where it might interrupt the reader’s progress unnecessarily. References will be necessary when a good deal of the information on which the report is based has been taken from published sources. For advice on the presentation of references, see the section ‘References’, pp. 291–2.
A presentation differs from every other piece of work so far discussed in this book, inasmuch as it is intended for delivery by a speaker to a live audience. A good deal of writing, nevertheless, goes into the preparation of a speech, lecture, talk, or presentation to a group of business people or colleagues.
Assuming that the writer is preparing a presentation for delivery in person, then he or she is no longer the ‘invisible writer’ referred to at the beginning of this part of the book (p. 181). It is even more important when directing a presentation to a live audience rather than to ‘invisible readers’ to know your listeners and to work out in advance their probable knowledge of the subject you are dealing with. As teachers and university lecturers know only too well, students cannot be relied on to have read the books they are supposed to. Some audiences come as much to be entertained as to be informed. Most audiences contain many people who have only a basic knowledge of the subject, but at the same time most audiences contain at least one or two people who know at least as much about the topic as the speaker, if not more. Do not assume too much, but at the same time do not talk down to your audience. If you are making a presentation to an audience of your peers, then as with composing a report or any other piece of writing, you have greater licence to ‘talk shop’ and use technical vocabulary. If you are addressing a mixed audience, then do not necessarily bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, but, even more importantly, do not aim to impress the world expert who you know is going to be present. It stands to reason that a presenter should know more about the particular subject that he or she is speaking on than the bulk of the audience. Nevertheless, a well-prepared, well-presented talk that gives the speaker’s personal slant on a subject and is enlivened by his or her own enthusiasm and interests is a satisfying experience in itself, and usually an enlightening one even for the expert.
A reader proceeds at his or her own pace and can go back and read again anything that he or she has not grasped the first time. Listeners are directly dependent on the speaker. Repetition and recapitulation (preferably not in exactly the same words) need to be built in. The presentation must be paced in such a way that listeners can keep up. Above all, the organization of the material should be plain and the language used by the speaker should be clear and, as far as possible, simple. As has been noted before, ideally the simplicity of the language should increase as the subject becomes more complex. Using clear and simple language should unite a mixed audience: the less well-informed will be able to understand and the better-informed will be able to firm up their understanding.
No two audiences are the same. The size of the audience usually has a bearing on the tone of the presentation. Generally speaking, a more informal and conversational tone is suitable for a small gathering, and, as the size of the audience increases, the tone needs to become more formal. Interaction with the audience – in the form of questions and answers – is easier when numbers are small. There is a difference between a seminar where participants often expect, and are expected, to contribute and a lecture where questions, if allowed at all, are only usually allowed at the end. A less experienced speaker addressing a largish audience is probably best advised to restrict questions to the end. An interruption in the middle can quite easily relate to something you were going to discuss anyway, forcing you to rearrange your material, or divert you on to a relatively minor topic, giving you less time to communicate the more important matters.
Because no two audiences are the same, speakers and presenters need to be both clear about what they want to put across and yet flexible about how precisely they do it. It can often happen that you speak on the same subject on two different occasions and find that the first audience catches on quickly and you have time to spare, while on the second occasion the audience needs a far more thorough explanation of the main points and time runs out fast. Both possibilities need to be taken into account in your preparation.
Speakers are usually bound by time in a way that writers are not, so it is wise, first of all, to have a clock or watch positioned where you can see it easily while making the presentation. It is better to finish slightly early than late. But it is not a good thing to run out of things to say well in advance of time so that you have to rely on questions – of which there may be none, or no useful ones – to fill up your allotted span. To guard against the possibility of petering out, you should, ideally, have more to say than you actually intend or need to say.
