good writing guide 1

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The Good WritingGuide

INTRODUCTION

Good writing is important. The ability to write clear and accurate text isthe most useful skill that you will learn at university. Whatever subjectyou specialise in, and whatever career you choose after you graduate, acommand of language is a valuable asset. When employers offer a job toan MA graduate they are sometimes interested in how much he or sheknows about Charles Dickens or the Napoleonic wars, but they are

always looking for someone with good communication skills and an eyefor detail. In almost any job, you will spend time working with a range oftexts. You may produce written reports, letters or marketing copy. Youmay also give lectures or presentations. If you are aiming for a career inwhich you can use language stylishly, such as journalism or creativewriting, it is equally important that you know the rules of good plainEnglish.

This booklet will help you to think about how you write. It will alsoimprove your reading skills. While you are a student you will often be areader, absorbing information from other sources or analysing thestructure of a text. When assessments come along, you will be a writer,and someone else will read and analyse your work. Reading and writingare closely connected. Improving your skills in one area will have aknock-on effect in the other. Set yourself high standards in both theseareas. One of the simplest ways to improve your own writing is to readwidely and to look at how authors mould the language to their ownpurposes. Try to develop an eye for style and sentence structure as youread. This will help you to assess your own writing and expand your

language skills.

While you are at university, good writing means being able toproduce a clear, grammatical, logical argument to answer a question inan exercise, an essay or an exam. This is not the place to be innovativeor poetic. Chances to be creative with language are available elsewhere.Academic writing should be clear, clean and correct. It should displayyour knowledge and express your ideas. Good writing is always aimed ata particular audience. Your audience is the tutor (or tutors) who will mark

your work. Your tutors will be highly qualified, and are likely to be thekind of people who have an obsessive interest in grammar and spelling.


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They will consider a command of language as important as any ideasyou might want to share. In the School of Language and Literature, tutorsare allowed to deduct up to four marks for poor spelling, punctuation andpresentation. That is the difference between a first-class mark and a 14.

If your grammar is so poor that it obscures your argument, you may failthe assessment. Markers cannot give credit for what they think you mighthave wanted to say. What is on the paper is all that counts. Good writingis not an optional extra to a degree; it is the core of the educationsystem. Make this your primary goal at university. Everything that youstudy can be channelled towards making yourself a more perceptivereader and a more accurate writer. Get this right and you will understandmore of what you read. You will also be able to express your own ideaswith force and clarity.

This booklet is divided into three sections. Section A contains advice onreading a text for analysis, and on setting up your answer to a question.It looks at planning, structure and paragraphing, and it explains sometechnical terms. Section B deals with language. It highlights somecommon problems, and it offers advice on how to sharpen up your prose.Section C deals with using sources. It explains referencing and how touse critical material. If you are studying more than one discipline youmay find that there are slightly different expectations about referencingbetween departments. The advice given here is based on the MHRA

Style Book. This is the referencing system we expect you to learn. Itshould also be appropriate for most other arts subjects. In each sectionyou will find a Quick-Fix page with a summary of the most importantpoints presented at a glance. Use these as checklists every time yousubmit a piece of written work. Each section also has somerecommended further reading. At the back of the booklet there is anindex so that you can find things in a hurry. Many of the points havebeen numbered so that your marker can point you to the relevant sectionwhen things go wrong.

If, after all that, you would like some more advice about goodwriting there are several things you can do:

Consult your tutor. This is one of the reasons that tutors have officehours, and it is remarkable how few students take advantage of thisopportunity for some individual advice. Remember to reread your tutorscomments on your previous essay before you write the next one.You willfind this very helpful.


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Make an appointment to see the Schools Writing Support tutor. If youhave been referred for Writing Support by your tutor this is particularlyimportant. Consultation is on a one-to-one basis and is designed to help.Contact the School Office for details.

Contact the Academic Learning and Study Unit (ALSU), RegentBuilding, Tel: 272448, or visit www.abdn.ac.uk/alsuto find some helpfuladvice online. ALSU runs workshops and courses on study skills and canalso offer individual consultations.

Use your own network. Ask a friend or flatmate to proofread your workbefore you hand it in. So long as they do not change the content orborrow your ideas this is not cheating. Choose someone you can reallytrust. A friend on a different course is ideal. You can return the favourand improve your own proofreading skills. This is excellent practice for acareer in marketing, publishing or journalism. Develop an interest inwriting, and discuss with your friends what works and what does not.This is one of the best ways to learn.

This is The Good Writing Guide. I hope it is useful.

Dr Hazel Hutchison, 2005
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/alsuhttp://www.abdn.ac.uk/alsuhttp://www.abdn.ac.uk/alsu


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SECTION A: PLANNING

1. READING FOR WRITING

Everyone has their own way of approaching a text. Some people like totake meticulous notes as they go along. Others prefer to read throughswiftly and then return to look at the text in depth. Develop your ownstyle of reading. However, here are a few things to remember.

Keep an open mind about the text. One of the most valuable thingsyou can learn as you study literature is the ability to suspend your ownprejudices and preconceptions as you read. Learning to see things fromdifferent perspectives is a vital part of the reading process. Do notattempt to make a text fit your own agenda as you go along, or dismiss itbecause it challenges what you believe. You do not have to agree withthe text, but give it a chance to speak for itself. If you react strongly tosomething, try to work out why.

Think about language. It is easy to be carried away by an intriguing plotor an interesting set of characters. But keep one eye open for thelanguage the author uses. This is especially important in poetry, wherethe words work harder. Develop an eye for style. What makes Austen

different from Hemingway, or Tennyson different from Plath? What kindof words do they choose? Do they use a lot of adjectives or a lot ofverbs? Is their language formal or colloquial? Is their language abstractand philosophical or concrete and particular? Does it fit the historicalcontext of the text, or challenge this? These simple questions give youan insight into the authors underlying concerns and preoccupations.Language does more than tell a story. It creates a world of ideas. Whatmakes a degree in English really worth having is an understanding ofhow this process operates. Do not just look at what the text says. Try to

work out howit conveys ideas and elicits certain responses.

Think about structure. This will depend on what kind of text you arereading. The rules of form for fiction, poetry and drama are constantlyevolving. However, it helps to have some idea of conventions andtechniques, so that you can see when something interesting or unusualis happening. Compare the text to what you already know about sonnets,or Jacobean plays or Victorian novels, or whatever you happen to bereading. Ask yourself how the text is put together and whether it seems

to be following a convention or defying it. If something jars, or seems outof place, there may be a good reason for this. Explore it.


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Read between the lines. Be careful about this, because you could endup supplying a whole heap of ideas that the text does not support.However, authors often manipulate the unspoken and the unseen as

carefully as the things they tell. Pay special attention when charactersrefuse to answer questions or disappear for a few chapters or scenes.Who is off stage when something interesting happens? Is the narratorholding back information that the reader wants? Is there another way ofviewing the events in the story?

Take notes. This is obvious, but vital. If you see something interesting orhave a good idea, write it down and note the page number. You will savehours trying to find it again later.

2. READING THE QUESTION

The easiest way to fail an assessment is not to answer the question.Make sure you understand what the question is looking for. Be especiallycareful if the question includes literary terms such as form or genre orrealism. These sometimes mean slightly different things to differentpeople or in different contexts. If you are unclear about this you candiscuss it with your tutor and clarify exactly what they want. Alternatively

you can look the terms up in something like M. H. Abrams,A Glossary ofLiterary Terms. Make it clear in your essay exactly how you are using theterm, and back this up with an outside source if possible.

Think about the kind of course to which the assessment belongs.Tutors are usually looking for a response to, or an application of, ideascovered in the course. Think back to what has been done in lectures andseminars. Was the course more focused on historical context ortechnical analysis? Did it encourage use of theoretical ideas or

knowledge of the authors experience and concerns? Look in the courseguide to remind yourself about the main themes and objectives of thecourse. Choose a question that will allow you to show off what you havelearned. In an exam you will not have time to go and look these thingsup, so spend half an hour thinking about this as you revise for the exam.

It is often worth considering more than one question while you aredoing some background reading for an essay. You can then choose theone that you find most interesting or stimulating as you go along. This

way you avoid heading up a blind alley and then having to start all overagain. Keep your question in mind as you write. Everything you say


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should be connected to it. Avoid rambling. You will not get credit forincluding irrelevant information, however interesting you may think it is.Answer the question.

