University of Strathclyde

Department of
English Studies
Glasgow G1 1XH
0141-552 4400

Children's Literature

Essay Guidelines (for all students)

A lot of what follows is also explained and demonstrated in the Department's Guidelines for Assessed Work (which can be accessed from the front page of the Children's Literature class website).

1. Essays should be double-spaced.

2. Essays should begin with an introductory paragraph in which you explain what you intend to do in the rest of the essay: 'In this essay I want to develop a reading of XXX in order to show that ...'; or 'This essay will focus on XXX in order to explore ...'; or 'In what follows we will analyse XXX in order to demonstrate ...' [or a variation on any of these]. It's often better to write your introduction after you have finished the rest of your essay when you know what you have actually done in the essay.

3. Make sure that everything you write contributes towards (and can be seen to contribute towards) your answer to the question. If it doesn't, cut it out. Don't waste your time or your reader's.

4. Essays should be written in properly punctuated, grammatically coherent sentences. If you don't know how to do this, consult a book that will help you. (see below)

5. Essays should be written in paragraphs: paragraphs are not arbitrary divisions on the page but related to divisions in the argument. Remember: same point, same paragraph; new point, new paragraph.

6. Each paragraph should make one main point (and each sentence in the paragraph should contribute to that point). Since every point you make needs to be supported by quoted evidence (see point 7), it follows that every paragraph (this doesn't necessarily apply to the introduction and conclusion) should contain at least one relevant quotation.

7. An essay should answer the question by developing an argument: this is done by presenting and analysing textual evidence in support of all important claims (not only about the text you are analysing but also about general issues, such as the nature of childhood in the eighteenth century). Remember: assertions (claims unsupported by evidence) earn no marks in academic essays.

8. It follows from point 7 that speculations about authorial intention (if they can't be substantiated from written evidence or derived from the text being discussed) or about readers' feelings (unless you do a survey, or quote a published survey) have no place in an academic essay.

9. Textual evidence (quotations) should be presented according to the guidelines set out on the Department website - READ IT!

10. All quotations should be introduced in ways that make it clear who or what you are quoting, and why. Formulae such as the following are useful: 'Richardson suggests that childhood is a recent invention: [quotation]'.

11. Whether you put a punctuation mark between your own words and the quotation depends on the syntactical relationship between your words and the quotation. The rule is: use the same punctuation mark that you would use if you were not quoting. Sometimes this means that you don't need a punctuation mark at all.

12. All quotations should be followed by a reference. This should take the form specified on the Department website. All references should be correlated with items in a bibliography at the end whose layout conforms to the guidelines set out on the Department website.

13. Sometimes the passage that you quote speaks for itself. But often it's worth analysing the passage that you have quoted, especially if it is long or complex, or if the point you are trying to make with it is not obvious. Quotation and analysis is the central technique of essay writing in English Studies.

14. Essays should discuss texts in the present tense: 'Locke argues that ...'.

15. Titles of books should be underlined or italicised, and do not have inverted commas; titles of parts of books (poems, essays, short stories, etc) should be marked with inverted commas (they are not italicised or underlined). These conventions are explained on the Department website.

16. Your essay should end with a concluding paragraph. This should consist of more than a single sentence. It should not normally introduce new material or ideas. Nor should it wax lyrical about how wonderful the author or text is. Instead, it should try to draw together and reflect on the main points that you have demonstrated or discovered in the essay (these points should, of course, add up to an answer to the question). Your conclusion should announce that it is a conclusion by beginning with phrases like 'We have seen that...'. Phrases such as 'To conclude' can also be used, but they seem redolent of school essays, not university work.

17. The secret to good writing is re-writing. Most professional writers and literary critics will rewrite a piece several times in order to eliminate mistakes and improve the argument. You ought to do likewise. Word-processing is a great help here, though it's sometimes better to print out your essay and go through it with a pen, correcting errors, re-writing sentences, shifting paragraphs around, and so on. Such changes can then be made on screen. Then print out again, correct again, and so on. Try to read your own writing with a critical eye. Become your own best critic.

NB You should not choose texts or passages that have been focussed on in lectures or workshops: you are required to do your own independent reading and develop your own ideas. This is why I normally concentrate in lectures only on the opening chapters of the novels we are looking at.

Books that will help you with essay writing, style and punctuation include the following:

Nigel Fabb and Alan Durant, How to Write Essays, Dissertations & Theses in Literary Studies (Longman, 1993).

David B. Pirie, How to Write Critical Essays (Routledge, 1989); the library holds various copies of this, including an electronic version.

John Peck and Martin Coyle, The Student's Guide to Writing: Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (Macmillan, 1999).

Jan Venolia, Write Right: A Desktop Digest of Punctuation, Grammar and Style (Ten Speed Press, 2001).

Lynne Truss, Eats Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Guide to Punctuation (Profile, 2003).

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