Essays and Assignments

• Written work
• Identification
• Presentation
• How to write an essay
• Guidelines on how to quote
• Referencing your work
• Useful resources for writing essays

Written Work

An essay or assignment is not merely a form of assessment - it is a valuable part of a progressive teaching/learning process and its potential can be realised only if it is handed in when it is due, thus giving time for careful correction, annotation and discussion before the student proceeds to the next stage of the unit. The experience of completing each assignment given, and the feedback received in the form of comments and discussion, allow for the progressive increase in the student's knowledge and improvement in working techniques.

Identification

All exercises, assignments and essays should bear the following identification at the top of the first page:

• Student's full name.
• Year and unit in French (e.g. Introductory French 1 FRNC1101).
• Name of teacher (and, if necessary, day and hour of class).
• Title (if any).
• Date on which exercise, assignment or essay is due.

NOTE: Every care is taken to safeguard essays and assignments received by the department, but accidents can happen. Moreover, there have regrettably been cases where essays have been stolen, copied and then destroyed. Students are therefore advised, in their own interests, to keep a photocopy of all assignments handed in. A soft copy is also very important.

Students may also submit pieces of assessment to the School of Languages and Cultures administration office. Any pieces of assessement handed in over the counter will be stamped with the date, and placed in the relevant staff member's pigeon hole. A reciept of any submission to the office will be given, only if the student asks.

This coversheet MUST be attached to all pieces of assessment.

Presentation

• Clear setting out and legibility are essential.
• Write on one side of the paper only, with double spacing.
• Typewritten/printed work is now standard. Only submit handwritten work if absolutely essential.
• Leave an ample margin (for comments) on the left-hand side of the page.
• Pin or staple your sheets together securely at the top left-hand corner.
• Attach a School of Languages cover sheet (see above)

How to write an essay

An essay is an exercise in fact-finding, thinking and planning, rather than the expression of subjective, emotional responses. You should undertake it in several stages:

• Understand the subject
  Are you clear about the sense and implications of all words in the topic? It is a bad fault to misunderstand the subject through not having thought sufficiently about it, and to avoid the issues raised in the question by, for example, writing around them.

• Locate the problem
  Every good essay presents a problem, discusses it, and, if possible, solves it.

• Gather evidence
  In an essay on a literary subject, this could be of two kinds, textual – derived from the particular text under discussion, or factual – from general reference works (histories of literature, encyclopedias, bibliographies, etc.) or from works of criticism. Take full and careful notes, in whatever form seems most suitable; as you size up the problems to be tackled, you should become progressively more selective in your note taking. Don't forget to write down the sources of all references or quotations, in as full a form as possible.

• Establish an opinion
  While you are still gathering the facts, you should consider the various hypotheses that might solve your problem, and adopt the most likely one. Normally, in the course of your reading and thinking, one line of thought will recommend itself rather than another, but you should not allow this to cause you to ignore evidence that would destroy your hypothesis. If you are given a quotation to comment on, ask: Is it true? If you are given a quotation accompanied by the instruction: "justifier" or "expliquer," then you should explore the statement critically, in order to demonstrate, by careful argument, its truth or its error or the degrees of both in the question posed. At this stage, discussions with fellow-students may be of great help.

• Plan the layout
  The problem that you have isolated (and, if possible, solved) in the four previous stages will become basic to the layout of your essay, and give it unity. Your Introduction should contain definitions of key-terms and of your assumptions and methods (to make sure you and your reader are on the same wave-length), a reformulation of the subject (including a statement of the problem that it involves), and an explanation of the divisions of your argument that will make up the main body of your essay.

The Middle Section (or main body) consists of a series of arguments and proofs forming a logical progression to a conclusion. Note that the order of presentation will rarely be the order in which the points were thought of originally. There must be no irrelevancies; eliminate everything not absolutely necessary to your line of argument, and choose carefully among the facts available to you. Progression does not imply monotony: to stimulate the reader's interest, use dramatic devices such as contrast and surprise. Avoid repeating yourself (unless you have a good reason for taking up a point mentioned earlier).

Your Conclusion should not be disproportionately brief (in relation to your Introduction) and could consist of two steps: your conclusion proper, in which (avoiding heavy-handedness!) you recapitulate your original proposition, and the steps of your argument, and give the sum of your results (beware of after-thoughts!); and then, in a few lines, an estimate of the general significance of your results. On occasion you might identify unsolved problems in the topic, and indicate further avenues of research.

• Write your draft
  Aim for clarity and simplicity. Avoid clumsy expressions, exclamations, "purple passages" or, on the other hand, inappropriate use of colloquialisms. Do not hesitate to modify your original plan if it is not proving workable. Indicate footnotes roughly in the margin. Then rewrite your Introduction and Conclusion (the two most important sections).

• Write (or type) your final version
  Without spelling errors! Footnotes should be either at the foot of the relevant page or grouped together and numbered at the end of the essay. Strive for even greater clarity in the style; and finally, add, if necessary, a list of books consulted.

How to Quote

If you wish to quote verbatim from some source or other, preferably indicate your source in a footnote rather than disturb the flow of your text. Normally quotations from critics should be kept to a minimum. The following points are worth remembering:

• All verbatim quotations should be marked as such by enclosing them in inverted commas within the text, or by insetting them from the margins, separating them from the main body of the text
• Where a phrase, rather than a complete sentence, is quoted, it must fit into the syntax of your text to form a coherent sentence
• Unacknowledged paraphrasing, i.e. rewriting extended quotations in one's own words or in the author's barely changed words, is just as much a plagiarism as is unacknowledged verbatim quotation.

Referencing

Where you have to make frequent reference to one source (e.g. when you are discussing a novel or a play), and it is quite clear which book is being referred to, it may be more convenient to indicate the page-numbers in brackets in the body of your text.

NOTE: In language exercises, underline all linguistic forms (words, phrases, letters) cited as examples, whether French or English, and use single quotation marks for definitions or translations (e.g. ainsi 'thus').

Footnotes and Bibliographies
Standards for the layout of footnotes and bibliographies vary, but the department would like you to observe three general rules:

• provide accurate information
• provide complete information
• be consistent in the presentation of information.

The most authoritative and comprehensive source of information on footnoting and bibliographical conventions is the M.L.A. Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, New York, Modern Language Association [latest edition].

The Department sees merit in undergraduate students applying internationally recognised scholarly conventions in their presentation of footnotes and bibliographical lists; we do not, however, place undue emphasis on formal rules of this kind, as long as the alternatives selected conform to the three basic criteria of accuracy, completeness and consistency.

Useful resources for writing essays

• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, New York, Modern Language Association [latest edition].
• Department of French Studies, Guidelines for Thesis Writing, University of Sydney, 1997.
• Hook, Lucyle, and Gavar, Mary V., The Research Paper, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, 1963.
• Anderson, Jonathan et al., Thesis and Assignment Writing, Sydney, John Wiley, 1970.
• Knight, Roy C., and George, F.W.A., Advice to the Student of French, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1960.
• Grauby, Françoise and Royer, Michelle, Recherche: Mode d'Emploi, Sydney, 1996
• The University of Sydney Library is great resource for books etc on how to write essays.
• Note that the Learning Centre runs a range of day and evening courses covering such areas as essay writing and giving oral presentations. These courses are very popular and early booking is advised.