At the same time, you need to know the relative importance of all the points on your list. When you are collecting material, it should be allocated to one of three categories: things that the audience must be told; things that it would be useful for the audience to know; things that it would be nice to mention but which are not vital. The items in the first category are what the presentation is all about and must be communicated. You would expect to be able to deal with at least some of the items in the second category, subject to fitting them around those in the first. The items in the third category are there mainly to enable you to keep going interestingly if the take-up of the material in categories one and two is swift. You do not necessarily have to structure the whole thing so that the unimportant material is all left to last. A main point might have attached to it some category two or three material that you can insert if things are going well. As long as the main points are identified and put across clearly in the time available, the rest is a matter of judgment.
The old adage runs: ‘Tell ’em what you’re going to say, say it, then tell ‘em you’ve said it.’ It works. An introduction – in which you outline the material that you intend to present – a presentation in full of the essential material together with as much of the ‘useful’ and ‘nice’ items as time allows, followed by a recapitulation of the main points is the scheme to adopt. The main structural difference between a presentation and, for example, a report is the importance of the ending. Whereas readers of a report might be content to read only the initial summary and might expect to stop before the end, the audience will remain until the end, may remember best what you said last, and may want something which they can applaud. A strong conclusion – some people suggest a final meaningful question (Can we really allow this situation to continue?) or a call to action (We know the problem; we know the solution. Now let’s do something about it) – is necessary. The audience needs to be reminded, finally, what it has all been about and they need to know that you are coming to an end. Don’t let the presentation fade out. Even if you keep the less important material for the latter part of your talk, finish by returning to the main theme and restating it powerfully. This usually means devoting a good deal of preparation time to your closing words.
How much a speaker should write down is a moot point. All the experts are agreed that it is a bad thing to read a speech or even to write a speech, memorize it, and deliver it from memory. Speakers have to be able to think on their feet, react to the audience, and react to the passing of time. If you are tied to a written or memorized text, you do not have the freedom to adjust. If you are looking at a piece of paper, you cannot look at the audience and establish a rapport with them.
On the other hand, an inexperienced speaker especially may feel that he or she needs the reassurance provided by a full text. The answer is to write down what you have to say as fully as you like – always bearing in mind that you are going to be saying it out loud – but not to be dependent on the text in that form when you deliver it. There are various ways in which this can be done. First, you can write out the text in an easily legible form – double-spaced, clearly printed – with the crucial statements or points highlighted in some way. Your aim is to get from one highlighted point to the next, not necessarily following the exact wording of the original, though if you have taken the trouble to write it out and then read it through a few times, a good deal of the original wording will undoubtedly remain in your mind. Alternatively, having written out a full version, you can condense it into a one- or two-page summary or a set of cards (numbered and perhaps loosely attached at the corners) that you can take into the lecture hall with you.
Visual aids, such as a whiteboard, flip chart, slides, or transparencies projected from an overhead projector, are often extremely useful in making a presentation. The crucial matter is to ensure that they add to, and do not detract from, your efforts as a speaker. Do check that all the equipment you need to use is set up and working properly before you begin, and that any slides or transparencies are in the right order and ready to be inserted the right way up. Make sure that anything you write or hang on a board is clearly visible to the audience, and try to arrange matters so that you spend as little time as possible with your back to them.
The same basic rule applies to text handouts. It is sometimes advised that handouts should be distributed at the end of the session – unless people need to refer to them as you go through your talk. If you hand them out at the beginning, the audience may be more interested in reading them than in listening to you.
It is beyond the scope of this book to give more than a few hints for the effective delivery of a spoken text. Look at the audience, and smile occasionally. Humour is a welcome ingredient in any speech, but don’t strain to be funny or set too much store by any one joke in case it falls flat. It is helpful to identify one or two friendly faces in the audience that you can rest on periodically to give yourself confidence. But everybody in the room needs to feel that you are speaking to them, so let your gaze go over the whole assembly from time to time. Do not stare at the clock or ceiling or out of the window. If you have notes or cards to hold, it gives you something to do with your hands. Try not to fidget or fiddle, but gestures can help to put points across and to establish contact with the audience. Speak reasonably slowly and do not be afraid to pause occasionally – nerves and inexperience often make speakers talk too hurriedly. Remember the audience has to keep up by listening and understanding as you go along. Since this is a fairly trying occasion, especially if it is your first experience of public speaking, take time not only to prepare, but also to rehearse. Read your written text out loud – if you have prepared one – and rehearse speaking out loud from your notes, cards, or summary. It may help to tape yourself doing this or to find some sympathetic friend or colleague to listen to you. It is usual to feel tense or nervous before you start – even experienced speakers and experienced actors do. If you are well prepared and well rehearsed, however, your confidence will grow as you warm to your subject and you will deserve the applause you receive at the end.
