English Language and Literature

Guide to Writing Essays 2014-2015

 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

Contents

1. What is it all about?

2. Lecturers, Academics, Professors, Writers
3. Reading English
4. Avoid pain: take charge!
5. The Essay (at last!)
6. Essay-writing activities
7. Guiding essay-writing: from A-level to university
8. Useful terms: primary and secondary texts
9. Different ways of getting started
10. Getting started with your own ideas
11. Getting started with other peoples ideas
12. Libraries
13. Online reading lists, catalogues and databases
14. Finding books
15. Finding articles in journals
16. Open access online resources
17. Research reading
18. Critical reading
19. Drafting and re-drafting
20. Reading out loud
21. Cooking
22. Some handy hints
23. Comparing two primary texts
24. Word limits
25. When Things Go Wrong
26. Essay-writing and other forms of assessment
27. Feedback
28. Office Hours

APPENDIX 1: Style Guide Summary

APPENDIX 2: Final Draft Checklist

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

1. What is it all about? ^

In the course of your time at Kings you will be asked to undertake many
different forms of assessment. These include sitting examinations, creating
portfolios, making oral presentations, participating in class, and writing essays.
This guide focuses on writing essays because developing your skills as an essay
writer also enhances your ability to succeed in other forms of assessment.

But the essay is much more than a means of assessing your progress at College.
It is the centrepiece of all academic work in the Arts and Humanities. And it is
also a medium through which to develop a vast range of transferable vocational
skills.

This may not be obvious at first. The kinds of questions you will be asked to
answer by means of an essay may seem esoteric, even wholly removed from
everyday life. But the first thing to remember is that an essay is not about
getting it right or wrong. Rather, it is about persuading readers of your
authority as a writer and of the value of what you are advocating. These skills
are indispensable at every stage of your future career, from the job interview to
implementing major initiatives in business, in administration, and other aspects
of public life. So the skills you develop when writing essays will not only help
you get a job, they will allow you to excel in your chosen career.

Your time at Kings College London is a rare and precious opportunity to

acquire and hone these skills. The opportunity is rare because, thanks to the
hard work you have already put into your education, you have earned
privileged access to leading figures in Arts and Humanities researchyour
lecturers, tutors, and seminar leadersall of whom are practised and successful
writers. The opportunity is precious because of the length of time you now
have to work intensively on your critical thinking and writing skills. In doing so
you will set in train processes of learning which will continue to develop
throughout your working life.

2. Lecturers, Academics, Professors, Writers ^

Who are these people who will be teaching you how to write? In one sense,
they are like the teachers you know from school in that they are committed to
your educationand to the idea of education per seand that they are
trained and experienced in helping you succeed at a specific stage of learning.

In another sense they are not like the teachers you have encountered before
because, given what you have already achieved at school, you are now required
to take greater responsibility for your own intellectual development. This is not
least because no one can learn for you anymore; the only way to develop
intellectually is to devise your own trajectory through those vast collections of
human knowledge stored in libraries, on databases, on the web, in print culture
and archives, and in new information technologies, as well as in the minds and
skills of expert individuals.

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

Academics are not the only people who can legitimately own this knowledge or
be intellectual. But academics are distinguished by their practising
disciplined approaches to human knowledge: in other words they subscribe to
certain rules of engagement with it. You, too, are an academic while studying
at university

The rules of engagement include systems for acknowledging other peoples

work appropriately in your own writing (systems you will encounter first in the
form of advice on avoiding plagiarism). They also include means of ensuring
that an academic writers ideas are regularly reviewed anonymously and openly
debated by others in formal settings.

This can sound somewhat strict and intimidating, and it is true that in enrolling
at University you become subject to academic regulations which ultimately
have the force of law. But in practice the rules are enabling guidelines rather
than constrictions: disciplined approaches to knowledge principally involve
tried and true methods of communicating and developing ideas.

Academics, for instance, recognise the effectiveness of dividing knowledge in

particular waysinto disciplines like English, Geography, and Biology and
so onat the same time as they often draw attention to the limitations this can
impose, and regularly test out interdisciplinary approaches to particular
subjects. And all along academics recognise that coming up with new ideas
often involves innovating or even breaking the rules underlying tried and true
methods. Academic rules, then, are always themselves subject to academic
thought; hence discussion of methodologyhow you approach a topic; how
you came up with what you are claimingoften makes up a significant part of
academic writing. Thats why, in an essay, you often state what you will do in
the body of the essay and why and how you will do it that way.

In the course of your studies at the College you will come into contact with
academics with expertise in a considerable range of fields and who have
different levels of experience working at university. But all of them will have
engaged in high-level research and had their work subjected to many forms of
peer review (where it is scrutinised by other academics).

Lecturers are usually appointed after they have successfully completed a

Doctorate of Philosophy (a Phd or a DPhil), at which point they are then given
the title Dr So-and-So. As Lecturers publish more of their work, and gain
more experience in teaching and administration, they progress to more senior
positions in the College, such as Senior Lecturer, Reader, and Professor. At
some point during your time at the College you may also be taught by
Postdoctoral Fellows (Postdocs), academics who have fixed-term
appointments to research a particular topic, usually with a view to publishing a
book. You may also be taught by Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs),
seminar leaders who are in their second or third year of doing research towards
a doctorate. (Given the stage theyre at in their academic careers, GTAs are

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often in touch with the newest research in their fields, making them particularly
enthusiastic and exciting teachers.)

All these academics continuously hone their ideas and their writing skills, and
develop new ways of disseminating research through teaching and publication.
That means that at the same time as they are teaching you, they are themselves
research active, writing essays in the form of articles published in academic
journals, one of the principal media in which academic debates about literature
and culture unfold. The other, of course, is the book, called a monograph if it
is an academic book by a single author. The academics who teach you are
writing these, too. All up, academics are continuously developing their own
research, writing, and teaching skills alongside you as you study.

The high reputation of Kings College London rests on the research output of
its staff and the ways in which this research feeds directly into teaching. As part
of their research staff also regularly attend international conferences where
experts debate their ideas. (Many are also involved in organising and
administrating such conferences and publishing the research which arises from
them.) That means in lectures, tutorials, and seminars you will come into
contact with people who are very much informed about the latest debates in
literary and language studies, and deeply involved in developing rigorously
researched, theoretically informed, and innovative approaches to historic and
contemporary literature in English (and, indeed, in other languages).

What else do academics do? As well as conducting their own research and
teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students, academics are heavily
involved in the wider administration of degree programmes, and in the
governance of the College as a whole. They are also often involved in the work
of other universities, helping to standardise higher education across the
university sector. They are regularly called upon to speak in public fora,
disseminating the latest research to publics ranging from local interest groups to
the international media. As consultants they contribute to the development and
implementation of government and private sector policies, they engage with
businesses, and involve themselves with a range of cultural institutions like art
galleries, museums, and theatre companies.

Apart from administering their own research and the teaching modules they
convene, academics in the Department of English Language and Literature also
have special positions (like Chair of the Teaching Committee, Senior Tutor,
Chair of the Postgraduate Research Committee and so on) within the
Department, Faculty, and College which enable them to contribute in focused
ways to the ongoing work of the university.

3. Reading English ^

The two most striking differences between your experience learning at school
and at College go some way towards explaining each other: the sheer number

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of texts you are expected to read every week; and the comparatively low
number of hours you have in class.

The first feature of university lifehow much you read each weekresults
from the self-directed nature of study from this point on. Although you have
three (full-time) years in which to complete your BAor one full-time year for
MA studentsthe breadth of knowledge that you will need to master in that
time is still very considerable, demanding a high level of commitment in every
single week that you are enrolled. The intensity of this experience is one of the
tried and true methods for learning which is professed by academics.

While you are given several months in summer to get a start on reading for the
coming semester (and to pursue your own research interests), you still need to
be given a reasonable amount of time each week during semester both to
complete the set reading and pursue your wider interests in your chosen field.
The number of texts, and the time you will take reading them, is not least why
undertaking a degree in English Language and Literature is also referred to as
reading English.

It is not referred to as being lectured at in English. However as an

undergraduate (i.e. a BA student) or as a postgraduate taught student (i.e. an
MA student) you are offered guidance in your reading English: a specific
programme of modules designed as a progression through (i) for BA students,
three levels of study (Levels 4, 5 and 6), and (ii) for MA students, one further,
more intensive level (Level 7), which culminates in your writing a substantial
research dissertation (15,000 words).

The principal means of providing that guidance comes in the form of expertly
devised reading lists, carefully planned lectures, and a timetable of seminars,
tutorials, individual consultations, set forms of assessment, and prearranged
opportunities for receiving formal feedback. At College, then, your work
reading English is facilitated by people who have published studies on the
subject, are recognised as experts by other academics, and have created
programmes for those who are coming next along the line of interesting and
interested readers and writers: you.

By means of class discussion, oral presentations, examinations and essay

writing, your own ideas formed while reading English will be scrutinised and
discussed by many of these same people. And in giving you oral and written
feedback on your work, they will help hone your skills as a reader, as a
researcher, and as a writer. The whole process is at once exhilarating,
terrifying, confronting, and exciting, but most of all it is deeply rewarding.

For although everyone has moments when intellectual work gets him or her
down, even at dark moments (as any academic and indeed any writer will tell
you) you learn a lot, not least about your own determination. It doesnt mean it
wont hurt sometimes, but it does mean it can sometimes be worth the
(transient) pain.

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

4. Avoid pain: take charge! ^

So believe-it-or-not by enrolling in the Bachelor of Arts at Kings College

London you have elected to become a writer. As such you should get in the
habit of writing. Consider keeping a journal: it will be very enjoyable (and even
excruciating) to look back on it one day. Write everything from daily activities
to songs, poems, and stories. And you can also add mini-essays in your journal
about anything from Kylie to the kitchen sink. Youll be amazed at how these
things stand up to analysis. Get on with it then: put finger to keyboard.

