A Few Dos & Don'ts by an academic writer
Hints and tips for better writing
Structure your paper
Try to follow a well-defined structure. The following is a suggestion. You don't have to strictly replicate it, but keep in mind that the structure of your paper has to be functional to the development of your argument.
- Present your topic
- Describe the background
- Position your approach and Specify your objective
- Analyze your topic and make your point
- Conclude
Introduction
Introduce your argument. Tell the reader what your topic is and why it is interesting. You can use an opening hook: a striking opening sentence like a strong statement, a question, an anectode. Remember that you don't necessarily need to be impressive. Clarity and relevance are still more important.
"When William Faulkner wrote 'the past is never dead. It's not even past,' he probably was not thinking about zombies. but these sentences, which themselves rise up again and again, call to mind the pervading presence of diverse forms of undeadness—racial, ethnic, political, economic, historical—in 'the South' as we understand it. Undead souths considers literature, films, and other media that explore representations of death and deathways as well as figures returned from the grave."
Anderson, Hagood and Turner. "Introduction". Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 1-9.
Make the reader understand your topic and its importance. The length and detail of the background depend also on the degree to which you need to show your understanding of the topic. After you’ve caught the reader’s attention, specify a bit more. Provide context and narrow down your topic.Are there theories, concepts, terms, and ideas that require you to provide additional explanation? You can provide a (brief) overview of the relevant literature (i.e. quotes from scholars whose analyses are instrumental to your argument)
Background
"In Cities of the dead (1996), Joseph Roach observes that New Orleans is a place 'where the dead remain more gregariously present to the living, materially and spiritually, than they do anywhere else' (xii). No one understood this more than george washington cable, who invoked the city haunting past in his fiction and nonfiction alike. Serving as an archivist and cultural historian, cable utilizes detailed accounts of new orleans's topography and architecture in his narratives to articulate the secrets of what he calls the 'semi submerged' city (Grandissimes 269). Cable's attention to detail in describing the scenes and the setting of old new orleans is meticulous"
Sara Hirsch. "Topographical Ghosts. The Archival Architechture of New Orleans." Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 76-87.
What are you investigating? How are you going to do so? In this section you should explain what is your objective, and the methodology you apply in your paper (i.e. how you conduct your research). Explain the reader exactly what you are going to investigate, and how you are going to approach your object. You can also explain the rationale for choosing a specific methodology (i.e. why are you using a psychoanalytical/sociological/linguistic/narratological etc. approach?).
objective/thesis statement +approach/ method
"McCarthy plays on . . . literary and pseudoscientific stereotypes to create [his poor white appalachian characters]. At the same time, he challenges the ideological premises on which these stereotypes depend when he assigns the same white trash traits to the novel's more affluent, middle-class characters. In this essay, i want to read mccarthy's refusal to honor the conventional distinction between white trash and mainstream white americans in child of god against a wider public discourse of the 1960s and early 1970s that focused on the social and environmental costs of national prosperity in the postwar era."
Susan edmunds. "Second Life: Salvage Operations in Cormac McCarthy's Undead South." Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 149-160.
Provide examples that can back up your claims and ground your thesis. You can perform a close reading of your sources in order to highlight the passages that are useful in supporting your argument. Juxtapose passages and analyze them to find different kinds of connections. Create an intertextual dialogue between your primary and secondary sources that can strenghten and/or clarify your claims. Make reference to a theoretical framework that is able to help and/or lead your deductive and analytical process. Avoid excessive generalization and/or oversimplification. Always be specific and explain your reasoning thoroughly. Lead the reader carefully through your argumentation. Your paper is a hermeneutics of a cultural artifact, not a simple description. Provide a well-grounded interpretation.
Analysis
"The shadow of indian removal haunts perceptions of indigenous presence in both american literature and our southern homelands. renée L. bergland's work examines indian hauntings (as characters, apparitions, spirits) that haunt american literature, noting that, from nathaniel hawthorne to stephen king 'spectral indians appear everywhere in our national literature' (159). similarly, annette trefzer links the archeological project of the early twentieth century to this haunting literary phenomenon, locating spectral and peripheral indigenous presences as signifiers: 'the exercise of archeology plays a major role in awakening this ghost and in recovering in literature the traces of an indian presence' (3)."
Rain Prud'Homme C. Gomez. "Crossin' the Log: Death, Regionality, and Race in Jeremy Love's Bayou." Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 211-223.
Your paper should end with a well-constructed conclusion. The conclusion is somewhat similar to the introduction. You can re-state your aims and add your findings to show the reader what you have achieved with your analysis. You can also raise some open questions and set the scene for further investigation. A conclusion is not merely a summary or a re-statement, but a synthesis of key points. For most essays, one well-developed paragraph is sufficient for a conclusion, although in some cases, a two-or-three paragraph conclusion may be required. You might use one strong take-home statement to end on a high note. The conclusion should leave an impression on the reader. Make them feel that it was worth reading your paper.
Conclusion
"ultimately, the undead south of popular media production can well be read as a mirror-gazing undead united states, horrified by its own abjection, in the kristevan sense, and thrilled by not just the persistence but the refashioning of the cherished other. most fascinating, or unsettling, is the seeming joy that attends the undeadness of the south media and the raising of it and the southerness encoded in it to an abstraction that can be turned into an infinite number of things. in this potentially endless proliferation lies the possibility that 'the south,' in some form or another, chilling or thrilling as the thought is, may live forever"
Taylor Hagood. "Going to Ground: The Undead in Contemporary Southern Popular Culture Media and Writing" Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 248-260
Some examples
(through memes)
Hints for Academic Writing
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Transcript
A Few Dos & Don'ts by an academic writer
Hints and tips for better writing
Structure your paper
Try to follow a well-defined structure. The following is a suggestion. You don't have to strictly replicate it, but keep in mind that the structure of your paper has to be functional to the development of your argument.