Question busting

Like any academic subject, the study of literature has its own technicallanguage, which you need to learn. However, this vocabulary includessome everyday terms which are often used to particular purposes inessay questions. Make sure you understand exactly what they meanbefore you start. Here are a few to look out for.

Form: This is a very wide-ranging term. Usually it either means the kindof text you are dealing with, (sonnet, dramatic monologue, novel, shortstory, comic drama etc) or the internal structure of the text (a play inthree acts, a first-person narrative, an Italian sonnet of eight linesfollowed by six all in iambic pentameter). Sometimes it means thethematic movement of a text (three sections focusing on love, grief,regret). If you are uncertain what is required, ask your tutor.

Critical analysis aka practical criticism: A tightly focused breakdownof a set passage, looking at language, stylistic technique and form (seeabove). Use fewer secondary sources for this, but make sure you know

and understand some technical terms before you start. This is thehardest kind of essay to do well. A good one is a thing of great beautyand will be rewarded accordingly.

Comparative essay: If you write on more than one text, do not just talkabout one and then the other. Draw connections and comparisonsbetween them. A good way to make this happen is to structure youressay around several things they have in common and to keep both textsin play as you go.

Theory/theoretical issues: This does not invite you to form a theoryabout a text. It almost certainly means literary critical theory (ie.something about theories of reading and writing by Barthes, Derrida,Cixous, Butler etc). If you do not know who these people are or what Iam talking about, do not attempt the question. However, if you do, and ifit is relevant, some theory will give an essay weight and bite. Theoreticaltexts invite you to develop different ways of reading, which can make forradical and exciting work.


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Voice: This usually refers to who is speaking in the text and to thelanguage they adopt. It is often used in questions about poetry. It invitesa discussion of the poems speaker. Consider what sort of situation thepoem implies as a setting or background to the poem as well as the

personality and emotional state of the speaker. In fiction this is usuallycalled narrative voice. In both cases you should consider whether thespeaking voice is inside the fictional world or a detached observerlooking on. Beware of equating the narrator with the author. An authorassumes different voices when writing, although these are often mixedup with elements of their own personality. It is hard to untangle thisneatly, so it is safer to discuss the speaker or thenarrator.

Point of View aka perspective: This refers to the standpoint of thenarrator of a story or the speaker of a poem. The question here is who isseeing the story? Does the narrator see everything and tell all? Are theyomniscient? Or do they view events through the eyes of one of thecharacters at a time and give a limitedperspective? A good yardstick forthis is how much you are told about the characters internal thoughts andfeelings. Point of view does not refer to the personality or politicalopinions of the narrator or the characters although this is oftenconnected. Sometimes point of view is called focalisation as thereaders view is focused through one character. Pay special attentionwhen this shifts between characters.

Irony: This is much more than sarcasm. Irony derives from the Greekword for dissembler. Dramatic irony involves one or more charactersbeing excluded from knowledge which another character shares with theaudience. In Hamlet, for example, the audience knows Ophelia is deadbefore Hamlet does. Generally in literature irony implies some kind ofhidden knowledge or concealed intent. It is not always comic, but it canalso be used for comic effect. Sometimes the narrator adopts an ironictone, inviting the reader to question what the text appears to be saying.

The opening line of Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice is an excellentexample of this:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man inpossession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.1

It is really? Or is the narrator making fun of people who think this?

1Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813; repr. London: Penguin, 1996),p.5.


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Gender: This usually refers to social expectations about how men andwomen should behave, rather than whether a person is biologically maleor female.

Tragedy/tragic: This is not just looking at sad events and the emotionsthey elicit. Tragic invites some sort of comparison with the conventionsof dramatic tragedy. Think about Sophocles, Shakespeare and Marlowe,rather than what you might read in The Evening Express.

3. STRUCTURE

Markers often complain about poorly structured essays, but by then it istoo late to do anything about it. Bad structure in an essay is usually theresult of a failure to read the question carefully, a lack of understandingof the subject, or a rushed job. Taking time to plan out your work helps inmany ways. It ensures that you connect your essay with the question. Itreduces the stress of writing, as you know where you are going next. Itproduces a well-rounded piece of writing.

3.1 Making a plan

However you like to take notes and marshal your ideas, at some point

you are going to need a linear plan for your essay. It is always worthdoing this, especially in exams when time is tight and nerves are likely tomake you forget a good idea which seemed very clear fifteen minutesago. The classic layout for an essay is an introduction, followed by threesections, followed by a conclusion. This is based on the rules ofClassical rhetoric, in which the speaker offered an introduction, astatement, a counterstatement, a resolution between the two and aconclusion. There is not a set rule about this, but this tried and testedsystem works well and usually produces a satisfying read. In literature

essays, this plan often evolves into an introduction, three sectionsdealing with relevant themes and a final section tying these together.But, remember that you are not just making lists of what you know. Youare answering a question and the whole thing should form a logicalargument.

A plan should operate as a skeleton for your essay. Ideally itshould be possible for a reader to reconstruct your plan from the finishedarticle. This is basically what you are doing when you take lecture notes.

Paying attention to how this process works will make planning your ownwritten work a lot easier. Most lecturers think carefully about how they


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want to present material to the class. It might seem random, but if youlisten they will give you markers about what the main headings are, andwhen they are filling out these sections. Look over your lecture notes andthink about some of the techniques lecturers use. Try to see the shape of

the lecture. Is the lecturer moving outward from the text to the widerhistorical context? Or perhaps they are focusing in, beginning withbackground information, looking at a particular political problem orcultural issue, and then exploring how one text contributes to this debate.Alternatively, are they working through the text section by section? Orare they offering a spectrum of views on the text? These are allapproaches you can use in structuring your written work. A clear planmakes it easier to fulfil your intentions.

Look at the contents page of this booklet. That is a tidy version ofthe plan I am using as I write. Ideally you want something that looks a bitlike that, but shorter. You should also have a good idea of what goes ineach section. I have chosen a plan that moves from general principlesthat you should think about before you start, through useful tools that youneed as you go along, to some details that apply specifically to Englishand which will give your work polish. Sometimes you will haveinformation that could belong in more than one section. For example, youwill find information about choosing secondary sources in Section C,although it would also have been useful here. Use your judgement about

where things go and what belongs together. Try to give your essaydirection, and keep thinking about the question.

3.2 Introductions and conclusions

Have one of each in every piece of work. Avoid repeating the question inthe introduction, but do offer an outline of the areas you will discuss. Ifyou have a particularly juicy quote or a fascinating fact, this may be agood place to show it off. Do not make wild generalisations about the

Victorians, most readers, all poets, middle-class people, critics etc.However if you have found a particularly outrageous generalisation insomething you have read, do feel free to start by quoting this and thencontradict it. Read some academic journal articles and see how otherwriters kick off. This is usually the hardest bit of an essay to get right.

Imagine you are answering this question: Explore the connectionbetween marriage and money in Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice.A weak introduction would be something like this:


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Marriage and money are important themes in Pride and Prejudice.This essay explores the connection between marriage and moneyin Jane Austens novel. First I will look at the theme of marriage,followed by the theme of money. Then I will look at the connection

between the two. From this we will be able to see what Austen istrying to say about the link between them.

There is nothing really wrong with this, but it does not open up thequestion in an interesting way or provide anything to grab the readersattention. A good introduction offers a sense of where the essay will go.Something like this is better:

The connection between marriage and money lies at the heart ofPride and Prejudice. From the opening sentence to Elizabeth andDarcys engagement, this novel highlights the desirability offinancial security in marriage. However, this novel also shows thedangers of marrying purely for gain. This essay will explore thedifferent models of marriage which Austen presents in Pride andPrejudice: marrying for money without love, marrying for lovewithout money, and marrying with both. These models allowAusten to examine the place of the marriageable woman within thesociety of her period.

This demonstrates a knowledge of the text and some intelligent thoughton the question. It also maps out the plan of the essay that is going tofollow. If you can do this in advance then your way ahead will be muchclearer. However, it is always worth going back to look at yourintroduction once you have finished the essay. Does it promisesomething that is not in the essay? Or could you flag up an interestingidea in a more stylish way? Do not be afraid to rewrite the introduction ifnecessary. Think of this as the shop-window for your work. Show whatyou have in store in a way that will encourage a closer look.