Lists are a very useful way both of breaking up a solid run of text, thus giving a more interesting look to a page, and of highlighting particular points. A lengthy sentence such as:
The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the formation of a subcommittee to report on the feasibility of building an extension to the existing village hall, to select the members of the subcommittee, to establish its terms of reference, to agree a budget for its work, and to set a date for the presentation of its report.
could equally well be set out in the form of a list.
The purpose of this meeting is:
to discuss the formation of a subcommittee to report on the feasibility of building an extension to the existing village hall;
to select the members of the subcommittee;
to establish its terms of reference;
to agree a budget for its work;
to set a date for the presentation of its report.
The list takes up considerably more space on the page than the original sentence, but it is much more readable.
There are two matters that sometimes cause problems when material such as this is set out in list form. One is grammatical continuity between the opening section of the sentence and the listed items; the other is punctuation within the list. These will now be looked at separately.
It is all too easy to forget that a list of this kind should be subject to the normal rules of grammar – it is, after all, often an ordinary sentence that is being presented in a different format. Consequently, the items in the list should run parallel to each other as far as their grammatical structure is concerned. To put that another way: you should be able to attach the introductory clause or phrase to any item on the list and the result should be a grammatical sentence. You should also be able to attach it to each of the items in turn and come up with roughly the same sort of sentence each time. Consider the following:
After lengthy discussion, the committee agreed that:
the present schedule was unrealistic
a new schedule would have to he drawn up
to ask the project leader to set a new finishing date for the project
to consider hiring more staff and
making new funding available
As a series of rough preliminary jottings such a list might be all right, but it is unsatisfactory as a final product. It would be grammatical nonsense to write: The committee agreed that to ask the project leader or The committee agreed that to consider hiring new staff or The committee agreed that making new funding available. What has happened here is that the introductory clause has been lost sight of as the list goes on. If the introduction had simply read the committee agreed: then it would have been in order to continue to ask the project leader or to consider hiring more staff.
Either the wording of the items on the list or the wording of the introductory clause needs to be changed in order to achieve a satisfactorily parallel structure.
After lengthy discussion, the committee agreed that:
the present schedule was unrealistic
a new schedule would have to be drawn up
the project leader should be asked to set a new finishing date for the project
she should consider hiring more staff and
new funding should be made available
There is not an exact parallelism in that most of the verbs are passive and she should consider hiring is an active construction, but that does not affect the grammatical soundness of the whole. An alternative solution might be:
After lengthy discussion, the committee agreed:
that the present schedule was unrealistic
that a new schedule would have to he drawn up
to ask the project leader to set a new finishing date for the project
to consider hiring more staff and
to make new funding available
Since the verb agree can be followed either by a that clause or by an infinitive with to, there are no objections to the above on grammatical grounds, even though the items are not exactly parallel.
The examples in the previous section have been deliberately left unpunctuated. The general conventions for punctuating lists are relatively simple.
The introductory clause should end with a colon. The items in the list – if they are not complete sentences – should begin with a small letter and end with a semicolon. If the final item in the list represents the end of the sentence, then it should end with a full stop.
After lengthy discussion, the committee agreed that:
– the present schedule was unrealistic;
– a new schedule would have to be drawn up;
– the project leader should be asked to set a new finishing date for the project;
– she should consider hiring more staff; and
– new funding should be made available.