Meanwhile, always take charge of every aspect of an assessment task you have
been set at College. Remember you are in the drivers seat throughout your
time here. For example, organise all library work in terms of the time you have,
rather than the magnitude of the perceived task. Dont say to yourself, Im stuck
in this hovel until I finish. Say, I have two hours today to work in this beautiful
library, free from all interruption. When the two hours is up I will stop. You will
achieve a lot in that two hours as a result, and even enjoy yourself.

Taking charge also involves making your own decision about when an
assessment task will be completed. By necessity this must be before the official
deadline: so what? In most cases you will have more than one piece of
coursework due on the same day. Rather than enslave yourself to this official
deadline, set out in your diary a series of rolling personal deadlines when you
will stop working on each piece, with the last on the day before the official
deadline.

Apart from anything else, taking charge in this way will help make apparent
that College assessment tasks are not unsolicited impositions but things you
have elected to put to the service of your own intellectual and career
development.

5. The Essay (at last!) ^

The essay is both a distinct and a capacious genre. The word derives from
Latin meaning weighing out and Old French meaning to test, try or make
an attempt. Youll note it does not mean answering correctly or always
getting it right.

Now by reason of your acceptance into a BA or an MA English programme at

Kings College London, your excellent skills as a writer have already been
recognised: thanks to your hard work at school (and, for MA students, in your
BA) you are already an accomplished writer. But there is still a vast amount to
learn about how to write in a clear, authoritative, and persuasive manner. (No
one ever stops learning how to write: ask any author.) At College you will learn
more about how to the find evidence to support your argument, how to marshal
that evidence so as best to make your case, and how to reference it in such a
way as to give assurance of your knowledge, demarcate your originality, and
drive home the importance of your ideas.

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

You may have written many essays, but as an undergraduate student you have
probably not read many. Its useful to realise that opinion pieces and
book/play/film reviews in newspapers and magazines are rarely essays in the
academic sense; they conform to different conventions, quite appropriately, as
they are directed to different readerships. The difference between journalistic
opinion pieces and academic essays is easy to see once you have read more
academic essays. In fact one of the best ways to learn about academic essay-
writing is simply to read academic essays.

There are thousands of such essays published every year as articles in academic
journals, that is, in journals where the essays have been reviewed anonymously
by other experts in the field before they are accepted for publication. Academic
journals have (not wholly exciting) titles like Studies in English Literature,
Eighteenth-Century Life, Literature and Medicine, Performance Research,
Journal of Victorian Culture, Studies in Romanticism, Journal of Medieval and
Early Modern Studies, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, Irish Historical
Studies, International Theatre Research, Tulsa Studies in Womens Literature,
Journal of Postcolonial Writing, and so on (to name only a few in which staff in
the Department have recently published work).

Often, as part of your preparatory reading for a seminar, you will be asked to
seek out articles in journals like these (see below for how to find them). Many
of these articles will be provided for you via online reading lists and/or on the
KEATS site for individual modules, but it is rewarding (and good research
training) to find the hard copy yourself. (When you do find an article, browse
through the other articles in the same issue, and/or in other issues housed next
to them in the library stacks, or which come up in searches of particular
subjects in electronic databases. The more you get in the habit of reading
around your set tasks, the better your essay-writing will be.)

By the way, youll also find excellent essays in two outstanding local papers:
the London Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement. You can find
copies in the library, at a newsagent, and you can even subscribe. Reading
them is an excellent means of getting a feel for academic writing, quite apart
from the ideas their reviews contain.

All this might make essay-writing sound a little dry but nothing could be
further from the truth. One of the extraordinary things about writing essays is
that drafting them is a form of thinking. As a result you never know what you
are going to end up thinking by writing essays. If you are open to this process
(dont force it, just let it happen) you will be amazed at the thoughts your brain
thinks for you while you are writing. Theyll seem to pop out of nowhere (and
they wont only be about the topic in hand).

So by practising essay-writing you develop (vocational) skills essential for the

work of an author, an advocate, a campaigner, a professional in any number of
careers, and a writer of any number of other genres. But even more

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

importantly, better ideas than you could ever have hoped to come up with
before you started writing will appear in the process of drafting essays.

And from this process you will gain unexpected insights into yourself. How,
after all, did you come up with that idea almost despite yourself? Where did
that particular idea come from? What does it say about you? One of historys
greatest exponents of the essay form, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592),
discovered and wrote about this effect. You have an extraordinary opportunity
over the next three years to test it out.

6. Essay-writing activities ^

Essay-writing involves several interrelated activities:

Planning
Researching
First-Drafting
Re-drafting
Re-re-drafting (ad infinitum)
Cooking
Finishing
Celebrating

Receiving feedback
Responding to feedback
Celebrating

Some essay-writers undertake the first eight activities above as stages,

proceeding from top to bottom in methodical order. Others change the order
around; others do several or all stages at once. Everyone writes essays in her/his
own way: thats why its so interesting to learn how you do it...

7. Guiding essay-writing: from A-level to College ^

That everyone writes essays in her/his own way makes advising on College-
level essay-writing difficult. The suggestive nature of the advice that follows
may also seem somewhat new after your experience being taught to write
essays at school. You may be more used to receiving prescriptive advice, even
templates for the composition of an essay. This kind of teaching is very
effective at your former level of experience as a writer. It has provided you with
a kind of scaffolding, enabling you to create essays that meet basic building
regulations, giving you the confidence to know you can build an essay that
wont fall down. From now on, though, it will be up to you to create your own
scaffolding and your own ways of ensuring more daring designs will stand up
(to scrutiny that is).

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

You will not, then, find below a fool proof template for writing College-level
essays: none exists. What you will find are some suggestions about ways of
stimulating your thinking about essay-writing. These are designed to start a
process you will continue to develop throughout your time at College and
beyond.

Hence this guidance may not work for you: dont worry if you find yourself
disagreeing with the advice, particularly if you are already receiving positive
feedback on your writing. But it is still worth reading through this document
anyway, if only to help you see that you write essays using quite a different
method.

8. Useful terms: primary and secondary texts ^

Your primary text is the creative writing (novel/play/poem), or occasionally a

particular example of theory/criticism, which is the subject of your essay. Often
in essays you need to address two primary texts (see point 23 on Comparing
Primary Texts). Your reading of the primary text(s) will nearly always be the
core of your essay.

Secondary texts are all the criticism that is relevant to the primary text(s).

Demonstrating your knowledge of both types of material is an important part of

academic essay-writing.

9. Different ways of getting started ^

Many people tell you to begin essay writing with a plan, but there are a number
of different ways to plan an essay. What they all share is beginning in good time.

Deciding which order to take points 10 and 11 in this Guide is an example of

the strategic decision-making essay-writing involves. Point 10 suggests
beginning with your own ideas about a primary text. But particularly when
there is a vast amount of critical material on a particular writer or topic, it may
be more effective to get a handle on other peoples published ideas first (see
point 11). This is not least because it might save you time, i.e. prevent you re-
inventing the wheel. You may even prefer to deploy methods described in
points 10 and 11 at the same time; the choice is yours.

10. Getting started with your own ideas: planning ^

Neat planning

For some writers planning is a methodical affair with ordered points that will
eventually become paragraphs. Such a plan sets out as fully as possible the
stages in which you will answer the question, focusing on your own ideas and
identifying the research of other peoples ideas you will need to do in the

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library. You then follow the plan. Its neat, efficient, and (for some) almost
impossible; but do try it first.

Un-neat planning I: writing cold + planning afterwards

Another type of essay plan starts as the complete opposite: an entirely messy
and free-form brainstorm on paper. This can involve simply beginning to write,
as if you were in an examination for which you had done no preparation (other
than to read the primary texts). You can then plan afterwards (see below).

By the way, if you only start your essay 24 hours before the deadline, you will
in effect be writing cold but only complete this very early stage of essay-writing
in time. Youll have a first draft not an essay and will receive feedback
accordingly.

But if you start this stage in good time, plan afterwards, organise a research
programme, and then re-draft and finalise your essay, you will reach the
celebration stage.

Un-neat planning II: mind map + planning afterwards

Instead of writing cold, you might consider creating a mind map. The mind
map is also a useful technique if you can and want to develop your own
question/topic for an essay, or if you are uncertain which question to answer
from a list provided in class.

The mind map entails taking a large sheet of paper, writing the name of the
focus text in the centre (and the essay question if you have one), and scribbling
down in note form around this centre everything that comes into your head on
that subject. These scribbles tend to gather into constellations which may
eventually form the substance of certain paragraphs. Use large arrows freely to
draw connections between parts. The messier your final map appears, the
better.

You might like to add a few quotations from the primary text to your
constellations in appropriate places, or page references to the primary text.

Now look at the mess and see where your topic emerges from the range of ideas
you have had about the text. This should be directed towards answering the
chosen essay question.

So after your brainstorm some kind of shaping should be possible, maybe even
just numbering areas on the mind map in a possible order of discussion.
Remember: thinking is four dimensional, and you need to make it look as such
(i.e. as messy as your brain) before pounding it into what is, on the face of it a
neat two-dimensional essay. Its the reader who will make it four dimensional
again.

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

Now you might like to attempt not-quite-so-cold writing. The idea is to

translate your mind map into an early essay draft. Simply start writing in an
essay-like way, that is, with full, grammatical sentences, with each paragraph
aspiring to follow on logically, even if that doesnt quite work yet.

