A level English Literature Essay Skills - Steve Campsall

1 Essay a top grade!1 The basics, in a nutshell With luck, your Essay title willhave beengiven to you in the form of aquestion( How doesMcEwancreate a sense oftension andexcitement in the opening chapter of Atonement? ); or,at least,it ll be in a form thatyou lleasilybe able tomentally convert it into a question, ( Inthe openingchapter of Atonement,McEwanrelies onseveral key narrativetechniques to create a sense oftension ).It susuallypossible to restate anyessay titleas akind of question . Trytodothismentallywith your an Essay title in the form of a question will truly help with theplanning and structure isbecauseyouressayneeds to be, in essence,nothing more thanyour attempt to argue yourpoint ofviewon whatyou believethe answer to this essayquestion course whilst therearewrong answers, there isNEVER ASINGLE CORRECT ANSWER to any English Essay onlya well-supported point of view!If you state your view clearlyat thebeginningand support what you say convincinglyin the Essay itself,you willdo well!

2 This means thatyou ll need to create an Essay that is, at heart, aclearly statedandwell-supported ,tryhardto make your opening paragraphbecome an ultra-succinct answer tothe Essay question , thenuse the rest of the Essay to show why yourstated answer (really justan informed )isa good one!CREATING AN ARGUMENT THE thesis STATEMENT To create an effective Essay ,therefore,youwill needtoforman in-a-nutshellstyleanswer to the Essay question onethat gives, in just asentenceor so,your overallconclusion , take or view ofthe s called, technically, your thesis statement . It snot so very different fromsaying to Mum on Friday, I think it would be reallyfunto go to Emma sfor a then making an Essay that supports your thoughtson why going to Emma s is such a good idea!In the above Essay example onMcEwan snovelAtonement, you might write, The creation of tension is a key narrativedevice that is much used byMcEwan. Inthe first chapter of Atonement,this isfrequentlyevident, for.

3 Now youadd in avery brief commentto explain in a generalised skeleton formhowyou are going to answer the :Your Essay becomes nothing more than a series of paragraphs in which you try to persuade your teacheror theexaminerwhy yourinterpretation isa fair one to paragraphis used to explain andexplore anew persuasive point onethat supports your opening in anutshell super-condensed answer .Each paragraphwillneed to be built aroundevidence from the text, usually a quotation (but in a drama, itmight be a description ofstage directions, costume, etc.).2In moredetail:The Opening Paragraph Find a way of makingyour openingsentenceshort, the mind-numbing boredom ofstarting with Inmyessay I am going tobe looking ( ).Insteadstart with something like Tension and excitement abound in the opening lines of McEwan sAtonementand with good reason: he wants his reader to read oSo be brave,bebold! Bedifferent! Above all, write in alivelyandinterestingstylebybeing yourself.

4 Don tjoin the ranks of students who irritate examiners and lose marks by trying to emulate the overly-formal styleof an imaginedstuffy TIP!Create aknowledgeableandauthoritativetonebyinco rporatingawordorphrase from the textdirectlyinto your ownopeningsentence(see below for more on the keytechniqueof embeddedquotations ). Next, immediately showyou have agoodgrasp of the Essay title orquestion. EnglishLitessay questionsallowa gooddealofleewaysoyou llneed to makeitclearexactlywhat your take on the question sometypes ofliteratureessays(checkthiswith your teacher),you llneedtoshowawareness ofotherwaysofinterpreting the textthan your own. If this isa part of the mark scheme you ll be told. In thiscase,in youropening paragraph,write something like this opening of an Essay on the play A Streetcar Named Desire : Many readers might take a different viewof BlancheDuboisandconsiderWilliams play anything but atragedy,but Ibelieve thatthe events of the playsuggest fairly clearly.

5 OKeep in mind at all times that your Essay isalwaysnothingmore than an attempt tosupportyouroriginallystated view: it isa persuasively made argument forwhat you believe. Here is an example of a thesisstatement: Some commentators suggest that the poet Philip Larkin is all-but a miserable pessimist, but I feelthat there is much evidence to the contrary, that he is, in fact, an unusually clear-sighted realist. Through ananalysis of two of his poems, High Windows and The Explosion , I shall argue why I believe this to be thecase. oInotherkinds ofessay,the mark scheme insists that youshowa closeawareness alwaysand always, dotry to remember thatthis is notaHistoryessay:it isan Essay thismeansisthatyour marksonly evercome fromyourinterpretationand analysisof the text; theywillnevercomefrommereexplanationsofc ontext. T write long explanations of the author shistorical or literary context but, DOtry to find quotations that allow youtoderive relevant aspectsofbothhistorical and literarycontext, deriving context from thetext , as well as theneed to discuss thelinguistic orliterary merits of a quotation,in an Essay where context isimportant, alsoextendyour commentto coveranimportant contextual often bepossible becausethereare usuallycontextualaspectslurking maybe a little buried within thequotationitselfsomewhereif you look and think hard enough(and choose quotationsappropriately).

