 |
|
| |
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
moment in time instead of simply at this moment and as we can see from
these instances, tautology can indicate a lack of attention to individual word
meanings; in an essay it would waste precious words from your overall limit.
Sometimes tautology is used to good effect: the phrase boys will be boys and
the song lyric que sera sera, whatever will be will be are successful in conveying
a weary or satisfying inevitability. There is another kind of tautology that is
more of a problem for essays, though; it is the presentation of the same informa-
tion as both the cause and the effect of a point in your argument. For example, in
an essay on the treatment of single women in women s writing between the wars,
I found the following sentence: Single women were described as surplus women
because there were so many spinsters after the death of men in the first world
Essays 113
war. This statement posits the same information (that there was a high number
of single women) as both the claim and the supporting evidence (and certainly
does not question or transform the notion of superfluity in anyway).
Logical fallacies and non-sequiturs Non-sequiturs are occasions where a
statement or inference does not logically or thematically follow on from what
has gone before (within a sentence, or in a sequence of sentences). They are
quite a common mistake in student essays. If the non-sequitur relates only to
theme, for example, in the puzzling sentence Charlotte Brontë fused gothic
and realist styles in her novels and was the sister of Emily Brontë , where there
is no apparent connection between her writing style and her sibling, then the
damage to your essay overall might not be serious (although it does suggest a
confusion about the aim of each sentence or paragraph and the sequence of
ideas). But a non-sequitur relating to logic can create a fallacy that might derail
your whole argument. This occurs when an observation is made and you read
on thinking that a principle is going to be drawn from it, but in fact the rest of
the sentence or paragraph is not a consequence or is even unrelated. There is a
whole branch of logic devoted to the different categories of fallacy (with about
two hundred different varieties). These are broken down under two headings,
of formal and informal fallacies: a formal fallacy is one where the argument is
flawed and the principle that has been deduced from the evidence is incorrect,
while an informal fallacy is one where the flaw lies not in the reasoning but in
the facts. Correcting such fallacies or non-sequiturs may therefore mean
inserting some information that is currently missing, or removing informa-
tion from the sequence, but it may also involve a more drastic rethink of the
thought processes that led to your original deduction.
Links (or lack of them) In order to guide your reader smoothly through
your essay, your argument and your mode of logic, you need to ensure that
paragraphs link to each other and within them, so too the sentences. At the end
of each paragraph you need to conclude it and also introduce what will follow.
There are some very clumsy ways of linking paragraphs and these should be
avoided. Phrases like in order to answer this point, it is first necessary to . . .
are overly wordy and are a heavy-handed way of attempting links.
Response
Reread Alex s essay in the Appendix and highlight every linking word with a
coloured pen (things like however , moreover , on the other hand , because
of this ) and underline every sentence that forms the link between one
paragraph and another. Are there occasions when you feel the link is not clearly
made? If so, how would you have changed this?
114 Studying English Literature
Response
As you read the essays of your peers and critics, make a list of linking words
and phrases. Collate these under two headings: one that suggests that
additional information is to follow (for example, furthermore ) and one that
suggests that an alternative viewpoint or contradictory information is to follow
(things like In contrast ).
A checklist for editing your essay
Ï% Argument Can you identify your thesis statement from the final essay?
Does each paragraph provide further support, or clearly analyse opposing
views to this argument? Would some of the evidence or information
assist your argument if it was moved to a different place? (Remember to
save each draft as a clearly marked file so that if you wish to revert to an
earlier order or remind yourself what you have cut etc., you can easily do
so.)
Ï% Evidence Have you provided evidence in the form of quotations and your
own paraphrases from both critical and literary sources? Remember that
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plcs-sysunia.htw.pl
|
| |
|
|
|
| Podobne |
| |
|
| |
|