The Unexpected Great Idea

It is an absolute given that if you write for a morning, wandering down the page
and coming up with everything you can on a text, this process of sustained
thought will produce an Unexpected Great Idea (UGI). This will probably pop
up right at the end of the complete wreckage of a first draft. Your final essay
wont leave the draft in this state: it will read like you always knew the UGI
was coming (see point 19).

Planning afterwards

Once you have a messy cold draft and/or mind map, try planning afterwards.
This means condensing each paragraph or constellation into the kind of single
idea that infernal neat planner had in the first place. Make certain each one
follows logically and pushes your argument forwards. Youll have to start
moving material around.

Simply neatening up the un-neat plan in this way will also probably allow you
to discard some initial ideas, and enable some other better ones to emerge.
Granted that might mean going back to the planning board: but youve started
in plenty of time, so thats fine.

Some writers will now go on to the re-drafting stage before doing research.
Others do the research now; or both the research and drafting at once. In either
case at the very least you now have bulk words: material to mould.

11. Getting started with other peoples ideas ^

The messy stage will certainly involve starting a close critical engagement with
the primary texts you have chosen, which is one significant aspect of your
overall task. It should also enable you to focus the kind of secondary material
that will be appropriate for you to consult. Desirable as it would be, for
example, to read everything ever written on As You Like It, you probably dont
have time to do so for a single essay, and with your cold draft and your UGI
you can limit your inquiry to relevant criticism on this text (say a particular
character, scene, performance; issues of race, gender, class and so on,
depending on your topic, your cold draft, and your UGI).

Even so, remember that appropriate secondary material may not be directly
related to the primary text: think laterally about what secondary material might
enhance your argument.

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So, the other significant aspect of your overall essay-writing task has now
emerged: to demonstrate how your ideas about a primary text (or texts)
interact with other peoples published work on the same texts/topic. In other
words, you need to show what other ideas are out there which speak to your
topic and show how your ideas relate to them. (In some cases, notably when
and if you write a dissertation, you might also need to demonstrate that you
know what kinds of debates are out there on your topic and/or in literary
studies more broadly even if these are not directly relevant to your essay.
Demonstrating such knowledge lends you authority as a writer, but dont get
carried away, for a normal undergraduate essay you only have very limited
words to play with.)

If you find that a critic has already published an idea relevant to your own, you
can use her/his work to support your argument; or if s/he has argued the
opposite, this might spur you on to consolidate your case. Engaging with this
other writing will add complexity and nuance to your own argument. In all
cases you must reference other work appropriately (see Appendix 1, Style Guide
Summary). Indeed another key skill you will develop in essay-writing is the
ability to avoid plagiarism.

You are strongly advised to familiarise yourself with the Colleges statement on
Academic Honesty and Integrity (click on View/Download pdf file), which
also contains a statement about plagiarism. You can also read information on
plagiarism on the Department of English Language and Literatures website,
and check out the Departments Skills Training site on KEATS, which has
videos, screencasts, and quizzes to help you footnote correctly and avoid
plagiarism.

Remember you can always consult your Personal Tutoror any staff member
in her/his office hours (see point 28 below)if you are unsure about whether
you might have plagiarised in a particular instance. By starting your essay early
and planning research time you should easily avoid accidental plagiarism.

12. Libraries ^

For humanities students (you!), spending time in libraries reading is the

equivalent to what spending time in the lab or doing fieldwork is for scientists:
core activity.

During your time at Kings College London you have several wonderful
libraries at your disposal: the Maughan Library in Chancery Lane, the
University of Londons Senate House Library at Russell Square, and even the
British Library in Euston Road. You also have the right to use other College
libraries within the University of London federation. The COPAC catalogue
merges online catalogues from all of these, and many other major specialist
libraries. See http://copac.ac.uk/

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The Maughan Library, Kings College London

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/

The Maughan library is part of Kings College Londons Library Services and
is a lending library. The library is in the Grade II listed building in Chancery
Lane that formerly housed the Public Records Office. The library has been
beautifully refurbished and offers a very pleasant work space 8 minutes walk
from the Strand campus. For more information see http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/.

Access: your Kings College London student card is also your Maughan library
card. Any problems see the KCLs Libraries Help and Guidance.

Senate House Library, University of London

http://www.ull.ac.uk/

The Senate House Library is a wonderful research library. The rooms on the
main (fourth) floor are beautiful and on all floors you will discover desks tucked
away with superb views over London. The Senate House Library is a lending
library.

Access: take your Kings College London student card to the fourth floor of the
Senate House tower and apply for a card at the front desk.

The British Library

http://www.bl.uk/

The British Library on Euston Road is an incomparable resource and,

particularly in your final BA year, or for postgraduate research, you should
make use of its amazing collections and superb work environment while
enrolled at Kings.

Access: Although the BL is increasingly accessible, it is wise to be able to state

the exact nature of your research (traditionally one was required to have
exhausted the resources of College and University libraries before using it). For
this reason it is more likely you will seek out the British Library in your final
year of a BA (particularly if you elect to write a dissertation) or at MA level.

So if you have good reason to be at the British Library and not elsewhere,
apply for a BL readers pass. The most accurate information on how to do so is
found on the BLs website. But be aware you will need your KCL student card
and probably two other proofs of identity which have your current address on
them.

Remember that the British Library is a space in which many professional

researchers work. Mute the volume on your laptop before your enter the
reading room and respect the silence of other readers.

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PLEASE NOTE: The British Library is a reference library only. Once you
have a readers pass (which will be granted for a limited time like one year but
is renewable), you can enter one of the reading rooms (probably Humanities 1
or Humanities 2), find a seat, remember your seat number, and go to the main
catalogue on one of the library computers to order books. Log in using your
registered user name and password. Once you have searched and found the
particular item, click on I want this and then on the GO icon beside the
Reading Rooms option for delivery. This takes you through various stages of
checking for availability and ordering, and tells how long it will take for each
book to be delivered (the minimum is 70 minutes). Click on the request link
for each required volume, selecting the reading room where you want it
delivered. After the allotted time, your book(s) will be available for collection
at the Collection desk in the reading room you have nominated (when you are
logged on you can see if your books have arrived by clicking on my reading
room requests). When you have finished with the book you take it back to the
same desk; staff will also reserve up to six books for you (for three days) if you
ask them to at the end of your session.

Once you have a readers card, to avoid waiting for deliveries, you can order
books from home to be waiting for you when you arrive at the library. Note
also the British Library has free Wi-Fi for registered readers.

13. Online Reading Lists, Catalogues and databases ^

Many modules taught in the Department of English now have online reading
lists, a compendium of links to the full text or the physical location of all the
required and further reading relevant to the topic at hand. But you should also
get into the habit of looking for relevant material yourself, not least because life
after university does not come with a reading list! Hence information in this
and the following sections shows you how to become something more than a
clicker on prescribed links: youll be a reading-list creator for (and of) yourself.

Often when visiting the library you know what book or journal title you are
looking for, in which case you can go straight to the catalogue and put the title
into the appropriate search field. But other times you may be unsure where to
start looking for material addressing a particular subject. In that case you
should make use of subject searches in catalogues, and bibliographic
databases.

KCL Library Services Catalogue

You first port of call should still be the catalogue.

http://library.kcl.ac.uk/ALEPH/-/start/kings

Under Basic Search, choose subject words from the drop-down options and
then enter appropriate topics in the search field, e.g. Shakespeare women. A
number of titles held at the Maughan will then be listed. Dont forget to try
other subject combinations if it doesnt work at first.

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Databases

But more detailed bibliographic information and, increasingly, full texts of

journal articles, are available via the Library Services databases. Bibliographic
databases allow you to search for various subjects (e.g. Bleak House) and
provide information on where you will find articles and books that address it.
You will then need to find the hard copy of the book or the journal in which
the article appears. Full text databases contain the whole journal article in
electronic form.
Many of the ISS databases are accessible at home via the ISS website. You
may need your Kings user name and password, supplied when you received
email information on arrival at the College.

Go to Library Services
Click on the databases field
The subsequent page reverts to the Title field: if you know the title of
the required database, enter it here
If you do not know the title of an appropriate database, click on the
Subject tag
In the left column click on Arts + Humanities. Click on the appropriate
subject in the right column (e.g. English) and click on Go.
A list of databases will appear with descriptions of their contents and
information about what passwords are required for remote access. (If
you are working in a PAWS room you shouldnt need a further
password.)
It is VERY useful to familiarise yourself with these various databases,
and you can only really do so by simply having a shot at making them
work. Start with JSTOR, entering various relevant subjects in the
search field or simply browsing through the site. (Why not timetable a
few one-hour sessions for yourself to try this from home or at the
library?)
Note that there are also extraordinary primary resources available here:
for example, you can browse, search, and read many historic
newspapers and magazines. If you are taking a module involving pre-
1900 texts you will learn much simply by browsing newspapers from the
period: its interesting apart from anything else.

Senate House catalogue and databases

The Senate House Library catalogue can be found at http://www.ull.ac.uk/

The link to Senate House databases is in the left-hand column of the same
page. Note you may need your Senate House Library card number to access
some of its electronic resources externally.

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14. Finding books ^

This is a simple and familiar matter of finding the call number for a particular
title from the online catalogue and finding where the book is shelved.

To find books or journals at the Maughan you will need the call number AND
the room in which those call numbers are stored. Maughan Library floor plans
are freely available and indicate the call numbers in each particular room.

If you can get the book yourself, as you can for the most part at the Maughan
and Senate House, browse along the shelves. The book has been catalogued
according to subject and will probably be sitting beside other relevant works.

15. Finding articles in journals ^

Once you have identified a useful article in a database, if the database does not
include links to the full text you will need to find the hard copy of the journal in
the library.

The article reference probably includes one or two numbers after the journal
title, referring to the relevant volume and issue. You should note these, as well
as the author, title of article, journal title and year of publication.