Conclusions are also hard to handle gracefully, but it is better to trythan to ignore the problem. Return to the issues which were raised bythe question and show how what you have said proves your point. Avoidintroducing any new ideas or material here. Do not save up your mainidea as a punch-line. Similarly avoid repeating what you said earlier,although you can, of course, refer back. As with the introduction, a short,well-chosen quote can help. Although it looks good if you explore arange of arguments during the essay itself, a conclusion should always

conclude. Push your thinking towards some sort of resolution. Do not justsit on the fence. Answer the question one way or the other.


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3.3 Subheadings

These can be useful in honours dissertations. In essays, however, it isbetter to create a flow of connected ideas without stopping and starting.

In a dissertation, subheadings will show your marker where you aregoing. They also allow you to see whether one section of yourdissertation has outgrown the others. If this is a problem, you might wantto consider revising your plan to accommodate your material. However, afew subheadings go a long way. Only mark major sections.

3.4 Paragraphs

Ideally the structure of your essay should be obvious from yourparagraphs. Each paragraph should be a step forward in your argument.Think of each paragraph as a mini essay in which you introduce a newidea, present some evidence to back it up, and draw a conclusion from it.Once you have done this, start a new one.

Within a section you can link paragraphs together by connectivewords and phrases, such as however, consequently, moreover. Butmake sure that these words really justify their presence. There is no usesaying, it follows that, if it is not obvious how one idea leads to theother. Similarly, avoid pompous declarations such as it is the case thatand it is a useful observation to note that etc.Avoid starting paragraphs

with vague pronouns such as it and this. If you cannot use a real noun,you might want to stop and ask yourself exactly what you are talkingabout. If you want to pick up an idea from the last paragraph and exploreit further, make sure that you name this idea, so that the reader can seewhat you are doing. Be specific. Use nouns and verbs.

Markers are suspicious of paragraphs consisting of less than threesentences or rambling on for more than a page and a half. Read throughyour essay once you are finished. If you find any paragraphs that are toolong or too short, consider revising where the breaks fall. Do not use

novels or newspapers as models for paragraphing. Novelists andjournalists are aiming for very different effects. Journalists rarely havemore than one sentence in a paragraph, and often do not write completesentences. They are playing a different game altogether. Here again,journal articles or critical books will offer good examples, so pay attentionto this as you do your research.

Indent the start of every paragraph by hitting the tab key to the leftof Q on the keyboard. This makes it very obvious where your paragraphstarts. Do not indent your first paragraph or a new paragraph after a

subheading. Do not indent after a quotation, unless you are starting anew paragraph. For more advice on layout of quotes see pages 43-46.


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4. LAYOUT

You can lose the goodwill of your marker before they even start bypresenting an essay that is hard to read. There are several things that

you can do to make your essay look good. These will not get you extramarks, but they might stop you losing some. They will also put yourmarker in a better frame of mind.

Put the question at the top. It might be obvious to you which questionyou are answering, but believe me, it is not always clear to the marker.Having the question on your essay also helps you keep the question inmind as you write. But do not spend hours designing an elaborate titlepage. Put that time and effort into your written work. In exams there is noneed to rewrite the question, but mark the number clearly both on youranswer and on the front of the paper.

Double-space the text. The reason for this is so that the marker hasspace to correct your work in between the lines. It is for your benefit,even if it does not feel like it.

Leave a wide margin. This leaves room for comments and corrections.These will be useful. Make sure you read them.

Use a sensible font. Times New Roman or Arial are best as these areeasy to read and familiar to the eye. Use 12-point text. Anything smalleris hard to read. Anything bigger suggests that you might be trying tocover up for a short piece of work. Do not put quotations in italics, unlessthat is how they appear in the text you are quoting. Only use italics fortitles of books and plays or words in a foreign language.

Give clear references. It is easy when you know how. See pages 46-51.

Give a bibliography. Even if you only have one or two texts to list,please do so. It looks professional and it is a good habit to form. Seepage 51 for how to do it.

Include a word count. Writing to length is a useful skill which you willneed later on. Learn to tailor your work to the requested word length.You will not be penalised for an essay that is within 10% of the statedword count, either over or under. However, you will be penalised for lyingabout it. When marking essays for a whole class, it is usually easy for the

marker to tell when something is too long or too short, so be honest hereor face the consequences.


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5. SUBMITTING YOUR WORK

Make sure you know the submission dates and regulations for yourcourse. You can get this information from your course guide or the

English website. Work submitted up to a week late will be penalised bythree marks, unless you have a medical certificate. If you need anextension of more than one week for medical reasons, or because youhave a serious personalproblem, you must ask the course convener (forlevels 1 and 2) or the Head of School (for levels 3 and 4). Try to let yourtutor know about a problem as quickly as possible.

Your course guide will also have information about marking criteriaand how to interpret the Common Assessment Scale. It is worthunderstanding how the marking system works, so have a look at this.Also look at the cover sheet which you should attach to your essaybefore handing it in at the office. This cover sheet gives you a good ideaof what your marker wants to see in your essay.

Return of written work usually takes two to three weeks. Mostcourses operate a system of essay moderation. This means that onceyour tutor has marked your work they pass it on to another member ofstaff who looks at a random sample and any borderline cases. Thismeans the system is fair, but can take a bit of time, especially in themiddle of term when we have other things to do. Please be patient, andtry not to pester your tutor for your work. This will only slow them down.

Further Reading

Abrams, M. H., A Glossary of Literary Terms (1941; repr. London:Wadsworth, 1996)

Clancy, John and Brigit Ballard, How to Write Essays: A Practical Guidefor Students (Harlow: Longman, 1998)

Greetham, Bryan, How to Write Better Essays (London: Palgrave, 1999)

Hennesey, Brendan, Writing an Essay(Oxford: How to Books, 2002)

Peck, John and Martin Coyle, Literary Terms and Criticism (Houndmills:Palgrave, 2002)

Practical Criticism: How to Write a Critical Appreciation (Houndmills:

Palgrave, 1985)


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SECTION B: LANGUAGE

QUICK FIX: PLANNING

1. Read the text carefully, but do not focus so closely on your chosen

question that you miss out on everything else. Take notes as you goalong. It saves time later.

2. Make sure you understand the question. If you are unclear aboutanything, look it up or ask your tutor. It is better to look a bit silly at thisstage than after the event.

3. Think about the question, and try to work out why your marker has setit. How does it connect with issues and ideas explored in lectures and

tutorials? Work out which issues you are going to concentrate on.

4. Make a plan. Remember that your essay is an argument that shouldpersuade the reader. Try to give it direction and purpose. Focuseverything towards answering the question you have chosen. Work outat this stage which material you will use in each section.

5. Avoid using the plot of the text as the structure for your essay.Demonstrate that you can step back and view the text as a series ofconnected ideas or strategies. Do not simply follow the events and

comment on them as they unfold.

6. If you are writing a comparative essay on more than one text, makesure you integrate the texts fully. Do not simply talk about them oneafter the other. Create a plan that allows you to bounce ideas betweenthe texts and build up a bigger picture.

7. Use your introduction to outline where you are going in the essay. Avoidsimply restating the question. Try to be interesting.

8. Use paragraphs to distinguish between separate ideas and to moveyour argument forward.

9. Use your conclusion to point out how the evidence you have givenanswers the question. Make sure you answer the question. Do not siton the fence.

10. Lay out your essay neatly and with enough room for comments and

corrections.


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SECTION B: LANGUAGE

6. REGISTER

Writing well involves presenting your material in a tone appropriate toyour audience and to the task in hand. You would use different styles oflanguage for a business letter, a newspaper report, a text to a friend or ashort story. It is important to develop a suitable tone, or register, for yourwritten work. A university essay is a formal document and requires aformal register. Students often struggle to find a balance between formal,intellectual language and open, accessible English. Many reputablescholars struggle with this too, which is why some academic books areso hard to understand. However, even the most complicated ideas canbe articulated clearly. Your marker will be delighted to see complexthought presented in plain English. They will also notice if you dress upweak thinking in flowery language. Pay attention to the register of yourwriting and remember who will read your work.

Read critics: You need to do this anyway for your own research. As youread secondary sources look at the way in which critics use language. Ifit seems too dense and formal then do not copy their style. However, ifyou find a book that is lucid, interesting and readable, try to work out

what makes it so clear.