Notice that in the entry before last the semicolon comes before and. If for any reason the sentence continues beyond the last item in the list, then that item too ends with a semicolon:
After lengthy discussion, the committee agreed that:
– the present schedule was unrealistic; and
– a new schedule would have to be drawn up;
and that the project leader should be asked to:
– set a new finishing date for the project;
– hire more staff; and
– apply for increased funding;
subject always to the approval of the board of directors.
Variations on putting a semicolon at the end of individual items in the list are a comma or even to leave it with no punctuation. The final item in the list, since it represents the end of the sentence, should, however, always end up with a full stop.
Where the items on the list are complete sentences, however, and are not grammatically dependent on the opening statement, they should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop or a question mark.
There are three main objections to the proposal:
1. The proposed site is close to the river and might be subject to flooding.
2. The existing access road is very narrow and would need to be widened.
3. Traffic to and from the site will pass the local primary school causing additional road safety problems particularly at the beginning and end of the school day.
Or:
The questions we must ask ourselves, are these:
Why have standards declined so markedly over the last three years?
Can responsibility for the decline in standards be laid at the door of any particular individuals?
If so, what should be done with those people?
and most importantly:
How can the situation be remedied?
Generally speaking, short lists do not need to be numbered and the items are best prefaced with a dash (–) or a bullet (●). Longer lists, or lists in which the individual items need to be specifically referred back to, are best numbered with Arabic numerals (with or without full stops) or by bracketed small letters (a), (b), (c) etc. Small Roman numerals (i), (ii), (iii) are best reserved for subdivisions within a list.
The estimate should include the following:
(a) the cost of renewing the flat roof over the garage:
(i) if the existing boards are sound;
(ii) if the existing boards need replacing;
(b) the cost of making good the slate roof at the back of the house…
It is unlikely that anyone who is not a professional writer or scholar will have to write an essay outside the context of an academic course. While concentrating on essay-writing, this section will also comment on academic writing in general.
English literature is rich in essays – the names Francis Bacon, Charles Lamb, and George Orwell spring immediately to mind. There is a great deal to be learnt from the work of such writers, particularly Orwell as a relatively modern exponent of the genre. For additional and more recent inspiration, however, the aspiring essay-writer is recommended to look at good-quality journalism and good-quality critical writing. An editorial is a small-scale essay; an article in a newspaper or magazine discussing a particular topic is a larger-scale one. There are some differences in the style appropriate to journalism and the style required for academic exercises, but, nevertheless, techniques of discussion and argument can be learnt from journalistic sources. Likewise, when you search for information and ideas in books written by experts, look also at the way the experts have tackled the subject and the style they have used.
In the vast majority of cases essays are written on a subject set by a tutor or examiner. If you do not understand or interpret the title correctly, you are unlikely to produce work that will satisfy whoever set it and has to mark it. Look carefully at the title and sort out which are the key words in it – not only those that relate to the subject, but also those that relate to the type of treatment of the subject that is expected. If you are asked, for example, to Analyse the causes of the French Revolution, nothing will be gained by simply latching on to the words French Revolution and giving a potted history of events in France from 1789 to, say, 1794. A straightforward listing of the various historical events, economic factors, etc., that led up to the Revolution is unlikely to fare much better. Some form of analysis – an attempt to rank the various causes in order of their importance or a comparison of what one historian suggests were the major causes with those suggested by another – is necessary to fulfil the requirements of the question.
By and large, examiners and other essay-setters do not play tricks on the people who are writing for them. The nature of the task is indicated in the title – the essay-writer merely has to interpret it correctly. The majority of essays fall into one of five different categories:
1. Descriptive or narrative essays (key words: describe, outline, summarize, give an account of, etc.). This is probably the easiest type of essay to write as it simply requires you to marshal the factual information you have on a subject in a clear and logical fashion.