Search the title of the journal (not the article title or the authors name) in the
library catalogue: you will probably need to indicate you are looking for a
journal or series in a drop-down field.

If that journal is not held by the Maughan Library, you should also look it up in
the University of London Union List of Serials, which gives the location of all
journals held in any of the libraries in the UL federation. The list can be found
in the KCL Library Services databases (see Databases above); put University
of London Union List of Serials in the title field, then search for the journal
title once the list is up.

When you locate the journal go to the shelf mark and look along it for the
relevant volume and issue number.

16. Open access online resources ^

A number of respected academic journals are now available in open access

online (i.e. not only via a database) as are a large number of historic literary
texts. Do remember to treat all material found online (other than in full text
academic databases) with an appropriate degree of critical distance. Is it an
authoritative source? Is it an appropriate source to use? What makes you think
so? Does it engage with the debates related to this subject as they unfold in
printed references, such as books and scholarly articles? Can it be referred to in
isolation from these other sources?

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17. Research reading ^

Once you have a text which might be relevant, you need to find the
appropriate passages (if any). Research reading is all about being active and
flexible, that is, saving time and effort by using the different parts of the book
appropriately. Read the contents page very carefully, deciding what is more or
less relevant. If you have a specific idea/subject in mind, use the index. Also,
you can scan the index looking for long entries, which might have added details
effectively summarising the whole text under certain subject headings. To get a
good idea of general relevance read the first page of the book carefully, and
keep in mind that at the end of the introduction, writers often summarise each
chapter. SCAN pages to get a feel of the book and the writer. More goes in
than you think: just turning the pages and glancing helps. Let your
subconscious work for you: relevant parts will soon jump out at you. Research
is often more serendipitous than people realise.

So give yourself time to scan, browse, and let relevant things appear. When
they do, you will probably need to sit down for (say) twenty minutes and read
the section more carefully. Always note the full reference (including the authors
and the full page ranges of chapters/articles). Take other notes below the
reference if you think it will help you understand/remember points, or if you
think parts of the text might go into your essay directly as quotes. Dont worry
too much about remembering as you read: concentrate on understanding
what is being said, and the remembering will be easy.

18. Critical reading ^

A critical reading is one which forms an opinion of the writers agenda and
methodology (see point 2) as well as understanding her or his subject: work out
what the writer is saying, then think about how it is being said, and why it is
being said in that way; then decide what you think about the what, the how,
and the why. Critical reading is a major skill developed during your
university/intellectual life, no matter what your field of study. Consider asking
yourself these questions when you take notes from secondary material.

19. Drafting and re-drafting ^

The difference between drafting essays and the final product is like the
difference between wandering through a forest in search of the way out, and
drawing a map of that forest to assist those who come after you. The first entails
many dead ends, false starts, tangents, unnecessary twirling; the last is a
straightforward this-then-this-then-this guide with a spectacular conclusion
delivered by an expert. In between you can expect many in-between versions
of the essay, wherein the ideas are still growing but the draft is becoming more
finished in appearance.

So into your preparatory workyour neat plan and/or your mind map and/or
your cold writing with the UGIyou have fed new materialyour raw notes

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from researchand let it do its developmental work within the draft. (Or vice
versa if you have started with point 11 above and proceeded to point 10: into
your research you have fed your own ideas and let them do their
developmental work within the draft.) You make another point-form plan of
what you have written. Does each point follow logically from the other? In the
same process you have kept polishing your prose, clarifying messy sentences,
spelling out knots in the argument. Nuanced by your research and this
continuous process of reading, adding, re-reading, thinking, that early UGI
suddenly metamorphoses into a New Improved Great Idea (NIGI). Now you
feel like you have something solid. You are approaching the end of your task.

The objective now is that the final draft reads like you always knew you were
heading towards that NIGI. You didnt know where it was at first, but now you
can lead your reader directly to it.

So its often at this point you discard altogether the provisional introduction
you wrote to get yourself going on the early draft. Your new introduction will
demand some kind of tantalising indication of the NIGI, to show that you
know where you are heading, without giving too much away and depriving
yourself of the chance to make a bigger impact at the end.

Sign-posting vs. The Nike Rule

Often it is very effective to signpost your essay: to inform the reader how your
argument will proceed (e.g. I will begin by doing x; then I will go on to do y');
and to remind her/him where you are in the argument at various stages. Sign-
posting is also an effective means of spelling out your methodology, how you
are approaching your chosen topic (see point 2).

But occasionally it may be more effective to apply the Nike Rule.

The Nike Rule states: Dont tell the reader what you will do, just do it. In
other words applying the Nike Rule involves replacing sentences like the
followingIn order to address the representation of violence in Patrick
Whites Riders in the Chariot I will explore the final scene in which Himmelfarb
is attacked in the factorywith a statement encapsulating what you have
discovered in the course of your drafting and research: Petty harassment in
the everyday life of Patrick Whites fictional suburb of Sarsaparilla is linked to
genocide committed by the Nazis in the Second World War: violence is always
shown to spring from the persecution of difference in Riders in the Chariot and
to be marked out as evil no matter the scale of its effects. The message is plain,
the tone is authoritative. If the examiner disagrees s/he will argue against you
but not slash marks.

Like other strategic decisions in essay-writing, it is up to you to decide whether

the Nike Rule is more effective than signposting at any particular moment in
the particular draft before you. Where you are considering this option, you

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probably need to try out both full signposting and applying the Nike rule before
making your final decision.

20. Reading out loud ^

Now the macro-structure of this essay is in place, you need to tidy up the
details. Read the draft out loud. There is no other way to determine if the draft
reads well. Better still, ask a friend to read it aloud to you. This might be
agonising (and you may need to bribe him/her), but you will develop a very
acute sense of the vagaries of your punctuation and syntax from each time your
(soon-to-be-former-) friend stumbles or becomes puzzled.

At this stage, bear in mind that your focus is your own text. It is the essay itself
that matters now, and only the essay. Put away all other books. Focus on
making what you have written as effective and persuasive as possible.

21. Cooking ^

The essay will now take at least 24 hours to cook. This means you must lay the
draft aside for at least a day, try and forget about it, and then read it out loud
again. The longer you cook the draft the better. When you look back at it, read
it like someone picking it up from a large pile of essays on similar subjects.
Dont mess with this person.

In other words, ask yourself: is my essay boring? If I am bored by it, what effect
will it have on my examiner(s)? Now if you have engaged with the primary
texts and your secondary research, developed your initial ideas, and allowed
the post-draft planning and further redrafting time necessary to delivering a
precision piece, your analysis will electrify the readers: thats you first, and then
the examiners. Electrified examiners award high marks.

Of course after the draft has been cooked you will probably find a few things to
change. You may suddenly see how your ideas fit into debates in the secondary
texts you have been reading, making it worth enhancing the context of your
argument. Mostly it will be a matter of improving the shape of existing material
so that the argument runs more smoothly (and persuasively). More often than
not you will discover (with remarkable ease) an excellent point you needed to
add to cap off your essay (So that is what I was trying to say!). Look for
overall logical progression in your argument and the clarity of individual
sentences. Smoothing out an ungainly sentence can have an astonishing effect
on your overall argument. Read the draft aloud AGAIN. Dont let anything
past that isnt gorgeous.

Once you have completed the final draft checklist (see Appendix 2) you are
ready to hand in your essay.

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22. Some handy hints ^

General

Using the first person in essays (I think..., I am going to consider, In this

essay I focus...) is perfectly acceptable and usually desirable.

Wikipedia is not an acceptable reference source, no matter how handy it is for

looking up facts.

When quoting films transcribe the scenes yourself, unless you have access to
the actual screenplay. Pay attention to what is on the screen (including camera
angles etc.) as well as the dialogue.

An essay which does not include indented quotes from the primary texts
analysed in detail will often lack originality and complexity. Scan your draft:
do you have indented quotes from the primary texts?

In general, do not waste time and words on anything that is not directed to
your argument. You probably need to provide less details of the plots of your
primary texts than you think.

Discussing more than two primary texts can thin essays out and make them
repetitive. If you are keen to demonstrate your engagement with other primary
texts you have studied for a particular module, you can always refer to them in
a footnote.

If you are relying on reasonably old secondary material it is likely that

scholarship has since moved on. Anything before c.1980 is old, though, of
course, this doesnt mean that it is unimportant and/or uninteresting. If you
find valuable material in pre-1980 criticism, then make sure you both
demonstrate your awareness of the ways in which debates have unfolded since
that time and how the old criticism youre using still has genuine value for a
new reading.

Usually the question you are answering, and the text(s) you are working with,
are part of a module. Try to show how you have been able to engage with the
broader themes, discourses, concepts and theoretical issues of the module, as
well as the specifics of a particular text.

When revising your introduction

Avoid beginning with a dictionary definition. Such definitions can be helpful

in early drafts but they are often formulaic and ungainly in a final draft. Cut!

Avoid beginning a final draft with a platitudinous statement about cultures or

peoples (The Age of Shakespeare was the age of...; The spirit of the
nineteenth century was..., Aboriginal peoples have always..., For thousands

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of years man has struggled with the written word). Such sweeping statements
are clichd and unnecessarily contentious: they might help you start writing an
early draft but they need to be cut from the final product. (If you really do
want to refer to history in the opening of your final draft, refer to what a
particular historian says about a particular issue.) Ideally begin the final draft
with a pithily expressed opinion about the primary texts that also answers the
question.

Where you have been asked to compare two primary texts, both should appear
in the introduction.

Abstractions should rise from your concrete observations about a text; they
should never determine those observations: Before looking at the
representation of madness in Jane Eyre, we need to define madness. Yeach!
For the purposes of a literary studies essay we principally need to know how
madness is constructed within the texts. Put: Madness in Jane Eyre is...