Avoid being too personal: Your name appears on the front of youressay, therefore your marker already knows that everything in the essayis your opinion. Do not keep saying in my opinion or it seems to methat etc. Have the courage of your convictions and state what you think.If you can back up your views with evidence from the text or secondarysources, there is no need to apologise or hesitate. Some markers dislikethe use of I anywhere in the essay. Others are more relaxed about this.

It is probably best to avoid it if possible. Present your work as a piece ofcohesive thought rather than as collection of your own responses. Thisessay will focus on sounds better than I want to look at. We are tryingto train you to be objective and analytical, so demonstrate that you aredeveloping these skills.

Avoid being too clever: Some of the worst grammatical errors arecaused by students trying to write long, complex sentences. Always usethe shortest possible sentence for what you want to say. Similarly, do not

use words that you think you understand. If in doubt, look them up orleave them out.


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Avoid slang: This does not just cover words and phrases. It also appliesto informal expressions and sentence constructions. Do not say, Thispoem really hits you between the eyes when you read it. You know whatI mean? You can express the same idea by saying, This is a poem of

enormous emotional power, or, This poem demands a strong responsefrom the reader.Avoid using you or us for the reader of the text. Onesounds formal in everyday speech, but it is very useful in this setting.

Tenses: Use present tense for anything that happens in the story, novel,play or poem. Use past tense for historical events or events in the life ofthe writer. This helps to keep the two worlds separate: Henry James wasan American writer who lived and wrote in Europe. In The Portrait of aLady he explores the social tensions which surround Isabel Archer asshe moves between these two continents.

7. PUNCTUATION

Punctuation matters. It does not simply tell the reader when to start andstop. It organises the text into meaningful units. Getting it wrong canseriously damage the sense of the text. To see the power of punctuation,look at this example from Lynne Trusss book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves:

Dear Jack,I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous,

kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless andinferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have nofeeling whatsoever when were apart. I can be forever happy will youlet me be yours?

Jill

Dear Jack.

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous,kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless andinferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have nofeelings whatsoever. When were apart I can be forever happy. Will youlet me be?

Yours, Jill2

It makes you think, doesnt it?

2 Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero-Tolerance Approachto Punctuation (London: Profile Books, 2003), p.9.


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7.1 Apostrophes

This is the most common problem in written English. One can seeapostrophes in the wrong places in shops, theatre programmes, adverts,

newspapers, restaurant menus and more. There is always some publicdebate going on about whether we should retain apostrophes in thelanguage or abolish them because so few people seem capable of usingthem properly. But the fact is that they still exist, and we still expect youto be able to put them in the right places. Before writing this guide, Iasked my colleagues what they thought was the biggest problem instudents written work. Wrong use of apostrophes was overwhelmingly atthe top of the list. The reason this annoys markers so much is that therules are pretty simple. Here they are:

USEAN APOSTROPHE TO:

Signal possession by adding sto a singular noun: Susans book,KingsCollege, the boys father, the womans coat, the bananasskin, the pianos keys.

If the noun or name already ends in s then go ahead and add sas normal: Tesss book, Dickenss novels, Keatss poems, thebuss driver.

A plural noun ending in s takes an apostrophe after the s: the boysfathers, the buses drivers, the horses owner.

A plural noun not ending in s takes s: the womens rights, thechildrens school.

Get into the habit of taking a moment to check if the apostropheshould be before or after the s every time you use one. Do not be

tempted to tuck the apostrophe into a name that already has an s:Dickens novels, Keats poems, or into possessive pronouns (seebelow).

Signal a missing letter in a contraction such as dont, wont, wouldnt,isnt, its. However, these contractions are informal and should notappear in academic essays, except when they appear in quotationsfrom texts. Write out these phrases in full: do not, will not, wouldnot, is not, it is, etc.


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DO NOT USEAN APOSTROPHE FOR:

Plurals of nouns ending in vowels such as bananas, pianos, tomatos

instead of bananas, pianos, tomatoes. This is known as thegreengrocers apostrophe, but crops up everywhere. There is noexcuse for this; it is just plain wrong.

Possessive pronouns such as hers, yours, theirs, its, ours. Theseare complete words, like his and mine.

Its and its are commonly confused, but this really annoys your marker,so get this one right. Its should never appear in your written work. If youmean it is, then write this out in full. If you mean belonging to it, thenthere is no apostrophe. Run a search on your essay and correct any itsthat you find lurking in your text. Also look out forwhos and whose.

7.2 Commas

I used to be a sub-editor on a daily newspaper. I would get a rough andready news story from a reporter, and I would cut and correct it. I wouldput their commas in the right places. I would send it to the chief sub-

editor who would look over it and put my commas in the right places. Hewould send it to the night editor, who would approve it, and put all hiscommas in the right places. We all thought we were correct. Differentwriters vary their use of commas, which can be confusing when you aregetting to grips with the rules. In the last forty years, English has shiftedquite radically to using as few commas as possible. Someone who wentto university in the 1960s will have learned different rules from acceptedcontemporary practice. However, this does not mean that you can putcommas wherever you like. Commas provide the internal structure or

map of each sentence. They mark out which bits of the sentence areessential to its meaning and which bits are supplementary. They showwhere clauses start and stop, and they separate items in lists. Gettingthem in the right place keeps the movement of the sentence clear, buthaving too many can slow down your reader and make the sentenceseem cluttered and fussy. Here are some rules which you should learn toobserve:


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Though and although cannot be used as connective adverbs atthe start of sentences:

X Although, many people try to do so.

They can, however, be used at the start of a subordinate clause:

Although Elizabeth finds Darcy overbearing, she is obviouslythe only woman in the novel who is his intellectual equal.

To separate items in a list: This works for nouns and adjectives:

Oscar Wilde wrote novels, plays, poetry, journalism, criticismand childrens stories. However, he is most famous for hiscolourful, controversial private life.

If you have three or more items, use and between the last two.Avoid listing verbs and adverbs. One at a time is quite enough.

To signal parenthesis: Commas can be used like brackets to insert anextra piece of information, interesting or otherwise, into a sentence.Reread that last sentence without the words between the twocommas. It still makes sense. The phrase between the commas is

not a complete sentence. In this case it is a modifying phrase,which adds some extra information or comment about thepreceding noun. The first comma signals a short diversion from thesentence. The second comma shows that this is finished, and thesentence picks up where it left off. You could insert a different kindof phrase or clause here, such as or even a witty aside or if youhave any extra information to insert. Parentheses have greatcomic potential, but try to resist the temptation to use them inessays for hilarious remarks that probably will not seem so funny to

your marker. Also avoid using them to include lists of things thatyou would like to mention but cannot be bothered to includeproperly in a working sentence:

X Hamlet has many flaws, indecisiveness, arrogance, suspicionof others etc, which undermine his heroic potential.

Here it would be better to say:

Hamlet has many flaws which undermine his heroic potential.He is indecisive, arrogant and suspicious of others.


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This version sounds less muddled. Also, avoid long, ramblingdiversions in sentences, or diversions within a diversion. One shortphrase is fine, but if your parenthesis is any longer than ten words,

you should consider putting this information in a sentence of itsown. If you do use commas to form a parenthesis, make sure youclose it. You would not use just one bracket. In fact, avoid usingbrackets and dashes wherever possible. Good use of commas ismuch more elegant.

To mark out clauses: If you are hazy about what a clause is, you needto read something that will explain the basics of grammar slowlyand carefully. See the list at the end of Section B for some furtherreading. Traditional grammar is very careful to note every shift inthe syntax of a sentence by inserting a comma. (See JaneAustens sentence on page 8.) Modern writing is more relaxedabout this. Look at sentences four and five in the openingparagraph about commas on page 19. These sentences aregrammatically identical, but I have only put commas in one of themso that you can see the two styles in action. Aptly enough, the chiefsub-editor liked to take commas out whenever possible, while thenight editor liked to put them back in. In that particular case it doesnot make much difference. The syntax works either way. Some

clauses do not need to be separated by commas, especially whena linking word such as that, whenever, since etc is used.However, commas can make a dramatic difference to the meaningof a sentence. Leaving them out can make a sentence ambiguous.Use commas to make your meaning apparent, not just to providepauses where you think the reader needs a rest. The easiest wayto get this right is to be absolutely clear in your own head aboutwhat you want to say, and to say it as simply as possible in shortsentences. You will find a quick explanation of clauses on page 28,

which should help.