2. Analytical essays (keywords: analyse, assess, evaluate, examine, investigate, how far…, to what extent…). These require more in-depth knowledge of the subject. The writer needs to be able to break down the topic into its major parts and ask, and provide answers to, relevant questions relating to it. He or she also needs to be able to evaluate the relative importance of a number of different factors. A question such as To what extent is the economy of the eastern central United States dependent on the Mississippi River? involves not only a knowledge of the contribution that the river makes to trade, but also a weighing up of the importance of other areas of the economy that have nothing to do with the river.
3. ‘Compare and contrast’ essays. These demand a mixture of factual knowledge and critical thinking. Generally speaking, the differences between two people or things are more interesting and important than the similarities, and the structure of the essay should reflect this. (A good approach is to devote a single section to the factors that things have in common and a number of separate sections to the factors that distinguish them from each other.)
4. Discussion essays. This is the type of essay that usually leaves most freedom to the writer. Typically, the title puts forward a controversial statement of opinion on a topic: ‘He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.’ Discuss. The writer then has the choice of either adopting a neutral stance, giving equal weight to both sides of the question in the body of the essay before coming to a personal conclusion, or embracing one point of view enthusiastically and trying to refute the arguments that might be put by the other side. In both cases, however, it is necessary to know what might be said for and against a particular position.
5. Explanatory essays (the key words are usually question words such as what…?, how…?, why…?). Such essays mainly call on factual knowledge. A question such as What is meant by ‘biodiversity’? is intended to bring out your own understanding of the term and your knowledge of how leading thinkers in the field have interpreted it. You would also need to support your conclusions by references (using this example) to natural environments.
The importance of planning has been emphasized throughout this book. Essay-writers, including examination candidates, should need no reminding that time spent in planning generally means less time taken in writing and a more satisfactory result overall.
The structure of an essay is to a large extent dictated by convention, though it does not differ radically from the structure of most other pieces of writing. An academic essay must have an introduction, it must have a conclusion, and there should be a sufficient number of sections or paragraphs between these two to accommodate the various ideas and arguments that the writer is putting forward. But, whereas in a great deal of business writing the advice is to start with your conclusion – because you cannot be sure that your reader will stay to the end – the essay-writer can usually count on a reader having to, and hopefully wanting to, read the whole essay. Consequently, you should not express all your arguments at the outset.
When planning an essay, it is probably best to organize the body of the essay first. Sort out the material you have gathered from your reading or other research into sections corresponding to the points you wish to make and arrange these in a clear and logical order. Remember that this progression must be clear and convincing to the reader as well as to yourself. When you have done this, writing the introduction should be comparatively easy because its main function, in addition to providing any essential background information, is to set out the method or approach you propose to adopt in tackling the question. The conclusion should follow logically from and sum up what has gone before. It should not merely repeat what you have said before; if possible, you should save a final telling point or a particularly neat way of expressing your main idea for the conclusion. At the same time, however, and even more importantly, your conclusion should not contradict what you have said before or lead off on a totally different track.
Let us give a specific example of how an essay might be planned. Say, for instance, that you are confronted in English literary studies by the basic question What is tragedy? Like many essay topics, it is designed to test your knowledge both of the theory of the subject and of specific instances and of the relationships between the two. It is also an enormous topic – you are unlikely to have read every significant definition of tragedy or every single tragic play ever written. It is worth remembering that you are not being asked to provide a definitive answer to a question that has vexed the sages for centuries. You are being asked to demonstrate that you have absorbed what you have read or have been taught, that you understand the subject, that you can write interestingly and knowledgeably about it, and that you can conform to the usual conventions in terms of length, format, and style. So you need, if you are widely read, to select material to fit within a reasonable essay length (say 1000 or 2000 words) or, if you are less widely read, to use the knowledge that you do possess to best advantage.