Answer precisely the question you have been asked. The questions are
composed by module convenors with some care to address the module they
have designed and taught. If you are in doubt as to how to approach a
question, make an appointment to discuss it with a member of staff (e.g. the
convenor/your seminar leader/your Personal Tutor).

Common presentational and grammatical errors

Always number the pages of your essay. Always double space, and use 12 font,
normal margins in Word, and usually Times New Roman. (See Appendix 2,
Final Draft Checklist.)

Its = It is
Its is a possessive pronoun (the cat removed its hat)
This is the opposite of the rule for possessive nouns: the cats hat.
If you are unsure, say it is aloud each time you encounter its in your draft.
Does your sentence still make sense?

Practice = noun (his standard deteriorated despite the practice)

Practise = verb (she was practising a unique form of dentistry at the time)
That ice is a noun and is is a verb helps you remember this rule.

The infinitive version of a verb places it in the to do format (to eat, to run,
to frolic). It is disputed whether split infinitives (to further investigate...; to
more clearly see...; to more easily understand... etc.) are truly incorrect, but
as they often sound inelegant, it is safest to avoid them. Put: To see this effect
more clearly... etc.

If you have a single figure as the subject of your sentence (e.g. The reader is
encouraged..., The viewer can tell...), maintain singular pronouns in the rest
of the sentence.

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The reader is encouraged to consider his/her position, NOT The

reader is encouraged to consider their position

Alternatively pluralise the governing noun: Readers are encouraged to

consider their positions.

Use italics for all titles of books or series titles (= the title of the journal, not the
title of the article within it; for the article you use quotation marks; see
Appendix 1, Style Guide Summary). Do not underline. Underlining is the old-
fashioned way a typist indicated to the compositor (at the printers) to change
over to italics. As we now have italics instantly on our computers, use italics.

Finally

If you are tired, no matter how long you forge ahead with essay-writing you
will achieve less than going to sleep, waking up in the morning and starting
again, even if you only have a few hours. Sleeping on a specific problem is an
incredibly effective method of solving it (kind of like mini-cooking, as per
above). So is giving yourself a night off.

23. Comparing two primary texts ^

Often an essay question will ask you to compare two primary texts in your
answer. Comparisons between primary texts enable you to set up and discuss
relative terms (e.g. femininity, race) without reference to a perceived
external social and historical reality, i.e. you are comparing such terms as they
work within the systems of meaning set up by your reading of two texts. This is
advantageous intellectually, not least because it limits the field of your essays
inquiry.

There are two principal ways of structuring comparisons of two primary texts
in the main body of your essay. For each method there are advantages and
disadvantages to be aware of in finessing your final draft:

Structure 1. A sustained analysis of primary text A (first half of main body of

essay) followed by a sustained analysis of primary text B as it
compares with your analysis of primary text A (second half of
main body of essay).

Advantages of Structure 1

Builds a momentum that ultimately enables a deeper

penetration of each primary text in turn

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Analysis for each primary text develops a structure peculiar to

the text in question, enabling comparisons at a deeper,
structural level

Disadvantages of Structure 1

Two halves of main body of essay may not cohere, leaving

sense of two separate essays (to avoid this you need to let the
draft cook before redrafting with fresh eyes)

Might neglect certain points of comparison

Possibly places greater pressure on the introduction as a site to

synthesise ideas about the texts and answer the question: this
pressure might be advantageous to the end product.

Structure 2. Paragraphs (or half-paragraphs) focused in turn on primary text A,

primary text B, primary text A, primary text B, and so on. This
may be the more familiar structure you have used at school where
it guarantees both texts are considered in the early part of an
examination.

Advantages of Structure 2

Tends to order the essay automatically

Ensures micro-comparisons do occur

Disadvantages of Structure 2

Can lead to you setting up abstract themes and applying

them to each text, limiting or forcing analysis

Can obstruct development of complex and idiosyncratic

points for comparison which would have emerged from a more
sustained analysis of a particular text

In both cases

Your introduction and conclusion should be composed last. This is not to say
you havent begun the draft with a draft introduction, one that is as superficial
and/or platitudinous as you like, as long as it gets you writing. However, for
the final product you will in all likelihood slash and burn this initial
introduction and write a new one that brings your main points together in a set
of conceptual statements.

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Changing from structure 2 to structure 1

If you usually use structure 2 AND

You are consistently not gaining the marks you would like

Examiners regularly make comments on a lack of complexity in your

analysis (skates over surface, comparison forced, too much of an
overview, superficial)

it may be worth experimenting with structure 1. Do a trial run: re-read/scan

one primary text and sit down one morning to write as much as you can about
that text in a manner broadly appropriate to a particular question, seeing what
ideas you come up with as you work your way down the page. You can still
decide later whether you want your final draft to conform to structure 1 or 2.

Changing from structure 1 to structure 2

If you usually use structure 1 and are consistently not gaining the marks you
would like and/or receive comments from examiners about a lack of coherence
in your argument, consider trying structure 2; however you are recommended
to consult with your personal tutor first.

24. Word limits ^

Learning to write to word limits is an important skill which you will continue to
use throughout your working life. The Department of English Literature and
Language has strict rules about word limits:

You may only exceed the limit by 5% (that is 200 words in a 4000-word
essay, 250 words in a 5000-word essay). So while no penalty is exacted for
work up to 5% above the word limit, thereafter two marks will be deducted
for every 5% above the word limit until 50% is reached. After 50%, three
marks will be deducted for each additional 5% above the word limit.

ALL quotes and ALL footnotes (including bibliographic information in the

footnotes) count towards the word limit: only your bibliography is excluded
from the word count.

Under length work is not penalised directly but often exposes wasted
opportunities. If your essay is under length, this is a warning sign that you
may not have provided adequate in-depth analysis. Best consult your
lecturer or Personal Tutor as soon as possible.

25. If Things Go Wrong ^

Department staff do understand that unforeseen circumstances can affect your

ability to meet deadlines. As a rule of thumb, if, ahead of the deadline, you

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suspect your situation (e.g. illness) will prevent you submitting work on time,
fill in the Extension Request Form (ERF), available via the Departments
assessment information page. If you have already missed a deadline for a
specific reason, fill in the Notification of Examination Absence (NEA) form,
also available via the Departments assessment information page. If your NEA
claim is upheld, you may be able to submit work at a later date without
incurring a penalty. In most cases ERFs and NEA forms should be submitted
along with documentation to back your request/claim.

The form and original or scanned documentation need to be submitted either in

hard copy to the Department Office or by email to the relevant programme
board chair, i.e. either to the Chair of the Undergraduate (BA) Exam Board or
to the Chair of the Postgraduate Taught (MA) Exam Board. Contact details for
the holders of these positions can be found here (click on programme board
chairs). Do also email your Personal Tutor to fill him/her in on your situation,
but note that Personal Tutors are not empowered to award extensions or take
mitigating circumstances into account in your assessment.

Please note that College regulations mean we are unable to accept pressures
rising from paid work commitments as grounds for extensions.

Note also that computer or internet failure cannot be considered adequate

grounds for an extension. You should be sure to make adequate backups of
your draft essays, planning also to complete and submit your work before the
deadline (see point 4, above).

Nowadays nearly all coursework is uploaded onto KEATS and it is your

responsibility to ensure (i) your work is uploaded before the exact cut-off
(which is usually a precise hour of the deadline day), and (ii) it is the correct,
i.e. latest, draft of your work. Note that if you upload work onto KEATS early,
and then want to re-upload a corrected/improved version before the deadline,
the later upload will over-write any former submission.

26. Essay-writing and other forms of assessment ^

This guide is concerned principally with essay-writing, but there are ways in
which its suggestions can be adapted for other assessment modes. All
assessment modes will, in some way, ask you to show your knowledge of a
body of texts and on the critical field of discussion of them; that is, to exercise
skills of close reading and contextual analysis. However, other assessment
modes do stretch and test skills and approaches which the traditional essay
cannot.

Examinations

Exams test your ability to work under time pressure and may also ask you to
assess previously unseen material. Exams typically also test the extent of your
knowledge of the material covered in a particular module: you need to

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demonstrate you have read and thought about several texts in the context of
the course.

Before the exam

Make sure you know exactly where and when the exam is being held and how
long it will take you to get there, allowing extra time for transport delays. Get
plenty of sleep the night before. And check the exam regulations so you know
what to do if something goes wrong on the day (like you are unexpectedly ill).

Preparation

A prior disclosure exam (where you know what the questions will be ahead
of time) enables you to choose the questions, plan the answers and look up the
quotations in advance. It is never a good idea to write full answers and try to
memorise them: if you are focussed on memorising, you wont be having new
thoughts. Instead, concentrate on thinking through the plan and its
implications. You should go into the exam excited about realising the potential
of the answer you have planned, not trying to remember an answer word-for-
word.

For an unseen exam (where you dont know what the questions will be
before the exam), you need to prepare in advance to ensure that your
knowledge and understanding of the material are sufficient to meet the exams
requirements. Its always a good idea to look at past papers and ask your tutor
for guidance on the structure of the exam, i.e. how many questions you need to
answer and of what type. When revising, make sure you are familiar with a
wide enough range of texts to give you some flexibility in choosing which
questions to answer. All up flexibility and preparedness are keys to success in
an exam, allowing you to feel secure in the thinking you will do in the exam.
This will enable your answer to come across as fresh and interesting to your
examiners. It will also ensure you answer the specific question you have
chosen in the exam.