To introduce speech:A comma is used to introduce speech or aquotation when it forms part of the preceding or following sentence:

Hamlet says, I know a hawk from a handsaw.3or

I know a hawk from a handsaw, says Hamlet.

3 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, in The Complete Works of Shakespeare,2 vols (New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1968), vol II, Act II, Sc. 2, p.611.


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You can also use a colon to introduce a quotation or speech:

Hamlet says: I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Always use a colon when the quotation follows a completesentence:

Hamlet insists that he is sane: I know a hawk from ahandsaw.

DO NOT USECOMMAS:

To join sentences without a conjunction: This creates a commasplice, which comes a close second to dodgy apostrophes on themarkers hate-list. A comma splice looks like this:

X Some markers are sent into a rage by comma splices, theywill give themselves a hernia with fury, and will cover youressay in red pen.

It should read:

Some markers are sent into a rage by comma splices. Theywill give themselves a hernia with fury, and will cover youressay in red pen.or

Some markers are sent into a rage by comma splices; theywill give themselves a hernia with fury, and will cover youressay in red pen.

Oddly enough, this quirk was tolerated more in the nineteenth

century. So, you will sometimes see comma splices, which wouldnow get red pen all over them, used by very stylish and correctwriters, such as Robert Louis Stevenson or Ralph Waldo Emerson.This just proves that the language is alive and constantly changing,but it is not worth arguing this point with your tutor. Learn thecurrent rules and follow them. My experience as a marker suggeststhat the comma splice is a common mistake of bright students whoread quickly and think coherently. Sometimes certain ideas seemso connected that one instinctively wants to put them in the same

sentence. However, linking these is no longer the job of thecomma. If you really want to run together two sentences that seem


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to connect, consider a semi-colon (see below). It is an under-usedpunctuation resource. Alternatively include a conjunction, and, but,so, or, for etc. Connective adverbs such as however, yet, still,nevertheless, therefore, thus, moreover etc are not strong

enough to join two sentences. If you want to use one of these, stopthe sentence and start again. If you are a fast reader, keep aspecial lookout for comma splices as you proofread.

7.3 Semi-colons

Few people know how to use a semi-colon well, which is a pity, as this isan elegant element of style. It has two main functions in prose:

To connect two sentences: This is a good antidote to the commasplice. It works especially well for short sentences where the sensefollows on directly into the second sentence, and where the twohalves are of equal importance and length:

I opened the book; I began to read.

It is also possible to use a semi-colon with a connective adverb:

I opened the book; however, I did not begin to read.

This is more cumbersome and should be used sparingly. Thegolden rule of using semi-colons to join clauses is that each half ofthe completed sentence should also operate as a grammaticalsentence in its own right. In other words, only use a semi-colonwhere you could put a full stop. Therefore, you should avoid puttinga semi-colon next to conjunctions, such as and, but, so etc, orrelatives, such as that, which, when etc. You do not need these.The semi-colon does the job of linking well enough by itself.

To separate items on a list: This is especially useful when the list islong and the individual items on the list include commas:

There are many ghosts and spirits in Victorian fiction: theGhosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future inA ChristmasCarol by Charles Dickens; the dead servants, Quint andJessel, in The Turn of the Screw by Henry James; and theunseen, pervasive presence of Janes mother in Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Bronte.


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This way the reader can easily tell where the important divisionsbetween the items occur. If this list only contained commas, itwould be very confusing. When using semi-colons in a list, it isoften a good idea to introduce the list with a colon to show where

the list begins.

7.4 Colons

Like semi-colons, these are rarely used but are not as confusing asmany people think. The function of a colon is to introduce information ofsome kind:

To introduce a list: A colon announces that something important isabout to follow. This makes it ideal for kicking off a long list, asabove. The list can also be a sequence of short items separated bycommas:

You will need four ingredients to bake a cake: flour, sugar,butter and eggs.

To introduce a quotation or speech: This is very useful in essays, andworks well before a large, indented quotation. Always use a colonto introduce a quotation which follows a complete sentence.

To introduce an explanation or statement: In this case the colon isused to create some sort of anticipation. It is often used whenreporting speech or when summarizing or expanding the first halfof the sentence:

Austens message is clear: money is an essential element ina happy marriage.or

Elizabeth makes her feelings obvious: she despises MrCollins.

Unlike the semi-colon, the colon does not always require twoequally balanced clauses. In fact it works most powerfully when it isused to introduce a single word or a short, punchy phrase:

However, Austens heroines require something more thanmoney for a happy marriage: love.

or Elizabeth feels only one emotion for Mr Collins: contempt.


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This construction also works in reverse:

Contempt: this is the only emotion Elizabeth has for Mr

Collins.

This is very striking and, as with all grammatical flourishes, shouldbe used with caution. Try this no more than once a term.

7.5 Dashes

Unlike semi-colons and colons, dashes are over-used. They are oftenused by writers who are unsure which punctuation mark to choose.Dashes should NOT be used instead of brackets, parenthetical commas,semi-colons, full stops, or colons before lists and quotations. Avoid all ofthe following constructions:

X Elizabeth a very independent woman is in no rush to marry.X Elizabeth makes her feelings obvious she despises Mr Collins.X Elizabeth feels only one emotion for Mr Collins contempt.

All of these can be rewritten using more appropriate punctuation.However, dashes do have their place, whatever some may say. When

you use one make sure you type a long dash () not a short hyphen (-).Press Ctrl, Alt and the hyphen key at the top right of your keyboard.Dashes are useful where the sense of the sentence is interrupted insome way, or where a long qualification or description has led away fromthe main point of the sentence. The dash provides a breathing space inwhich the sentence can reorganise itself:

Elizabeth Bennet is young, attractive, intelligent, vivacious,independent to the point of stubbornness the classic Austen

heroine.

The final phrase does not fit easily into the syntax of the sentence, but itis obviously referring to the subject of the sentence, Elizabeth Bennet. Ifyou were to put a comma after stubbornness, the final phrase would getlost in the list of adjectives. You could create a new sentence: She is theclassic Austen heroine. However, this lacks the immediacy andmovement of this version. A dash seems justified in this case. Here isanother one:


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Hamlets indecisiveness, his arrogance, his suspicion of others, hispassionate, brooding, introspective nature these all contribute tohis downfall.

In both these sentences you could quite correctly substitute a colon.However, the effect of a colon is to lead the reader forward into thefollowing section. A dash is more like a bucket of cold water flung in thereaders face, jolting them back to the starting point of the sentence.Nobody wants this experience too often, so, once more, use withextreme caution. If you can replace a dash with another punctuationmark, you probably should.

7.6 Quotation marks

In British usage, speech and quotations are signalled by single quotationmarks:

Dickens beginsA Christmas Carolwith a ghostly reference: Marleywas dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

Quotations and speech within quotations are signalled by doublequotation marks:

Bah!said Scrooge, Humbug!

You will see this done the other way around, with double quote marks onthe outside and single quotes within. This will probably be in books orjournals published in the US, where the system is reversed. Please usethe British system. For more on quotations, see Section C.

7.7 Exclamation marks

Do not use these, unless they appear in quotations (see above).An academic essay should persuade by force of reason and evidence.Exclamation marks do not fit in the formal register of academic writing.


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8 GRAMMAR

Language needs grammar. It is essential if you want to construct anykind of statement beyond simply naming objects. If you want to express

interesting ideas then a sound grasp of grammar is essential. Yourunderstanding of grammar may be more developed than you realise. Ifyou have studied a foreign language, you may have a very sophisticatedknowledge of how it works. Many students use grammar well withoutknowing all the terms for the techniques they are using. This is fine whenit works, but it can help to stop and think about what you are doing.Markers tend to use technical, grammatical terms when pointing outproblems in your work, which is not much use to you if you do not knowwhat they are talking about. This section will point out a few commonproblems, and offer definitions of some terms that may crop up in yourmarkers comments. If you have serious problems with grammar, thisbooklet will not solve them. If your markers consistently complain aboutyour syntax, sentence structure, tenses, pronouns and the like, youprobably need some help from one of the sources listed on pages 2-3.

