1、哈佛论文写作教程 Strategies for Essay WritingHow to Read an Assignment Assignments usually ask you to demonstrate that you have immersed yourself in the course material and that youve done some thinking on your own; questions not treated at length in class often serve as assignments. Fortunately, if youve p
2、ut the time into getting to know the material, then youve almost certainly begun thinking independently. In responding to assignments, keep in mind the following advice. Beware of straying. Especially in the draft stage, discussion and analysis can lead you from one intrinsically interesting problem
3、 to another, then another, and then . You may wind up following a garden of forking paths and lose your way. To prevent this, stop periodically while drafting your essay and reread the assignment. Its purposes are likely to become clearer. Consider the assignment in relation to previous and upcoming
4、 assignments. Ask yourself what is new about the task youre setting out to do. Instructors often design assignments to build in complexity. Knowing where an assignment falls in this progression can help you concentrate on the specific, fresh challenges at hand. Understanding some key words commonly
5、used in assignments also may simplify your task. Toward this end, lets take a look at two seemingly impenetrable instructions: discuss and analyze. 1. Discuss the role of gender in bringing about the French Revolution. Discuss is easy to misunderstand because the word calls to mind the oral/spoken d
6、imension of communication. Discuss suggests conversation, which often is casual and undirected. In the context of an assignment, however, discussion entails fulfilling a defined and organized task: to construct an argument that considers and responds to an ample range of materials. To discuss, in as
7、signment language, means to make a broad argument about a set of arguments you have studied. In the case above, you can do this by pointing to consistencies and inconsistencies in the evidence of gendered causes of the Revolution; raising the implications of these consistencies and/or inconsistencie
8、s (perhaps they suggest a limited role for gender as catalyst); evaluating different claims about the role of gender; and asking what is gained and what is lost by focusing on gendered symbols, icons and events. A weak discussion essay in response to the question above might simply list a few aspect
9、s of the Revolutionthe image of Liberty, the executions of the King and Marie Antoinette, the cry Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!and make separate comments about how each, being gendered, is therefore a powerful political force. Such an essay would offer no original thesis, but instead restate the que
10、stion asked in the assignment (i.e., The role of gender was very important in the French Revolution or Gender did not play a large role in the French Revolution). In a strong discussion essay, the thesis would go beyond a basic restatement of the assignment question. You might test the similarities
11、and differences of the revolutionary aspects being discussed. You might draw on fresh or unexpected evidence, perhaps using as a source an intriguing reading that was only briefly touched upon in lecture. 2. Analyze two of Chaucers Canterbury Tales, including one not discussed in class, as literary
12、works and in terms of sources/analogues. The words analyze and analysis may seem to denote highly advanced, even arcane skills, possessed in virtual monopoly by mathematicians and scientists. Happily, the terms refer to mental activity we all perform regularly; the terms just need decoding. Analyze
13、means two things in this specific assignment prompt. First, you need to divide the two tales into parts, elements, or features. You might start with a basic approach: looking at the beginning, middle, and end. These structural features of literary worksand of historical events and many other subject
14、s of academic studymay seem simple or even simplistic, but they can yield surprising insights when examined closely. Alternatively, you might begin at a more complex level of analysis. For example, you might search for and distinguish between kinds of humor in the two tales and their sources in Bocc
15、accio or the Roman de la Rose: banter, wordplay, bawdy jokes, pranks, burlesque, satire, etc. Second, you need to consider the two tales critically to arrive at some reward for having observed how the tales are made and where they came from (their sources/analogues). In the course of your essay, you
16、 might work your way to investigating Chaucers broader attitude toward his sources, which alternates between playful variation and strict adherence. Your complex analysis of kinds of humor might reveal differing conceptions of masculine and feminine between Chaucer and his literary sources, or some
17、other important cultural distinction. Analysis involves both a set of observations about the composition or workings of your subject and a critical approach that keeps you from noticing just anythingfrom excessive listing or summarizingand instead leads you to construct an interpretation, using text
18、ual evidence to support your ideas. Some Final Advice If, having read the assignment carefully, youre still confused by it, dont hesitate to ask for clarification from your instructor. He or she may be able to elucidate the question or to furnish some sample responses to the assignment. Knowing the
19、expectations of an assignment can help when youre feeling puzzled. Conversely, knowing the boundaries can head off trouble if youre contemplating an unorthodox approach. In either case, before you go to your instructor, its a good idea to list, underline or circle the specific places in the assignme
20、nt where the language makes you feel uncertainMoving from Assignment to Topic At one point or other, the academic essay manages to intimidate most student writers. Sometimes, we may even experience what is commonly called writers blockthat awful experience of staring at an assignment, reading it ove
21、r and over, yet being unable to proceed, to find a way into it. But the process of writing the academic essay involves a series of manageable steps. Keeping this in mind can help you work through the anxiety you may at first feel. If you find yourself clueless about beginning an essay, it may be bec
22、ause you have skipped an important step. You may be trying to come up with a thesis before finding and narrowing your topic. Entering the Conversation Try to approach the writing of an academic essay as a genuine opportunity to connect with the material, to think in a concentrated and stimulating wa
23、y about the texts youve chosen, to articulate your own ideas. In short, think of the essay as a chance to challenge yourself and to contribute to the on-going conversation among scholars about the subject under discussion. Whats at stake is your own intellectual development. Writing is not playing s
24、omeone elses game. Successful writing involves the creation and framing of your own questions about the sources youve chosen. You want to attend to the assignment at the same time that you locate and articulate your own, particular interest in it. Primary and Secondary Sources If you were a lawyer a
25、nd had to present a case for your client, the worst thing you could do would be to face a jury and spout out random beliefs and opinions. (Trust me. This guys really honorable. Hed never do what hes accused of.) Instead, you would want to look for evidence and clues about the situation, investigate
26、suspects, maybe head for the library to check out books on investment fraud or lock-picking. Whatever the circumstance, you would need to do the appropriate research in order to avoid looking foolish in the courtroom. Even if you knew what you had to arguethat your client was not guiltyyou still wou
27、ld need to figure out how you were going to persuade the jury of it. You would need various sources to bolster your case. Writing an academic essay is similar, because essays are arguments that make use of primary and secondary sources. Primary academic sources are sources that have not yet been ana
28、lyzed by someone else. These include but are not limited to novels, poems, autobiographies, transcripts of court cases, and data sources such as the census, diaries, and Congressional records. Books or essays that analyze another text are secondary sources. They are useful in supporting your argumen
29、t and bringing up counter-arguments which, in an academic essay, it is your responsibility to acknowledge and refute. These are the basic rules that determine whether a source is primary or secondary, but there is some ambiguity. For instance, an essay that advances an original argument may serve as
30、 your primary source if what youre doing is analyzing that essays argument. But if the essay cites statistics that you decide to quote in support of your argument about a different text, then its function is as a secondary source. Therefore, always keep in mind that the academic essay advances an or
31、iginal argumentyour argument, not the argument of the author of your secondary source. While secondary sources are helpful, you should focus your essay on one or more primary sources. Subjects to Topics In the courtroom, the topic is never a huge abstraction like jurisprudence or the legal system or
32、 even capital punishment or guilt and innocence. All of those are subjects. A topic is particular: The Case of So-and-So v. So-and-So. Academic arguments, too, have topics. But if you tried to write an essay using The Case of So-and-So v. So-and-So as a topic, you wouldnt know what to put in and what to leave out. Youd wind up reproducing the courts own record of the case. Narrowing the Topic The topic of an academic essay must be sufficiently focused and specific in order for a coherent argument to be made about it. For insta