Once in the exam

Despite the time pressures, the first thing to remember in any exam is not to
panic. Think to yourself, I can answer this question [you can!], and I can do so
in a logical and informed manner. So try not to rush the planning of your
individual answers and your examination paper overall: its a good way of
calming yourself down and reminding yourself you know more about the topic
than you care to admit.

Secondly, make sure you have understood the exams rubric (the
instructions) correctly: how many texts should you refer to in each question,
and in total? Can you refer to the same texts in two different sections of the
exam?

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Thirdly, and most importantly, make sure you do answer the question you have
selected. A beautifully organised, well-written exam essay that does not
answer the question cannot be rewarded with good marks.

As regards presentation, write on every other line so that you can make
revisions without turning your script into a mass of crossings out and miniscule
insertions. Remember if your examiners cant read your answer, they cant
give you credit for it. (But also make sure you do cross out anything which you
do not want to be marked!)

Writing standard

Your examiners expectations are moderated when reading an exam answer

compared to coursework: they understand that an exam answer is more like an
early draft than a polished essay. Even so you should still aim for clear writing,
a logical structure, a coherent argument and an accurate account of the texts.
Planning helps!

Secondary references

In most examinations you will not be able to reproduce quotes from secondary
sources as accurately as you would need to in an essay. Note that while minor
inaccuracies in quotations are acceptable, ideas taken from critical texts still
need to be credited: it is possible to plagiarise in an exam. As long as you can
identify the critical source clearly (say by the authors name and the title of the
book), precise publication details and page references are not required.

Dissertations

Some BA students will elect to do a dissertation in their final year (in place of
two optional modules). This will involve developing a research topic and a
plan in consultation with a supervisor, meeting with the supervisor on some
occasions to discuss progress, and completing a 10,000 word dissertation
successfully and on time. All MA students write dissertations (mostly 15,000
words) which are due at the end of summer, and are likewise developed under
one-to-one supervision.

More information on the BA dissertation will be provided if you elect to do

one, and MA students receive guidance on their dissertations throughout their
enrolment. In the meantime, its best to think of a dissertation as an
amalgamation of smaller essays but with an overarching argument. The latter
means the argument of a 10,000 word dissertation should be more complex
than the argument of two 5000 word essays put together, and you need to
allow even more time for researching, revising and rethinking your work than
you would for a normal essay.

You will also undoubtedly develop new ideas in the course of writing the
dissertation and need to check whether these can be logically integrated with

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the ideas you started with; you may even find that you need a fundamental
rethink of the content or structure. All this takes time, so plotting a realistic
schedule for working on your dissertation is crucial, bearing in mind that you
will have other essays due at the same deadline.

(By the way, all this usually means that there are better plans than setting out
to do all the reading before beginning to write a dissertation: the longer you
leave starting to write, the more daunting it seems, and more tempting it is to
procrastinate by reading just one more critical essay. Reading in the intervals
of writing is usually a better option.)

Remember you will have had much experience in essay-writing before taking
on the dissertation!

Commentary

Typically, a commentary is a close reading exercise asking you to focus on a

short text. It may not be necessary to refer to critical reading. Examiners will
be looking for the richness and subtlety of your reading of the primary text. An
argument of the polemical kind may not be necessary, but you should aim for
coherence.

Portfolios

Some modules ask you to develop a series of short critical responses to various
readings over the course of the semester. Each entry may be short and focused
on a particular text, but some of the skills outlined in this guidesuch as
critical reading, planning, and re-draftingshould also assist you with
preparing your portfolio.

27. Feedback ^

You receive feedback for your contribution to English Language and

Literature modules in the following ways:

verbally in seminars
by email in response to inquiries or comments during teaching weeks
for some modules, as comments or replies in KEATS blogs
verbally in pre-submission individual essay consultations
verbally in discussion with any staff member consulted during her/his
Office Hours
as a formal written response to coursework by your examiner
as a mark and award which is calibrated according to the Faculty of Arts
and Humanities Undergraduate or Postgraduate Marking Criteria (see
links below)
in discussion of your overall progress with your Personal Tutor.

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Electronic feedback on KEATS

Formal written comments on coursework are an important component of the

many types of feedback you will receive while at Kings. Nearly all students
now receive this formal feedback via KEATS in the guise of general comments
at the end of the electronic version of coursework.

Some examiners also annotate the coursework itself electronically: the

annotated essay may have sections highlighted, and/or comments that pop up
when you hover the cursor over an icon placed by the examiner. Note that
examiners are not required to annotate coursework in this way, and those that
do usually only mark up the first page or so, to give a sense of how your
expression might be improved (for example). It is up to you to look again at the
entire essay in the light of this extra guidance.

Accessing the examiners feedback via KEATS

You will be notified when this feedback becomes available and given
instructions on how to access it online. The dates when you can expect this
feedback are also published on the Departments website.

General comments can be found by clicking the speech bubble icon which
appears beside (not on) the coursework itself. Annotations appear on the
coursework itself or pop up when you hover the cursor over icons the examiner
has set on the page.

You can read the general comments, and any extra annotations, online; or you
can print out the whole essay and the comments/annotations. To print, click
on the print icon at the bottom left of the coursework screen, and the
programme will generate a pdf version of your essay in which all the
examiners annotations appear as endnotes linked by number to the
appropriate part of the essay. The general comments field will also appear at
the end of your essay.

Anonymity and online examination

Any online-marked essay is visible only to you, not to others in the same
module.
All essays have also been anonymised during examination; your examiners
see a candidate number and not your name.
Once the feedback is released, the coursework is de-anonymised and
examiners can no longer access it on KEATS.
Consequently, if you want to discuss the essay and feedback further with a
staff member, e.g. your Personal Tutor, you will need to print the
coursework and bring it with you to the meeting.

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The Provisional Award

Your general comments on KEATS will not include a percentage mark for the
coursework. This is because the process of examination continues after you
receive the written feedback and the precise mark may vary slightly. It is
therefore more effective to give you an indication of the likely range of the
mark.

For this reason the written feedback does inform you of your provisional award
(e.g. First, Upper Second...), usually with an additional letter (A+, A, B+, B...)
indicating where your provisional mark falls within the award range. These
indications of your provisional mark can be interpreted by referring to the
Faculty of Arts and Humanities Marking Criteria. Click on the yellow box for
BA marking criteria, and the green box for MA marking criteria.

Making the most of your formal feedback

On receiving written feedback you should:

Read any annotations made by the examiner and the general comments
carefully
For undergraduate work, read the criteria for boxes ticked (or otherwise)
in the tick-box section
Read the comments that tally with your provisional award/letter indicator
in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities Marking Criteria. These comments
are quite detailed and tend to underscore the positive aspects of your
achievement.
RE-READ your essay in the light of the comments. This is by far the most
effective means of improving your mark in your next assessment task.
Ideally take notes identifying how the essay might have been improved.

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Discuss the re-read essay, the feedback, and your plans for developing your
writing skills with your Personal Tutor. You may also discuss your essay
and feedback with other members of staff during her/his office hours.

Your Personal Tutor is the most appropriate member of staff with whom to
discuss your feedback. But please note that Personal Tutors are unable to make
any changes to feedback comments, alter the provisional award, or request
others to revise it. To do so would be to interfere with a robust and ongoing
examination process in which coursework is still anonymised. Several stages in
the examination of your coursework are still to occur when you receive your
feedback, but it is made available to you early so you can benefit from feedback
as soon as possible.

Remember that Personal Tutors cannot access your coursework online after it
has been examined; please print your essay and bring it with you to the meeting.

Tick-boxes (undergraduates only)

Undergraduates will find general comments as well as a tick-box section at the

end of their assessed essays on KEATS. The tick-box section looks like this:

Understanding and Argumentation

(mark with X as appropriate)
Thorough: insightful; evidence of independent critical judgement
Thorough understanding of relevant material; insightful discussion and analysis
Good understanding of important facts and concepts; substantive analysis of
issues
Sound: relevant material, but limited range or depth; more descriptive than
analytical
Basic: some knowledge but little detail; minimal analysis
Poor: inaccuracy; key issues not identified, inadequate analysis or none

Selection and Coverage

(mark with X as appropriate)
Extensive range applied insightfully; very effective use of evidence to support
argument
Comprehensive: a range of relevant material used, demonstrating independent
study
Good use of relevant sources, employment of a range of evidence
Adequate: appropriate but limited material; ineffective use of evidence
Skeletal: sparse coverage of basic material; unsuccessful use of evidence
Poor: inappropriate or inaccurate material

Structure and Style

(mark with X as appropriate)
Excellent structure and focus; clear and fluent style; compelling argument
Well structured and focussed; clear and fluent style; persuasive argument
Good: coherent and logical
Sound: generally clear but awkward structure and/or limited development
Adequate but unclear or disorganised in places

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Poor: disorganized and unclear; incoherent argument; too short

Presentation (scale of 1-5 where 5 is excellent)

Is the text grammatical and easy to understand? (number)
Is the text correctly punctuated? (number)
Is spelling correct? (number)
Is the text adequately referenced? (number)
Is there an adequate bibliography? (number)
Is the overlength penalty applicable? Y/N

This template is reproduced in the general comments field of your coursework

on KEATS, the appropriate sections marked with an X and numbers placed
after each element of the presentation section.

The four categories enable examiners to provide feedback on how well you
have met the generic demands of your assessment task (e.g. that your
argument is well structured, your expression clear, the range of your reading
adequate, and the standard of presentation acceptable). If the quality of these
aspects of your essay is uneven, your examiner may tick more than one box
within each category, suggesting the range within which you have met these
generic demands.

These tick-boxes are designed to enhance the specific written comments you
have received from your examiner. They do not represent the only things your
examiner considers in making a provisional award, nor do the numbers in the
presentation section add up to a particular component of your final mark.

What happens after I receive my feedback and provisional award?