Introduction
Introduce your argument. Tell the reader what your topic is and why it is interesting. You can use an opening hook: a striking opening sentence like a strong statement, a question, an anectode. Remember that you don't necessarily need to be impressive. Clarity and relevance are still more important.
"When William Faulkner wrote 'the past is never dead. It's not even past,' he probably was not thinking about zombies. but these sentences, which themselves rise up again and again, call to mind the pervading presence of diverse forms of undeadness—racial, ethnic, political, economic, historical—in 'the South' as we understand it. Undead souths considers literature, films, and other media that explore representations of death and deathways as well as figures returned from the grave."
Anderson, Hagood and Turner. "Introduction". Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 1-9.
Make the reader understand your topic and its importance. The length and detail of the background depend also on the degree to which you need to show your understanding of the topic. After you’ve caught the reader’s attention, specify a bit more. Provide context and narrow down your topic.Are there theories, concepts, terms, and ideas that require you to provide additional explanation? You can provide a (brief) overview of the relevant literature (i.e. quotes from scholars whose analyses are instrumental to your argument)
Background
"In Cities of the dead (1996), Joseph Roach observes that New Orleans is a place 'where the dead remain more gregariously present to the living, materially and spiritually, than they do anywhere else' (xii). No one understood this more than george washington cable, who invoked the city haunting past in his fiction and nonfiction alike. Serving as an archivist and cultural historian, cable utilizes detailed accounts of new orleans's topography and architecture in his narratives to articulate the secrets of what he calls the 'semi submerged' city (Grandissimes 269). Cable's attention to detail in describing the scenes and the setting of old new orleans is meticulous"
Sara Hirsch. "Topographical Ghosts. The Archival Architechture of New Orleans." Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 76-87.
What are you investigating? How are you going to do so? In this section you should explain what is your objective, and the methodology you apply in your paper (i.e. how you conduct your research). Explain the reader exactly what you are going to investigate, and how you are going to approach your object. You can also explain the rationale for choosing a specific methodology (i.e. why are you using a psychoanalytical/sociological/linguistic/narratological etc. approach?).
objective/thesis statement +approach/ method
"McCarthy plays on . . . literary and pseudoscientific stereotypes to create [his poor white appalachian characters]. At the same time, he challenges the ideological premises on which these stereotypes depend when he assigns the same white trash traits to the novel's more affluent, middle-class characters. In this essay, i want to read mccarthy's refusal to honor the conventional distinction between white trash and mainstream white americans in child of god against a wider public discourse of the 1960s and early 1970s that focused on the social and environmental costs of national prosperity in the postwar era."
Susan edmunds. "Second Life: Salvage Operations in Cormac McCarthy's Undead South." Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 149-160.
Provide examples that can back up your claims and ground your thesis. You can perform a close reading of your sources in order to highlight the passages that are useful in supporting your argument. Juxtapose passages and analyze them to find different kinds of connections. Create an intertextual dialogue between your primary and secondary sources that can strenghten and/or clarify your claims. Make reference to a theoretical framework that is able to help and/or lead your deductive and analytical process. Avoid excessive generalization and/or oversimplification. Always be specific and explain your reasoning thoroughly. Lead the reader carefully through your argumentation. Your paper is a hermeneutics of a cultural artifact, not a simple description. Provide a well-grounded interpretation.
Analysis
"The shadow of indian removal haunts perceptions of indigenous presence in both american literature and our southern homelands. renée L. bergland's work examines indian hauntings (as characters, apparitions, spirits) that haunt american literature, noting that, from nathaniel hawthorne to stephen king 'spectral indians appear everywhere in our national literature' (159). similarly, annette trefzer links the archeological project of the early twentieth century to this haunting literary phenomenon, locating spectral and peripheral indigenous presences as signifiers: 'the exercise of archeology plays a major role in awakening this ghost and in recovering in literature the traces of an indian presence' (3)."
Rain Prud'Homme C. Gomez. "Crossin' the Log: Death, Regionality, and Race in Jeremy Love's Bayou." Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 211-223.
Your paper should end with a well-constructed conclusion. The conclusion is somewhat similar to the introduction. You can re-state your aims and add your findings to show the reader what you have achieved with your analysis. You can also raise some open questions and set the scene for further investigation. A conclusion is not merely a summary or a re-statement, but a synthesis of key points. For most essays, one well-developed paragraph is sufficient for a conclusion, although in some cases, a two-or-three paragraph conclusion may be required. You might use one strong take-home statement to end on a high note. The conclusion should leave an impression on the reader. Make them feel that it was worth reading your paper.
Conclusion
"ultimately, the undead south of popular media production can well be read as a mirror-gazing undead united states, horrified by its own abjection, in the kristevan sense, and thrilled by not just the persistence but the refashioning of the cherished other. most fascinating, or unsettling, is the seeming joy that attends the undeadness of the south media and the raising of it and the southerness encoded in it to an abstraction that can be turned into an infinite number of things. in this potentially endless proliferation lies the possibility that 'the south,' in some form or another, chilling or thrilling as the thought is, may live forever"
Taylor Hagood. "Going to Ground: The Undead in Contemporary Southern Popular Culture Media and Writing" Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture, edited by E.C. Anderson et al., Louisiana State UP, 2015, 248-260
Some examples
(through memes)