The material you have to organize is likely to consist of one or more definitions of tragedy culled from various sources, the writings of literary theorists or reference books, together with what you know of a number of serious plays. You might decide that the best tactic is to compare and contrast a number of different definitions. Author A suggests that tragedy is such and such, a definition which particularly suits plays X, Y, and Z. Author B, on the other hand, highlights this particular aspect of tragedy as he or she was particularly influenced by the plays of…, where author C… and so on. Alternatively, you might select one particularly significant definition – say Aristotle’s definition of tragedy as a work ‘arousing pity and fear and leading to a catharsis of these emotions’ – and then try to apply it to plays from various periods, Greek tragedies, Shakespearean tragedies, and contemporary tragedies. Having come to a decision on the basis of your knowledge of the subject and your particular interest in it, you can choose your approach and make your plan.
After that, write your introduction. A useful tip, for essays of the type that is being used as an example, is to try to avoid beginning with a bald definition:
The New Penguin English Dictionary defines tragedy as: ‘a serious drama in which destructive circumstances result in adversity for, and usu the deaths of, the main characters’. I intend to use…
You intend to use the definition, all well and good, but many other essay-writers have used precisely the same formula to get themselves started. If you can vary the formula with the definition from the start, it is much better:
Like most dictionaries The New Penguin English Dictionary defines tragedy in a very general way – ‘a serious drama in which destructive circumstances result in adversity for, and usu the deaths of, the main characters’. But far more specific definitions have been given by…
Or:
All definitions of tragedy are written on the basis of the dramas that the definer knows and of the spirit of the age in which he or she happens to be writing. A modern definition such as the one given in The New Penguin English Dictionary…
It is difficult to illustrate a conclusion because, as has been said, it must necessarily follow from the specific points you have discussed. But let us assume, for the moment, that you have been discussing Aristotle’s definition of tragedy and applying it to dramas of various epochs. You might well have come to the conclusion that the ancient Greek notions do not fit entirely with the practice of modern dramatists. But, if you have not discussed it before, you might take Aristotle’s notion of ‘catharsis’ and use it to give a different angle in your conclusion:
Aristotle’s definition, therefore, though vastly influential and productive, is by no means universally valid. Shakespeare and modern playwrights rewrote his rules and still produced tragic effects. But Aristotle’s thinking on the subject was not confined to the literary sphere. The idea of ‘catharsis’, the purging of emotion through watching a play, shows that it had a social dimension as well. Tragedy, like any other literary genre, needs to be defined not only in literary terms but in relation to the wider world. While tragic plays continue to be written, performed, and watched, the vicarious experience of suffering – which is what tragedy finally is – is something that individual human beings and possibly whole societies sometimes need.
Academic style ought not to be distinct from good style generally. The overall advice given in this book with regard to clarity, simplicity, economy, etc., applies equally well to writing essays, dissertations, and other academic exercises. However, one or two points need to be given special emphasis.
Informal words and expressions should not be used in academic writing. For example: verb forms should be written out in full (do not not don’t, etc.). Personal constructions (I am doing this…, I intend to do that…) are generally less recommended in academic writing than elsewhere. They may be appropriate in an introduction where you state directly what you intend to do, and there are certain kinds of essay – for example, essays in practical literary criticism – where a subjective response is in order, but generally the tone of the writing in the body of an academic essay should tend towards the impersonal. A great deal of academic writing is also, necessarily, somewhat tentative because the writer is simply not in a position to make authoritative and definitive statements on a subject. A proper impersonality and tentativeness are sometimes difficult to achieve without resorting too much to rather clumsy abstract constructions and passive verbs: it is sometimes thought that… it has often been argued that… as has been suggested by many writers on the subject. Where possible, such phrases should be replaced by, or at least varied with, more direct expressions: Some people/experts/scholars think… X, among others, has argued that… as many writers on the subject have suggested.
Dividing your work up into suitable paragraphs is as important in academic writing as in any other kind. When you are presenting an argument, the linking devices that indicate how a new paragraph relates to the one that preceded it acquire particular importance. Try to make sure that the connection is clear and that you signal to the reader how the gap between the paragraphs is to be bridged:
… and this remained the case throughout the whole of the nineteenth century.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, however,…
Or:
Research carried out in America, Australia, and South Africa points to the same conclusion.