8.1 Clauses

Clauses are the internal sections of a sentence, which fit together to

build up meaning. Every clause has a noun and a verb, sometimescalled a subject and a predicate. However, not all clauses are of equalweight and value. The clauses of a sentence are like the internal walls ofa house. Some can be moved around or altered without doing too muchdamage. One is always essential and cannot be removed without thewhole thing falling in. Clauses which are essential are main clauses. Acompound sentence (see page 20) will have two main clauses. A mainclause requires a noun and a verb:

I know.

However, it can also be more elaborate:

I know some useful things about grammar.

A main clause is the bit of a sentence which can make a sentence all byitself. Know is the principal verb of this sentence, which means it is theverb in the main clause. I is the subject of the sentence, which means it

is the noun doing the verb, also called the predicate. Some usefulthings about grammar forms the object of the sentence. This is the noun


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phrase which represents the thing that I know. Subjects, objects andpredicates can all be made up of single words or phrases to make up themain clause.

Subordinate clauses: Onto this main clause one can attach otherclauses, which support and describe the main clause. These are calledsubordinate clauses. All the subordinate clauses in the followingexamples are underlined. Subordinate clauses can often be movedaround without changing the meaning of a sentence:

I know some useful things about grammar, which is lucky for you.orIt is lucky for you that I know some useful things about grammar.

A subordinate clause is a section of a sentence which contains a subjectand a predicate (ie. a noun and a verb), but which is doing the job of anadverb or an adjective. It is not part of the main action of the sentence. Itis describing a thing or an action in the main clause or in anothersubordinate clause. A sentence can have more than one subordinateclause. They can follow and/or precede the main clause.

Because I have studied English, I know some useful things aboutgrammar, which is lucky for you, as you can draw on these to

improve your writing.

By now, however, this sentence is getting a bit long and complex for myliking. Once you have more than three clauses in a sentence, it is veryeasy to get muddled up about which is the important one. I adviseagainst sentences any more complex than this. They are hard to writewell and hard work to read. The real danger is when the main clausegets missed out, and you end up with something like this:

X Because I have studied English, which is lucky for you, as you candraw on these to improve your writing.

This is not a sentence. It has no main verb, only a succession ofsubordinate clauses. A subordinate clause is often flagged up by a wordsuch as while, which, if, that, whenever, although, as, despite, etc.This kind of clause describes the subject, the object or the predicate ofthe main clause. A phrase containing a participle (usually a verb endingin ing) behaves similarly. These cannot form sentences in their own

right, even though you will find them in The Sunday Times. In yourwritten work, therefore, you should avoid things like this:


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X Although this is not the case.X However much you try.X Rarely appearing to do so.

X Being of sound mind and judgement.

All of these are sentence fragments. They do have nouns and verbs,but they lack a principal verb and are not valid as stand-alone sentencesin formal written English. Charles Dickens, who was once a journalist,uses these often in his fiction for dramatic effect. However, they have noplace in academic essays. The Microsoft grammar check will not alwayspick up sentence fragments, so correct these carefully yourself.

Dangling elements: You also need to make sure that the different bitsof the sentence match up in a way that makes sense. A subordinateclause or participle phrase can cause complications when it is not quiteclear to which bit of the main clause it refers. For example:

While she was writing The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolfs sisterVanessa Bell painted her portrait.

This is called a dangling clause, because the while clause danglespointlessly and ambiguously from the main clause. This sentence

suggests that Virginia Woolfs sister wrote The Voyage Out, which is notthe case. In this sort of sentence, try to keep the subject of the mainclause as the subject of the subordinate clause, so that the two halves ofthe sentence are talking about the same thing or person. This mayrequire some rewording.

While Virginia Woolf was writing The Voyage Out, she sat for aportrait painted by her sister Vanessa Bell.

This is clearer. However, it is also possible to solve this kind of problemby writing shorter sentences:

Vanessa Bell painted a portrait of her sister, Virginia Woolf. Duringthis period, Woolf was writing The Voyage Out.

Look out for other elements in sentences that dangle. Make it clear whateach bit of the sentence describes. Remember that pronouns usuallyrefer to the most recent available noun. (See section on pronouns page

34.) Make sure that what you have written makes sense to your reader,not just to you.


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Relative clauses:A relative clause is a subordinate clause which refersto a preceding noun or pronoun. It usually starts with who, which orthat. In the following sentence the relative clause has been underlined:

The play which we studied last year is out of print.

There are two kinds of relative clause: defining and non-defining.

A defining relative clause is essential to the meaning of the sentencebecause it gives important information about the preceding word. Thisidentifies it in some way, marking it out from all other possibleoccurrences of the word. The example above is a defining relativeclause. It makes clear that the sentence is discussing one particular playstudied last year, in contrast to plays studied this year or two years ago.

A non-defining relative clause offers information that describes butdoes not specify; it is doing the same job as a modifying clause in aparenthesis (see page 21). Like this, it must be enclosed in commas tokeep it out of the way of the main action of the sentence:

Shakespeare, who was born in 1564, wrote poetry as well as plays.

When the clause defines, there are no commas. When it does not, it is

surrounded by commas, or by a comma and a full stop, if it ends thesentence. Remember to add the second comma after a non-definingrelative clause. Avoid things like this:

X Shakespeare, who was born in 1564 wrote poetry as well as plays.

It is important to decide whether a relative clause is defining or non-defining, since the commas alone can change the meaning completely.Compare the two pairs below:

He answered all the questions which were on Shakespeare.

He answered all the questions, which were on Shakespeare.

Were all the available questions on Shakespeare or not? My personalfavourite in this category is:

All the sailors who were in the lifeboat were saved.

All the sailors, who were in the lifeboat, were saved.


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The first sentence implies that some sailors did not make it into thelifeboat and came to a sorry end. The other one says that all the sailorswere in the lifeboat and survived. Who says punctuation is not a matterof life and death?

That and which: If you use your Microsoft grammar check as you write,you will find that it constantly makes a fuss about whether you use thator which at the beginning of relative clauses. The people at Microsoft,for reasons of their own, will not let you start a defining relative clausewith which. If you type a comma followed by which, a green lineappears under the text. Microsoft insists on:

The play that we studied last year is out of print.orHe answered all the questions that were on Shakespeare.

You can do it this way for a quiet life, but the rule above about commasis the important one. Microsoft is not the ultimate authority on grammar,and I do not see why it should be allowed to boss everyone around. Ireserve the right to use that and which in both defining and non-defining clauses as appropriate. You should too.

8.2 Agreement

Subject and verb agreement: A singular subject should have a singularverb. A plural subject should have a plural verb. This sounds simple, butcan be confusing when the subject of the sentence is a short phrase:

X The number of passes have risen to fifty.

The verb should be has:

The number of passes has risen to fifty.

The main subject of this sentence is the number. The phrase ofpassesis only a modifier of the subject. Number is singular and requires asingular verb. However, a phrase containing a number of would take aplural verb, just like a phrase containing a lot of before a plural noun:

A number of passes are just above the borderline.

A lot of passes are just above the borderline.


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This is because a number of and a lot of behave like modifiers, such asmany. Be especially careful of this issue if you have a list in a sentence,or some sort of qualifying or relative clause:

X Hamlets failure to take control of the situation, act decisively, andregain his rightful position as ruler, are disastrous.

Hamlets failure is the subject of the sentence. So this should read:

Hamlets failure to take control of the situation, act decisively, andregain his rightful position as ruler, is disastrous.

Collective nouns: Some writers relax the rule about singular subject,singular verb for collective nouns. These nouns denote groups andtherefore imply their members, such as army, audience, committee,family and jury. It is often acceptable to say:

My family are delightful.

But if you start this sort of thing, it can be hard to know where to stop.What about the government, the university, the community, the firebrigade, the company etc?For the sake of consistency and accuracy, itis better to obey the singular rule and to write.

My family is delightful.

If you want to make it clear that you are talking about the members of thegroup then do so:

All the members of my family are delightful.

Indefinite pronouns. The rules about collective nouns become harder if

you include an indefinite pronoun in your sentence such as everybody,everyone, somebody, someone, anybody, anyone, nobody, no one,none. These words all take a singular verb.

Everybody in my family is delightful.

Watch out when the indefinite pronoun is used after a plural.

X None of my relatives are delightful.

