Writing an Essay

When you're set an essay, the natural and human reaction is to want to get it over with. But for high-stakes writing - for exams and such - this have-a-go approach is a bit risky. So it's hugely worthwhile to put some time aside to find a guide to the method of essay writing that clicks with you. Many websites offer help with this, and not a few offer to write them for you for a fee. After a brief trawl, the online resources below seemed to me particularly useful.

Here's a hub to various resources on all kinds of writings. I haven't looked at them all. The Creative Writing Resources looks very good. Open here.

For academic essays in particular, I recommend the Purdue University Online Writing Lab. Go to 'Common Writing Assignments' for detailed advice on argumentative essays etc. Breaks it down into stages.

Plenty of universities are posting their student guides online. Here's good one from Anglia Ruskin University.

Another good one is this, by David Gauntlett of the Institute of Communication Studies at Leeds. I like his examples of concision over waffle: Essay-Writing: The Essential Guide

Here's a very practical document by Tom Davis written for English undergraduates (but useful for other subjects), with some useful links of its own. Written in 2001 so the remarks on technology are a little archaic, but the advice on putting material into paragraphs is timeless. How to Write an Essay.

See also previous blog post, Guides to Good Writing.

Rhetoric: Some Tropes

Accompanying another post on rhetorical schemes, here is one on tropes. Where schemes deal with sentences - clauses in parallel, etc. - tropes concern the artful deviation of words from their ordinary sense. In practice, the distinction between schemes and tropes can become artificial, as there is a natural symbiosis between word and syntax. Some figures (ie zeugma) have been classified variously as scheme and trope. There are also problems in talking about the 'ordinary' use of language. There are good arguments (see Owen Barfield's wonderful book Poetic Diction) that language in its normal state is metaphorically rich, and we have to make a special effort to reduce a word ro statement to carry single precise meanings: think of the work lawyers have to do to create documents that admit of only one interpretation - it suggests they might be working against the grain of the material of language.

Metaphor and Simile

Metaphor
Twisting a word from its usual sense to create another idea. Used to form striking comparisons between two unlike things to show something they still have in common. A metaphor can occur in various parts of speech, and it does not have to take the form a=b. There's a beautiful discussion of metaphor in the film Il Postino.
This book is a monument.
The sun blessed the bright sky. The sun shouted in the laughing sky.
That news just burns me up.
I stood in the lonely field [so-called transferred epithet, where the adjective describing me - lonely - is transferred to the field. Also an instance of Ruskin's pathetic fallacy, the fallacy being to suppose that inanimate things like fields have feeling (pathos) like loneliness.]

Simile
Also a comparison between two unlike things, made explicit by a word such as 'as' or 'like'
My love is like a red, red rose.
The silence settled like snow.
He entered the room as subtly as a steam train.

Part and whole

Synecdoche
Part stands for whole; genus or adjunct suggest main idea.
A village of three hundred souls. ['soul' is a part, standing for the whole person]
Keep your vehicle roadworthy [Vehicle stands - probably - for car, a specific kind of vehicle
: genus for species]
Give us this day our daily bread [Bread for food: species for genus]
Many hands make light work.
You did this for the oldest of motives - silver [the material 'silver' stands for what is made from it]

Metonymy
Virtually the same as synecdoche. An attribute or suggestive word is used to imply what is really meant.
Let's go and buy a bottle or two for dinner.
The top brass are meeting now.
He lives by his pen.
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Puns
Other ages took puns more seriously than we do. Shakespeare's plays and other Renaissance dramas has a level of wordplay that can seem puzzling to a modern audience. One way of looking at a line like Hamlet's punning 'A little more than kin and less than kind' is that it contains metaphor at its most compressed - several meanings in just one word (kind implies a comparison with 'kinned' (family-related) and 'kind' meaning species).

Antanaclasis
Word repeated in two different senses.
I want to scotch the idea that all the Scotch like Scotch.
Let's hang around while they hang Danny.
We make the traveller's lot a lot easier.

Paronomasia
Use words that sound the same but have different meanings. this is the groan groan type of pun.
I wish my parents would leave me a loan.
If you try the high stile you might look silly.
Let's have the fool for pudding.

Syllepsis
One word (usually a verb) governs two or mroe other words, though it is understood differently in each case. See zeugma, from which it is practically indistinguishable.
I take my hat and my leave.
Or stain her honour, or her new brocade.
... Dost sometimes counsel take - and sometimes tea.
His speech raised a laugh or two but also some hackles.

Figures of Substitution

Anthimeria
Substitute one part of speech for another. Several examples in late Shakespeare.
The thunder would not peace at my bidding. (noun for verb)
Lord Angelo dukes it well.
Knee thy way into his mercy.
I am going in search of the great perhaps (adverb for noun)
He wants to do the impossible (adjective for noun)
The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she.

Periphrasis
Substitute a descriptive word or phrase for a name (eg a nickname); substitute a proper name for a quality associated with it.
Meet the mad jackal, captain of our village cricket team.
I am taught biology by the great fungus.
I like drawing, but I'm no Leonardo.
You'd need a Hercules to shift this lot.