There is, consequently, little point in trying to argue, as some scholars have done, that this is a purely European phenomenon…
Quotations are a necessary part of most essays. Most essay-setters and markers like you to include quotations because they show, or at least suggest, that you have read up on the subject. But an essay should never become a structure in which quotations carry all the substance and the writer’s contribution is simply to link them all together, nor should quotations be included where they are not relevant. Quote, preferably, to support or illustrate a point – not to make a point. And try to quote in such a way as not to interrupt the flow of your own argument.
Shorter quotations should be integrated into the text: As Shaw says in the preface to Pygmalion: ‘It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.’ Or: A house,according to Le Corbusier, is ‘a machine for living in’. Where what you are quoting is a complete sentence, it should normally follow a colon and begin with a capital letter. A phrase of a few words needs no punctuation apart from inverted commas. On the use of quotation marks, see also pp. 160–64.
When you are quoting a passage of more than, say, thirty words, the usual practice is to mark it off from the body of the text by leaving a space above and below it and by indenting it (leaving a wider than usual margin on both sides):
The same point has been made in a slightly different way by Keats’s biographer Stephen Coote:
Those who really know the reality of beauty recognise that it can never be truly experienced except in its relationship to suffering, the pain that is never over, ‘never done’. In the horror of this recognition, beauty itself becomes drained of life and warmth.
(Coote, 1995, p. 167)
Coote highlights in particular…
When a quotation is marked off in this way, it does not need to be placed in inverted commas.
If you omit a word, phrase, etc., from the passage then you should indicate the fact by an ellipsis (…): As Winston Churchill said: ‘Never… was so much owed by so many to so few’. An ellipsis should also be used if you break a quotation off before reaching the end of the sentence or if you omit the original author’s opening words: According to Lord Acton:’… absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Just as it is sometimes necessary to omit words from a quotation, you may sometimes have to alter the precise wording to fit comfortably within your sentence. Marco Polo is reported as saying ‘I have not told half of what I saw’. If you wanted to use that quotation about someone else, you would need to adapt the wording: Like Marco Polo, he had not ‘told half of what [he] saw’. The he in square brackets indicates that it was not the original wording.
In an academic essay all quotations from published sources must be attributed. The exact method you use to attribute quotations in the body of your text will depend on the way in which you present your references. The system recommended in this book and described fully in the section ‘References’, below, is known as the ‘Harvard system’. If you are providing a proper list of references in accordance with this system – as you should for a formal essay of any length – then a formulation such as: As Rita Carter (1998, p. 15) says: ‘The left brain…’ can be used. The author’s name and the date of publication of his or her book or article are sufficient for the reader to identify from your references which work you are referring to. The page should also be included to make it easier for the reader to consult the work you are quoting for verification or further information, should he or she so desire.
If you need to refer to the same work more than once in the course of an essay, given the economy of the Harvard system, it is not necessary to use the Latin phrases ibid. or op. cit. If you do use them, remember that ibid. means ‘the same’ and refers back to the work from which you took the quotation immediately preceding the present one: Professor Smith says ‘…’(The Small Garden, p. 24), but later qualifies this by saying (ibid., p. 37). ‘Op. cit.’, on the other hand, refers to a work by a particular author that you have quoted from at some point in an earlier part of the essay: D r Jones argues that ‘…’(Art and Architecture, p. 125), but Professor Smith refutes the argument by saying ‘…’(op. cit., p. 234).
When a book has been written by two authors, it is usual to give both names at references in the text (Smith and Jones, 1999, p. 2); where three or more authors have collaborated, for example, Smith, Jones, and Brown, the usual style is (Smith et al. 1998, p. 612).
The reference list or bibliography at the end of your essay, thesis, etc., should consist of a full list of the works you have quoted from or used in preparing your essay, arranged in alphabetical order by the authors’ surnames. References should provide the following information:
the name of the author or authors;
the year of first publication, or, if the edition you are using is a later one, the number of the edition and its publication date;
the full title; and
the place of publication and the name of the publisher.