None of my relatives is delightful.


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This seems counter-intuitive until you remember that none is just a shortversion of not one. All the pronouns listed above follow this rule.However, they are sometimes linked to the plurals they, their and

them(selves):

Everybody is entitled to theiropinion.orIf someone does not like poetry, I would not make them read it.

This is done to avoid a gendered pronoun. In earlier centuries his orhimwas often used in this context as an indefinite pronoun. However, asmany people pointed out, this excluded half the population from this sortof sentence. One can say his or her and him or her, but it sounds a bitclumsy, and raises the problem of who should go first: girls or boys?Many other languages have a non-gendered pronoun, a human versionof it, for this sort of situation, but English does not. Some older writersobject to their, theirs and them in this context, but the language isdefinitely moving towards this as the solution to the problem. On thewhole, I think this is better than trying to turn the clock back to a sexistway of seeing the world.

8.3 Tenses

Make sure that you only write in one tense at a time. It is easy to get thismixed up if you are using a conditional case or reporting speech. As witheverything else, look at what you are writing carefully. Make sure you areclear what you want to say and that it cannot be read in a different way.Write about real-life authors in past tense (unless they are still alive) andfictional characters in present tense. (See page 17.)

8.4 Pronouns

A pronoun always refers to the most recent plausible noun. This is calledthe law of antecedents. It works like this:

The cat dropped the mouse. It ran away.

This says that the mouse ran away, not the cat. However a genderedpronoun will match up with the most recent gendered noun, or propername.

The girl dropped the mouse. She ran away.


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In this case it is the girl who runs away. Technically, of course, it mightbe a female mouse. However, we are not told the mouses gender, sothe girl is the most likely candidate for she.

Pronouns can get out of hand when there are too many of them ina sentence, especially if this sentence contains an indefinite pronoun ortwo, such as itand this. For example, what does this mean?

It is useful to note that Hamlets indecision about killing his uncletakes more time than it should, but this doesnt mean that it ismorally wrong, and this might be the case because he gets to thinkabout it first.

Is it Hamlets indecision or the killing of his uncle that may or may not bewrong? What might be the case? Who gets to think about it first: Hamletor his uncle? A student who writes a sentence like this may have an ideain their own head what they mean, but they have not exactly made theirpoint clear. On the whole, you should avoid starting sentences with itand this whenever possible, and be aware that pronouns later in asentence may be misread if not clearly attached to an earlier noun.There is no law against using a noun or name twice in a sentence if ithelps clarify the point. Always strike out pointless phrases such as it is

useful to note that. Write shorter sentences.

9. SPELLING

There is no short cut to good spelling. You just have to learn what eachword in the language looks like. However, there is one simple thing youcan do which will help: buy a dictionary. A good dictionary will be themost useful book you buy during your time at university, so do not

grudge the money for it. However, there is no point spending a weeksrent on a leather-bound, two-volume Shorter Oxford. Buy a small,compact dictionary, ideally less than 20cm tall, that is light enough andsturdy enough to travel in your rucksack. A dictionary on the bookshelf isno use if you are working in the library or the computing centre. Get intothe habit of taking your dictionary (and this booklet) with you when youare writing, and look up words you are unsure about. This will not justhelp with your spelling. Make sure that you also read and understand thedefinition of the words you use. It is easy to get similar words confused.

Using a dictionary rather than the spell check on your PC can help youavoid some embarrassing errors.


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Microsoft spell check is a useful function, and can help you spottyping errors that your eye might otherwise miss. However, it is notfoolproof. It will not notice the difference between theirand there, or itand is, orallusive and elusive. It will clear anything in its own dictionary,

without checking to see if this word belongs in your sentence. If you relyon it too heavily, you can end up with sentences like this:

During this scene, the ghost of Hamlets father can be seenhoovering in the background.

In Paradise Lost, Satan rallies the fallen angles.

Do not automatically accept any corrections that the spell checksuggests. Be especially careful with names. A fourth-year studentrecently submitted an essay where the names of the characters Hagarand Ishmael had been changed throughout to Haggard and Fishmeal.How we laughed Always read through your essay carefully after youhave printed it out. You will notice mistakes that you did not pick up onscreen. If there are only a few of these, your marker will not mind if youcorrect these by hand. It is better to show that you have read throughyour work than to present a pristine text full of errors. If you find a lot ofmistakes, go back and print out the essay again. Remember that theability to produce a clean, polished text is an important skill in its own

right. It is worth spending time and effort on this. Not only will goodspelling earn you extra marks for each essay during your time as astudent; this is a skill that will also be useful in the workplace later on.

9.1 Common errors

There may be no short cut to good spelling, but there are some commonpitfalls which you can avoid. Here are some areas which need specialcare:

Words endingant/ent eg: dependent, dependantance/ence eg: observance, correspondenceite/ate eg: infinite, obstinateible/able eg: fallible, reasonableibility/ability eg: fallibility, disabilityarate/erate eg: separate, desperateege/edge eg: privilege, acknowledge

cede/ceed/sede eg: precede, proceed, supersedeice/ise eg: noun practice, verb practise


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9.3 US v UK Spelling

Please use UK spelling at all times in your own writing. However, someof the texts which you read will be printed with US spellings, so it is

useful to know the main differences.

British ll/American l: A single consonant at the end of a word is oftendoubled before a suffix in UK English, but not in US English:revelling/reveling.

British re/American er: centre/center, metre/meter, theatre/theater

British ogue/American og: catalogue/catalog, demagogue/demagog

British our/American or: colour/color, humour/humor, vigour/vigor

British se/American ze: criticise/criticize, analyse/analyze

It is acceptable to reproduce US spellings in quotations, if you arequoting from an American text, such as Robert Frosts poem The RoadNot Taken:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.4

Further Reading

Burchfield, R. W., ed., Fowlers Modern English Usage, 3rd edn (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1998)

Gee, Robyn, and Carol Watson, Usborne Guide to Better English:Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation (London: Usborne, 2004)

Partridge, Eric, Usage and Abusage: A Guide to Good English(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999)

Peck, John and Martin Coyle. The Students Guide to Writing: Grammar,Spelling and Punctuation (Houndmills: Palgrave, 1999)

4Robert Frost, The Poetry of Robert Frost, ed. by Edward ConneryLathem (London: Cape, 1971; repr. 2001), p.105.


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Ritter, R. M. ed., The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, 2nd

edn(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Strunk, William and E. B. White, The Elements of Style (London:

Longman, 1999)

Truss, Lynne, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero-Tolerance Approachto Punctuation (London: Profile Books, 2003)

QUICK FIX: LANGUAGE

1. Write in clear, simple, formal English.

2. Get apostrophes in the right places. Its should never appear in youressay. If you mean it is, write it out in full. If you mean its = belongingto it, there is no apostrophe.

3. Avoid comma splices; use a semi-colon or start a new sentence.

4. Think about clauses. Do not have too many in one sentence. It isalways better to write short, clear sentences whenever possible. Do not

present subordinate clauses as complete sentences. These aresentence fragments.

5. Make sure that single nouns have single verbs and that plural nounshave plural verbs.

6. Write about authors in past tense (unless they are still alive). Writeabout fictional characters and events in present tense.

7. Use pronouns with care. Make sure that the pronoun refers to the mostrecent available noun. Avoid vague pronouns such as this and it,especially at the start of sentences.

8. Do not rely on Microsoft to sort out your grammar and spelling.

9. Always read through your work carefully once you have finished.Correct any mistakes that you find, by hand if necessary.

10. Buy a dictionary and use it.


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SECTION C: SOURCES

10. CHOOSING SOURCES

Choosing and using sources is an integral part of studying. Findinguseful texts can seem rather daunting, especially if most of the textsrecommended in the course guide have been checked out of the library.However, there is no need to panic and log on to Google. There arethousands of books in the Queen Mother Library. Dozens of these will berelevant to your essay topic. The trick is knowing where to look. Yourtutor will not be impressed if you give up searching, and write asuperficial essay built up of information from lecture notes and things

downloaded from the Internet. However, if you are prepared to look alittle bit harder in the library, you will find some wonderful sources, whichwill inform your work and give you original ideas.