6 If you find thisdifficult and itcan be ask yourteacher for more help. It s arealmarkwinner!oSomeessayquestions are based on astatement made byan eminent person such as aliterary critic. If this isthe case,do not feel that youare obliged toagree with it as above, there israrelyjust oneinterpretationofan author swork. Inallcases, it s important toopen your Essay by givingyouroverallpoint ofviewconcerningthe Essay question. Thiswill beyour take onthe question, your overall conclusion : a kind of super-condensed answer .Thisstatement isoften thekeyto a successful Essay a key thatunlocks the door to the highest marks and gives you, the Essay writer,the greatest satisfaction. See the Englishbiz guide to better essays for more on this important technique: TOPTIP!For exam writing,it s important toremember thatyou only havethisone chancetomake afavourablefirstimpression. Your aim, therefore, needs tobeto impress the examiner witha show ofclarity, confidence especially effective way to do this is to use an embeddedquotation in your introduction aword orphrase from the text(always still in quotation marks)thatfits directly into yourown sentence.

7 This suggestsa deepknowledgeof the textitself, creates an authoritative toneand a confident approach. Here is an example: BlancheDubois might claim she wants magic rather than realism but in his play A Streetcar Named Desire Williamsprovides his audience with an extra large helping of reality .The Body Paragraphs Do you worry about justhow manymainpointsyou need tomaketo support your argument?Well,if you explore eachpointthoroughlyandin depthusing the Point Quotation Comment strategy, you willonlyhave space for half adozen or also that given the timepressurein an exam,you need to be sure toavoid waffle! For each and everypoint you make,be sure it helps toanswer theessayquestionandthusrelate to your initiallystated point of view ( thesis statement ). Ask yourself, Am Iexploringandinterpretingthesubtlelayers andshades of meaning of the text? oMake it a habit NEVER to open a paragraph with any sentence that does notCLEARLYDEVELOP your overallargumentand so help answer the Essay question or title.

8 Plan your answer aroughsketch of the main points you intend to make. This willhelp you to makeyour points flowlogically from one to the next(try touse discourse markers to , , as a , itfollows from this ,in ,and so on).Thedevelopment ofyourargumentshould beclear andunderstandableat all is a real mark winner. Alwayssupporteach point of yourargument with examples usuallya brief quotation fromyour text(s). If youhave the text in the exam this is easier; if you don t you should be prepared with a small bank of learned quotations(justlines orphrases rather than whole chunksare needed).Avoid using an excessive number of (or excessively )4quotations. Useaptandbriefquotations thatclearlywork tosupport their point will be one thatsupports,explains,developsorexplores your thesis . Remember what that is?It s the single sentence that explained yoursuper-condensed-overall-point-of-vie wconcerning the essayquestion that you wrote at the beginning of your Essay !

9 OIf a quotation is just a few words in length, set it off inside quotation marks, butkeep it in the same line. Ifthe quotation is longer, set it off,again inside quotation marks, but now on a new line like a newparagraph,indented from the margin by about 2cm. It s not often a good technique to open a paragraph with a quotation. Of course, every rule is made to be broken butunless you are a skilled Essay writer, it s always better to begineachnew body paragraph with a sentence thatcontainsa new point-one that helps answer your Essay question. Thisprevents waffleandkeeps the structure ofyour Essay intact. TOP TIP!!Avoid retelling thestory , giving lengthy descriptionsaboutWHAT HAPPENS in the text; instead,INTERPRETthe textin ways thathelp answer the Essay waste of timeandLOSESMARKS!! Iftheessay requires you to allude to therebeing other ways of interpreting the text, try toshow thisas you is no need to labourit just show your awarenessthatothers might see things differently.

10 ALWAYS SQUEEZE YOUR QUOTATIONS TILLTHEY SQUEAL! Wring every drop of interpretation and comment out ofthem for this is where the marks lie. Look super-hard at each quotation and ask yourself:oWhateffective uses oflanguageorliterarydevicesdoes it contain?oHow does it helpstructurally?oHowdoes it contributeto the textwhenand whereit occurs?Does it develop character, plot or mood, forexample?oHow does it, however subtly,contributetoan overall aspect of the text, perhaps to a theme? NEVERbutNEVER misstheopportunity touse your quotations todiscusshowthewriterhasusedlanguage,lit erary/poetic/dramatic is agoldenopportunity togain extramarks!The Essay sConclusion This is thelast thingyour teacher or examiner willread-itwillhover intheirmind as your mark is being itgood! Use yourconclusionas asumming upof your argument (you did write the Essay as an argument didn t you?!?)oRestatethemajorpoints of yourargument trying to express them succinctly and a little how theissues raised by your essayapply more generally most texts have widely applying themes andnow is the chance to show how this is the personal view on the text.