Coursework worth more than 15% of your overall grade for a module is
examined by more than one member of staff. Each item of postgraduate
coursework, and of undergraduate coursework failed by the first examiner, is
double marked, with examiners conferring on a final provisional mark to be put
to the relevant examination board. Undergraduate coursework provisionally
awarded more than 40% by the first examiner is double marked by
retrospective sampling, a process that ensures the first examiners marks are
consistent with others in the Department.

Double marking is completed about a month after you receive your

RAC/EFF. It is not the practice of the Department of English Language and
Literature to release comments from second examiners to students, as these
usually relate to the first examiners marking rather than to the coursework
itself, and would be of minimal use as feedback.

All awards and marks are provisional until meetings have been held by the
Programme, Faculty, and College Examination Boards. The Department of
English Language and Literatures Undergraduate Programme Board meetings
are held in June; Postgraduate Programme Board meetings are held in
November. Highly qualified and experienced academics from comparable

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universities sit on these boards as External Examiners to ensure parity and

quality of assessment.

Decisions by the Programme Board are ratified by the Faculty of Arts and
Humanities Examination Board which is composed of representatives from all
the different programme boards within the Faculty. Final responsibility for
decisions about your assessment therefore rests with the entire Department and
Faculty as determined and supported by the Colleges academic regulations.

What happens if the provisional award is a fail?

Informed critique of ones intellectual work is nearly always a challenge to

accept. Receiving a lower award than you had hoped and, in particular,
unexpectedly receiving a fail, can be very upsetting. It is perfectly normal to
feel this way, though do try and keep things in perspective: it is only a single
piece of subject-specific coursework that has been judged, not your
intelligence (which, needless to say, manifests in ways more important than
written coursework), nor you as a person. Its just an essay. So let yourself be
upset; leave things a few days; and then look back at your feedback for
guidance as to how to improve your coursework on resubmission. And go and
see your Personal Tutor for further guidance.

Work that has been provisionally failed by your first examiner is always
scrutinised by a second examiner. If the second examiner agrees the
coursework has failed, it is put to the relevant Examination Board in June
(undergraduate) or November (postgraduate). If the fail is still upheld and
confirmed as a fail by an External Examiner, you will then be informed that
you may revise and resubmit the same piece of coursework and have it
reassessed. In revising your coursework for resubmission you are normally
allowed to answer the same question, use the same texts, and respond to
advice given by your examiner and your Personal Tutor.

For undergraduate students, failed coursework from Semesters 1 and 2 is

resubmitted in August of the same academic year. For postgraduate students,
failed coursework is resubmitted one year after the original due date, i.e. in the
next academic year. In all cases the mark for the resubmitted coursework is
capped at a pass (40% for undergraduates; 50% for postgraduates).

If you have exhausted your re-submission opportunities and still failed the
module, in some cases your result can be considered a condoned fail,
meaning the failure of this particular component of your programme will not in
itself make you ineligible for the award of your degree. A fail can only be
condoned when: (i) the module in question was an option, not a core
module for your particular programme; and (ii) your final mark for the module
was in the range of 33-39% for undergraduates, and 40-49% for
postgraduates. Up to 45 credits of condoned fails are permitted in BA
programmes, and up to 30 credits of condoned fails are permitted in MA
programmes.

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28. Office Hours ^

Staff members in the Department of English Language and Literature each

have two one-hour sessions per week which are designated as Office Hours.
These are indicated on the door to the relevant staff members office and online
here.

During these times you are welcome to drop in on the member of staff to
discuss any aspect of your work at the College, including any issues relative to
writing essays. You do not need to be experiencing a crisis to make use of this
one-to-one contact time with your lecturers or tutors. In fact staff will usually
be delighted simply to discuss your ideas about the modules you are taking, and
to address any issues relative to your research and writing. Just do it!

In addition to reading this guide, students are asked to consult the

Department of English Language and Literatures website.

In particular you should familiarise yourself with the pages linked from the
Current Students Handbook

This Guide was written by Dr Ian Henderson, with input from all staff in the
Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London.

For further information contact [email protected]

Revised 10 July 2014

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APPENDIX 1
STYLE GUIDE (S UMMARY)

The Department of English Language and Literature recommends the use of the MHRA style
guide, freely available online.

http://www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGuide/index.html

It is worthwhile downloading the full guide as a pdf for free (click on Style Guide pdf link in right
column of webpage above). Chapter Ten is the most useful but you will benefit greatly by reading
the whole thing.

The following is a summary of the information you will need.

Formatting quotes

Quotes of fewer than 30 words or so are included in the body of the essay and surrounded by single
quotation marks. For quotes within quotes use double quotation marks.

Veronica Smith claims the author always liked cats, but also notes she would inevitably scream
Get out! when the local hamster put in an appearance.1

Note the comma/full-stop comes after the closing quotation mark.

Longer quotes are indented, after a colon [:] and without quotation marks.

Munro is well known for her ability to set a scene:

Then my father and I walk gradually down a long, shabby sort of street, with
Silverwoods Ice Cream signs standing on the sidewalk, outside tiny, lighted
stores. This is Tuppertown, an old town on Lake Huron, an old grain port.1

The sounds of the lake at night are ever-present in the story.

Note that even if the quote is extracted from a characters speech (i.e. the whole thing is in a single
set of quotation marks in the original) you still dont need quotation marks around the indented
quote. Only use quotation marks within an indented quote (i.e. for quotes within the main quote).

Footnote reference number

Any quoting or paraphrasing of another writers work must be footnoted. In Microsoft Word, this is
a matter of clicking Insert Footnote under the References tag. Click so that the number appears
after punctuation and ideally at the end of the sentence (if necessary, the footnote itself can contain
references to more than one text). Remember this order: end-quotation, punctuation, footnote.

Please use footnotes, not endnotes, for your essays, as these are easier for examiners to consult when
marking work online. And via the footnote and endnote options function please ensure footnote
numbers are Arabic rather than Roman numerals (i.e. 7 not vii).

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First and subsequent references to the same text

The first time you footnote a text you should provide full details as per the information provided
below, but the second and subsequent times you footnote the same text, you can abbreviate the
information. The authors surname will do; but if you have cited two works by the same author, also
include an abbreviated version of the book/chapter/article title (e.g. Palmer, p. 93 OR Palmer,
Victorians, p. 93).

Please do not use terms such as ibid and op cit.

The first time you refer to a primary text (see section 8 of the Essay Writing Guide), you should
provide a footnote reference giving full publication details, followed by the statement: All further
references to this edition are given after quotations in the text. You may then add page numbers or
Act and Scene numbers in parentheses as they are required in your essay.

Remember that all footnotes are counted towards your word-count, so abbreviating footnotes
reduces their incursion on your word limit.

Format of footnote references

The way you present information about your sources in footnotes varies according to the form of the
publication you are referring to (e.g. a single-authored volume, a chapter from a multi-authored
volume, an article in a scholarly journal, a website etc.). See below for the footnote templates of the
main forms of publication you will refer to.

Hard-copy book by a single author

Authors full name as given on title page, Title (Place: Publisher, year), p. 1/pp. 5-6

David Newsome, The Victorian World Picture: Perceptions and Introspections in an Age of Change
(London: John Murray, 1997), p. 11.

Note: capitalise all main words in the title and subtitle; separate the title and subtitle with a colon;
put a space between p. and the page number; and end with a full-stop. When referencing a passage
that continues over more than one page, use pp. (e.g. pp. 18-19).

If the publisher is a university press, spell out the name in full, e.g. Oxford University Press (not
OUP; Oxford UP).

E-book by a single author

Authors full name as given on title page, Title (Place: Publisher, year), e-book format, location
information

Andrew OHagan, The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe (London:
Faber, 2010), Kindle DX Version, p. 5.

If there is no publisher information available, include the Digital Object Identifier and/or the source
of your download.

Andrew OHagan, The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe [Kindle
DX version], p. 5; <www.amazon.co.uk> [accessed 30 March 2012].

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

If at all possible, include page numbers. This is crucial in guarding against plagiarism. If you press
menu on your Kindle you can access a page number/and or location number. Please include one of
these in your footnotes. If no page or location numbers are available, you should identify the major
sections: Chapter, Section, Paragraph (eg Chapter 5, Section 2, para. 5).

Chapter in a book by multiple authors

Authors full name as given on contents page, Title of Chapter, in Book Title, ed. by Editors full
name as given on title page (Place: Publisher, year), full page range of chapter (page where quote
appears).

Maria Absolut, Gin, Tonic, and the Raj, in Elephant Walk: New Essays in Postcolonial Studies, ed.
by Gordon Juniper (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 6-18 (p. 7).

Note the need for both the full page range of the chapter and the page number of the quote (worth
remembering when you are taking notes in the library). If there are up to three editors, give the
name of each in full; if more than three, give the full name of the first before adding and others.

If you subsequently refer to a different chapter in the same book, give the authors name and title of
the chapter in full, but abbreviate information on the book:

Bruce Oz, Beer in the Sun, in Elephant Walk, ed. by Juniper, pp. 19-25 (p. 21).

Articles in scholarly journal (or series)

Authors full name as it appears in the article, Title of Article, Journal Title, Volume Number.Issue
Number (date), page range of whole article (page where quote appears)

John Jackson Finlandia, Vodka: An Illustrated History, Drinking Studies, 5.7 (1999), 1-10 (p. 3).

Note: placement of commas; use of Arabic numbers for volume and issue (even where the journal
itself uses Roman numerals for these features); do not use p. or pp. for the page range of the whole
article; do use p. or pp. for the actual page(s) from which your quote is drawn.

If there is no issue number, but a month or season is noted on the journal title page, add this to the
year information.