Critical books: Obviously, it is helpful if you can get your hands on acritical book about an author on whom you are writing. However, this isnot the only kind of useful critical book. There are also many books inQML which focus on literary forms and literary periods. If you are writingabout Keats, for example, it might be interesting to start looking for booksabout the Romantic Movement or about the history of poetry. Booksabout poetic form and structure would give you an insight into how hiswork compares to that of other poets. You can use the index to see ifthere is a short section about him. Ten pages placing Keats into a widercontext, might be more use than a long biography which you do not havethe time or energy to read. Finally, critical theory books can provide youwith radical and incisive ways of approaching a text. Begin to think abouthow you read, and explore some theories which invite you to try outdifferent kinds of reading. Your work will be sharper and more rigorous.

Other disciplines: There is no law that says you have to stay on Floor 3of QML. Think creatively about your essay question. If it has a historicalangle, you might want to look at something which will give you somebackground knowledge of the period. Books on cultural history andsociology can be especially interesting, as they explore many of thesame issues that literature does. If you are working on a writer who hasan interest in philosophy, art or religion, it can be useful to research theideas behind their work. Many books will tell you that Thomas Hardy wasinterested in the philosophy of Schopenhauer, but very few students

bother to go and find out about him. There is no reason why you shouldnot. This may teach you more about Hardy than ten critical works.


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Contemporary Periodicals: Old magazines and newspapers offer amine of information about the culture and history of a literary period. Youcan also find contemporary reviews of books, plays and poems here.Many periodicals are available as online databases. Look in the English

website under Study Resources for access to these.

Academic Journals: It is easy to forget about these, but short articlesare often more use than books. They are quicker to read and sometimesmore interesting. There are several ways of searching for articles online.I recommend the MLA Bibliography, which lists every work of criticism onliterature in English anywhere in the world. You can do a keywordsearch, and it will tell you every book and article on the subject. You canthen use the QML catalogue to work out what we have. Go into theEnglish webpage. Click on Study Resources, then E-Resources Guideand choose MLA. Or enter in the URL bar.

Internet sources: There are many interesting and scholarly pieces ofwork on the Internet. There is also a lot of superficial and inaccurateinformation. Be very careful about what you use from the Internet. Siteswhich are sponsored by universities or academic publishers are likely togive you very good information. You can often get journal articles on theInternet which are not available in QML. Literary societies also oftenhave good biographical information about authors and useful lists of

recommended reading. There is a list of links in the Study Resourcessection of the English website. However, be wary of study-notes sites,which are aimed at school students and will not bring your work up to thelevel we would like to see. Discussion boards and essays which are notpublished through an academic site often contain information which isnot correct. There is nothing to stop you posting your work on theInternet, so what you find there could be the work of an enthusiasticundergraduate with some IT skills. Your marker will get twitchy if morethan half of your bibliography is made up of Internet sites. Use a mix of

sources as you do your research.

11. USING SOURCES

Effective use of secondary sources is crucial. It is almost impossible towrite a really good essay without secondary sources. Even for a criticalanalysis, it is a good idea to pick up some generalisations about theauthors style and that of his contemporaries from critics, and then

compare what they say with the text. Learning from other thinkers andwriters is what being at university is all about. You will also find that


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reading other people sharpens up your own ideas. However, you need toknow how to incorporate other writers work into your own. Good use ofsecondary material shows that you have done your research, and thatyou are also confident about your own opinions. It is an essential

element in a first-class essay. Using sources well is much more thanavoiding plagiarism. It is about showing off your knowledge, and makingyour sources work to back up your ideas.

11.1 Argue with the critics

Just because someone has spent a lifetime researching a subject and isan internationally recognised authority on a particular text or author doesnot necessarily mean they are right. Feel free to challenge anything andeverything that you read. In fact, when you read secondary sources, youshould probably start with the assumption that you are going to disagreebut you are prepared to be persuaded if they make a good enough case.This is called critical thinking. Students often discard any secondarymaterial that they do not agree with. This is like taking the springs out ofa trampoline and then wondering why it does not bounce. Criticalmaterial that you can prove is missing the point is a gift. Roll yoursleeves up and get to work on it. Just make sure you can back up yourposition with material from the text or from other critics. Sometimes purelogic will do the trick too. This is the sort of thing that makes an essay

sparkle. So, be assertive with critics. They are only human after all.

11.2 Acknowledge the critic in your text

It is not enough to drop in a footnote at the end of a sentence, or name abook in the bibliography. You must acknowledge your sources moreactively than this. Make sure you say who said what and whether youagree. For example, In her study of the subject, Hazel Hutchison arguesa, which is a useful approach to the text because ofb. However, she

overlooks the issue ofc,which is a vital element in the plot. There aregood reasons for naming the critic like this:

It sounds good. Academics all enjoy a bit of name-dropping, and like tosee that you have considered an idea put forward by an important criticor literary figure. Essays are all about showing what you have read andlearned. Knowing about the key players in a debate is part of this.

It helps your marker: Remember that it is your job to make your essay

accessible to the reader. Your marker may not have read all the booksyou refer to, so some help in sorting out who said what is often


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appreciated. For example, do you have any idea how many books thereare in QML on Shakespeare? Alternatively, your markermayhave readall your secondary sources, in which case they will expect you to givecredit to the critic where it is due.

It makes for clarity: One of the hardest skills in writing about literature ismaking it crystal clear which ideas come from outside sources, which arebased on common knowledge (or hearsay) about period, genre etc, andwhich are your own thoughts on the subject. You want to sell the lastcategory, but your marker will not know what your thoughts are, unlessyou make it clear where other peoples ideas stop and yours start. Do notassume you can fudge this to your advantage. Academics tend to becynical by nature, and will assume that you have absorbed ideas fromsomewhere else unless you mark this out neatly.

It helps with structure: Naming the critic makes it easier to refer backto this idea later in the essay. Eg: F.R.Leavis takes a completelydifferent line to Hutchison on this matter. He argues x, y and z. Thishelps to hold the whole essay together and makes it look like a wellbalanced piece of writing.

12.LAYOUTOFQUOTATIONS

12.1Very short quotations

Quotations of a few words should be incorporated into a longer sentencelike this:

Pips great expectations prove to be not at all what he imagines.or

Joes repeated phrase, what larks, represents his lack of

education as well as his affectionate, boyish relationship with Pip.5

Always give a footnote the first time you quote from a text. There is noneed to footnote a title. If you have more than one quotation in asentence, give both references in the same footnote. Always place thefootnote number at the end of the sentence. A footnote referencenumber should follow all punctuation.

5Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861; repr. London: Everyman,1994), p.193.


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12.2 Quotations of up to 40 words

These may also be incorporated into your text. They should be precededby a colon or comma when appropriate:

Charles Dickens sets Pips story in a landscape similar to that ofhis own childhood: Ours was the marsh country, down by the river,within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea.

The colon or comma is not needed if a word such as that, which,whetherintroduces the quotation. In this case, the quotation functions asa subordinate clause, and is an integral part of the wider sentence. Whenthe quotation appears within a sentence, the final full stop should appearoutside the quotation marks, even if the full stop is part of the originalsentence. A page number in brackets should go inside the full stop whenthe quotation is run on in the text:

Charles Dickens sets Pips story in a landscape similar to that ofhis own childhood. Pip tells the reader that Ours was the marshcountry, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty milesof the sea (GE, p.1).or

Pip believes Miss Havisham is the source of his great

expectations.

12.3 Quotations longer than 40 words

These should be set apart in an indented paragraph of their own. Leavea line, indent the whole paragraph one tab space from the margin, andset out the passage withoutquotation marks, except for those that mayappear in the passage quoted:

Charles Dickens sets Pips story in a landscape similar to that ofhis own childhood. He quickly connects Pips identity with thislandscape and with the day on with he meets Magwitch:

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as theriver wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid andbroad impression of the identity of things, seems to me tohave been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards

evening. (GE, p.1)


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Footnote numbers and subsequent page references in brackets shouldappear after the full stop for indented quotes. After an indented quotethere is no need to indent the first line of text, unless you intend to start anew paragraph.

12.4 Quoting poetry

When quoting poetry, you should set it out as it appears in the originaltext. Check the punctuation carefully; it may not be as you expect. If youare quoting more than two lines, indent it and lay it out exactly as itappears on the page:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth. (Frost, 1-5)

Give a footnote, as you would for prose, and include line numbers. I havealready quoted from The Road Not Tak

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