The information should be presented in that order.
There are slightly different styles of presentation, depending on whether the work in question is a book or an article in a journal. The usual ‘Harvard’ style for a book is as follows:
Carter, Rita (1998) Mapping the Mind London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
Gregory, R., Harris, J., Heard, P., and Rose, D. eds. (1995) The Artful Eye Oxford: Oxford University Press
The title of the book is printed in italic. If your essay is handwritten, then you should underline the title.
The style for articles in journals is slightly different:
Quilley, S. (1999) ‘Entrepreneurial Manchester: The Genesis of Elite Consensus’ Antipode 31:2, pp. 185–211
The title of the article is given in quotation marks and italics are used for the title of the journal or magazine. It is also customary to give the number of the journal and the page numbers of the article.
The style for an article that forms part of a collective work is similar:
Rawson, E. (1986) ‘The Expansion of Rome’ in Boardman, J., Griffin, J., and Murray, O. eds. (1986) The Oxford History of the Classical World Oxford: Oxford University Press
If you are quoting material from the Internet, the following system can be used. Follow the quotation with a numbered reference in brackets (Internet 1), (Internet 2), etc. In the reference list, under a general heading ‘Internet’, list each Internet address next to its number. For example:
Internet
1. http://www.ipl.org/reading/shakespeare/shakespeare.html
2. http://www.daphne.palomar.edu/shakespeare/
A dissertation or thesis is usually the weightiest and most important piece of work that students have to produce in the course of their education. Accordingly, educational institutions provide extensive guidance on the conduct of research and on the writing and presentation of such extended pieces of writing. Those guidelines should be your principal guide. The section that follows is a brief introduction to this type of writing rather than a detailed account of it.
A thesis or dissertation is in some ways similar to an essay, albeit a very long essay, but in other respects it probably has more in common with a report. As with a report, the main problems tend to be coping with the amount of material likely to be produced by research and marshalling information in a coherent way.
The importance of organization and planning increases proportionately with the length of the work and the volume of material it contains. A work of dissertation length will usually require chapters. The nature of the project will determine what those chapters are and the order that they are to come in but, once the content of each chapter has been decided, then each can be written more or less in the form of an essay. As such, each chapter will generally require its own introduction and its own conclusion. Each chapter is not, however, an essay in its own right, but a part of a whole, so that each introduction should link the new chapter with what has gone before, while the conclusion, besides summing up what has just been discussed, should point ahead to the next section.
As in a report, headings and subheadings will help readers navigate their way through the chapter. Also like a report, a dissertation will benefit from a table of contents and probably from the use of footnotes, chapter notes, or appendices for additional material that does not fit into the running text. Footnotes are useful, if the notes are short, because they do not necessitate the reader searching elsewhere. But if your notes become lengthy, they should be put at the end of the chapter in a separate section, and any note longer than a page should be included in an appendix. You will also need to provide an abstract or summary of your work.
It may be difficult, especially when you are making the first draft of an individual chapter, to keep in mind the overall shape of the work. But a piece of writing of this magnitude will need several redraftings. As you revise your work, try to look at it from the reader’s point of view and ensure that the necessary links and pointers are in place to ensure a logical progression and flow.
The style of a dissertation need not differ markedly from that of an essay, except insofar as an essay may allow a more personal approach. The emphasis in a short essay is on the points – perhaps personal and controversial – that the writer wants to make and he or she will provide just sufficient supporting material in the space available. The emphasis in a thesis is on the extended detail of the material collected. The thesis-writer must defend his or her thesis, but argument alone will not suffice if the evidence does not carry conviction. Consequently, a neutral, balanced, impersonal style – taking particular care to avoid rash statements and generalizations – is generally what is called for.
For additional material that could be relevant to dissertations and theses, please see the sections ‘Note-taking’ and ‘Summaries’, as well as the sections on ‘Research’, ‘Reports’, ‘Essays’, and ‘References’ that precede this one.