Millicent Maid, Make Mine Milk: Drinking in British Schools, 1960-1980, Journal of Liquid
Consumption Studies, 8 (winter 1998), 82-91 (p. 88).

Online versions of articles in scholarly journal (or series)

If the e-text is formatted the same as the hard-copy version (with page numbers etc.) you may
reference it as if you were citing the hard copy. But ideally you should also add the URL (including
the protocole.g. httpand the date of access) OR the Digital Object Identifier (which is less
likely to change, and therefore does not require a date).

The DOI, which is usually in a numerical format, is available on the title page of journal articles
sourced via online databases (e.g. JSTOR) along with other metadata.

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Beth Palmer, Are the Victorians Still with Us?: Victorian Sensation Fiction and Its Legacies in the
Twenty-First Century, Victorian Studies, 52.1 (2011), 86-94 (p. 92) <doi:
10.2979/VIC.2009.52.1.86>.

Beth Palmer, Are the Victorians Still with Us?: Victorian Sensation Fiction and Its Legacies in the
Twenty-First Century, Victorian Studies, 52.1 (2011), 86-94 (p. 92)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/vic/summary/v052/52.1.palmer.html [accessed 10 July 2014].

Website

Authors name [or Anon. where there is no obvious author], Website Title, <onlineaddress>
[accessed day month year].

Anon., Kings College London, <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/index.aspx> [accessed 10 July 2014].

Hardcopy newspaper articles

Authors name, Title of Article, Newspaper, date, p. 10

Michael Billington, Richard III: Review, Guardian, 26 July 2012, p. 6.

Note: punctuation; omit The in front of newspaper titles (e.g. put Guardian, Age, New York Times;
the one exception is The Times); form of the date (26 July 2012 not July 26th, 2012).

Online newspaper articles

Authors name, Title of Article, Newspaper, date <webaddress> [accessed day month year].

Michael Billington, Richard III: Review, Guardian, 26 July 2012

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jul/26/richard-iii-review-shakespeare-globe> [accessed
26 July 2012]

Note: punctuation; omit The in front of newspaper titles (e.g. put Guardian, Age, New York Times;
the one exception is The Times); form of the date (26 July 2012 not July 26th, 2012).

Films

Title, dir. by Directors name (Production company, date)

The Blue Lagoon, dir. by Randal Kleiser (Columbia Pictures, 1980).

When quoting from a film it is perfectly acceptable to supply your own transcription of a scene or
scenes. Put a footnote the first time quote from a film, referencing it as above, followed by
Transcriptions mine.

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Bibliography

The bibliography lists all the texts citedand only those you have citedin alphabetical order of the
authors/editors directors surname. It should be composed in a similar manner to the footnotes
EXCEPT:

Surname and first-name are reversed for author/editor, with a comma in between surname and first
name. For co-authored or co-edited volumes, only the first name is inverted in this way, e.g.
Donovan, Jason, and Kylie Minogue, eds, [etc.]
Individual pages are not referenced, but page ranges are given for the entire length of articles in
scholarly journals and chapters in multi-authored volumes.
If you have referred to several chapters from the same multi-authored book, you can consider simply
giving the reference to the book itself under the editors name, followed by , ed., (or , eds, if there is
more than one editor).
There is no full-stop at the end of the citation.

Dickens, Charles, Bleak House (London: Chapman and Hall, 1868)

<http://archive.org/stream/bleakhouse02dickgoog#page/n16/mode/2up> [accessed 26 July
2012]
Finlandia, John Jackson, Vodka: An Illustrated History, Drinking Studies, 5.7 (1999), 1-10
Juniper, Gordon, ed., Elephant Walk: New Essays in Postcolonial Studies (New York: Routledge,
2001), pp. 6-18
Kleiser, Randal, dir., The Blue Lagoon (Columbia Pictures, 1980)
Maid, Millicent, Make Mine Milk: Drinking in British Schools, 1960-1980, Journal of Liquid
Consumption Studies, 8 (winter 1998), 82-91
Newsome, David, The Victorian World Picture: Perceptions and Introspections in an Age of Change
(London: John Murray, 1997)
Palmer, Beth, Are the Victorians Still with Us?: Victorian Sensation Fiction and Its Legacies in the
Twenty-First Century, Victorian Studies, 52.1 (2011), 86-94 <doi:
10.2979/VIC.2009.52.1.86>
Todie, Imensa, Royal Animals (Oxford: Sloan University Press, 2011)

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APPENDIX 2

Checklist for your final essay draft

Please note, none of these hints is prescriptive or foolproof; and they may not all be
appropriate for all modules. However, running down the checklist may help you identify
points in your draft which would benefit from some extra attention.

This isnt all style over substance: an essay which is immaculately presented and correctly
formatted imbues the reader with a sense of your authority and can boost the persuasiveness
of your argument.

IS MY ESSAY DRAFT

Headed by the fully-written-out question?

Including the question at the top of page 1 increases the chance that you have
answered it in the draft

Having only part of the question written out increases the chance that you only
have only answered part of it

You should consult your module convenor before substituting a self-devised

essay title for a fully-written out question. You may need the convenors
permission to do this.

Numbered?

Useful for examiners when they want to refer to something specific in your draft.
Use your word processing programmes insert page numbers function.

Within the word limit

Penalties apply to work which exceeds the word limit; under length work often
exposes wasted opportunities in the analysis. SEE point 24 of the Guide to
Writing Essays.

Spelled correctly?

RUN spellcheck

Re-read the draft for correctly spelled but incorrectly used words or you might
end up with silly mistakes (e.g. If he had achieved the victory, his fame would
have reached the stairs)

Formatted correctly?

Double spaced throughout, including quotes

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

12 font Times New Roman or equivalent size in another font

Adequate margins (normal margins in Word are fine)

Longer quotes indented on both sides without quotation marks. (Quotes within
the indented quote have single quotation marks.)

Shorter quotes in body of essay and surrounded by single quotation marks.

(Quotes within quotes surrounded by double quotation marks.)

Footnote reference numbers in Arabic (not Roman) numerals placed (for the
most part) after a full stop, or other punctuation.

Justified straight on both sides, e.g.

NB: straight sides
on left and right

Undoubtedly the most profound lyrics in Ms Minogues oeuvre relate to the

devil [she] know[s]. That said, the epistemological implications of step[ping] back in
time should not be overlooked, particularly as they relate to knowing what you have to
do to get it through to someone that the speaker does love you, love you.

NB: straight sides on left,

Or justified to left, e.g. uneven ends on right.

Undoubtedly the most profound lyrics in Ms Minogues oeuvre relate to the

devil [she] know[s]. That said, the epistemological implications of step[ping] back in
time should not be overlooked, particularly as they relate to knowing what you have to
do to get it through to someone that the speaker does love you, love you.

Do not centre text (even for indented quotes)

Undoubtedly the most profound lyrics in Ms Minogues oeuvre relate to the devil [she]
know[s]. That said, the epistemological implications of step[ping] back in time should
not be overlooked, particularly as they relate to knowing what you have to do to get it
through to someone that the speaker does love you, love you.

Divided by clearly marked paragraphs?

Indent the first line of a new paragraph (hit tab) and/or leave a line between
paragraphs

Avoid submitting a wall of words (a whole page without paragraph divisions).

Paragraphs help your reader situate him/herself in the logical progression of your
argument; one main point per paragraph. Paragraphs also help you in the re-

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drafting process: you can see the bones of your argument and consider whether
each bone is placed in the correct part of the skeleton.

Displaying several indented quotes from the primary texts?

It is very hard to be original in essays if you have not engaged closely with
particular sections of the primary texts. A lack of indented (i.e. longer) quotes
from the primary texts suggests you may not have engaged with them closely
enough.

Properly referenced?

See Appendix 1, Style Guide (Summary) and the MHRA Style Guide (detailed)
for footnote referencing format. Use foonotes, not endnotes.

Rounded off with a correctly formatted bibliography?

Only texts directly referred to in the essay should appear in the bibliography

See Appendix 1, Style Guide (Summary) and the MHRA Style Guide (detailed)
for bibliographic referencing format which is slightly different to that for
footnotes.

Grammatically correct (e.g. correctly used apostrophes)?

See point 22 in the Guide to Writing Essays (Some handy hints).

Devoid of wikipedia definitions? Containing dictionary definitions only sparingly?

Wikipedia is not an appropriate source for your essays, handy as it is for looking
up facts.

Dictionary definitions are stylistically hackneyed, and using them in the opening
of an essay risks imposing terms on your primary text.

In some cases, however, the historical record of a words meaning (which may be
different to contemporary usage) might enhance your interpretation of a
particular passage. In that case, refer to the Oxford English Dictionary, or
another authoritative dictionary which includes examples of word use from
historical texts.

Purged of platitudes (particularly in the opening paragraph)?

Cut anything like the following: Shakespeare has been thrilling audiences since
time immemorial; Australia is the oldest yet the youngest nation; Ireland is a
country rich in song; Stories have always captivated mankind etc. etc.

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 Department of English Language and Literature, Kings College London

Such platitudes may be useful in an early draft (they often help you start writing)
but they need to be cut from the final product: begin with a statement on the
primary texts.

Copy-edited?

Read the draft ALOUD sentence by sentence checking each is grammatically

correct, adjusting for beauty.

Edited for organisation?

Often after an early draft whole paragraphs or strings of paragraphs might be

better placed differently in the essay. This will be easier to see if you have a
series of copyedited paragraphs. Write down the main point you have made in
each paragraph and write it in the margin of your draft. Do these follow in the
best possible order?

Headed by a conceptual answer to the essay question?

In many (but not all) cases, the ideal first sentence is also directed explicitly to
the primary texts.

If the answer is yes to all the above you have completed your essay!

NOW CELEBRATE!

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