Personification
Give abstract concepts or inanimate objects human qualities.
The ground is thirsty.
Smoke caressed the garden fence.
Fortune is cruel and arbitrary.

Apostrophe
Address to an absent person or personified abstraction: Death be not proud, Oh cruel fortune! etc.

Hyperbole
Substitute an over-the-top phrase for the real idea, to achieve emphasis.
There were millions of people at the party.
When he's angry, he makes the walls shake.
He's the King of the village hall ping-pong table.

Litotes
Opposite of hyperbole. Deliberate understatement, emphasising the point by opposite means. It's most common form is witht he negative.
That's no mean task.
I'm slightly puzzled as to why you burned the house down.
It would be rather helpful if you could throw me a rope to stop me from drowning.
I admit it's somewhat unusual to see a tree growing in someone's living room.
einstein was not unintelligent.

Rhetorical question (erotema)
Asking a question in order to make a point rather than to elicit an answer.
How many times do I have to tell you?
Isn't it odd that the murders only started after the new vicar was installed?

Irony
Using a word to signify the opposite of what it usually means. In its strong form it becomes sarcasm.
So you completely ignored the question - that was clever.
It's a privilege to be able to teach Wykehamists.
I can't wait to get the next gas bill.

Onomatopoeia
The sound of a word seems to underline its sense. Often combined with alliteration and assonance.
First march the heavy Mules, securely slow,
O'er hills, o'er Dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go
Jumping high o'er the shrubs of the rough ground,
Rattle the clatt'ring Cars, and the shockt Axles bound. (Pope, Iliad, 23:138-41)

Oxymoron
Joining together two words with different senses, to create a kind of self-contradiction.
Dry ice, conspicuously absent, deafening silence, cruel kindness, laborious leisure, the living dead
O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches.

Recommended Reading
Arthur Quinn and Barney R Quinn, Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase
Richard A Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms

Online
Two handy lists:
Robert A Harris, A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices
University of Kentucky, Glossary of Rhetorical Terms

More comprehensive treatment:
Gideon Young, Silva Rhetoricae

Rhetoric: Examples of Schemes

Rhetoric: the art of persuasive speech. Or perhaps we might say, the art of expressive speech, in which language is shaped, 'figured', into configurations that compel our attention. Of the hundreds of figures of speech listed in reference works, only a few (metaphor, simile, alliteration) are in regular use in literary study. Here is a list of a few others: getting acquainted with them can certainly sharpen our sense of form in writing, and that perception of form can in turn - on a good day - help us to get a precise idea of the nature of the thought being expressed, and how its formal contours give it a rhythm and emotional current.

Rhetorical figures can be divided into schemes and tropes. Put simply, schemes deal with the shape of a sentence, tropes with the use of individual words. Schemes themselves can be subdivided, as follows:

Schemes of Balance

Parallelism   Words, phrases or clauses with a similar structure:

Government of the people, by the people, for the people 
I watched television and my wife read a book [Two clauses around and: the structure of each clause is Pronoun + transitive verb + object]

Players who abuse the opposition or maim the referee will not be selected in future. [Sentence includes two parallel phrases: abuse the opposition, maim the referee, both transitive verb + object]

Parallelism can convey the effect of being composed, in mind and speech, poised, in charge of one's material. Notice the various parallel phrases and clauses in the opening of Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents:

It is an undertaking of some degree of delicacy to examine into the cause of public disorders. If a man happens not to succeed in such an enquiry, he will be thought weak and visionary; if he touches the true grievance, there is a danger that he may come near to persons of weight and consequence, who will rather be exasperated at the discovery of their errors, than thankful for the occasion of correcting them. If he should be obliged to blame the favourites of the people, he will be considered as the tool of power; if he censures those in power, he will be looked on as an instrument of faction.

One way of making clear the parts of text working in parallel is to place them in a column, to see how the elements of speech map onto each other:

If a man happens not to succeed
If he touches                                 [If + subject + verb / verbal phrase

weak and visionary
weight and consequence  [Two terms bound as a couplet, a pair of adjectives and a pair of nouns. Notice that in both pairs, a short Anglo-Saxon word is followed by a longer Latinate one]

exasperated at the discovery
thankful for the occasion  [adj + preposition + noun]

And the last sentence (or period, as Burke might have considered it) consists of two balanced sentences (If clause, main clause), themselves pivoted on a semi-colon and containing parallel constructions (the tool of power / an instrument of faction)

Isocolon
When the parallelism is exact:
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.
To our right is the hard road to virtue, on our left lies the pretty path to perdition.

Antithesis
Contrasting ideas, whose relation is pointed by their position in parallel structures:
The fool thinks he is clever; the wise man knows he is ignorant.
That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

Schemes of Unusual Word Order (Hyperbaton)

Anastrophe
Inversion of usual word order:
Slowly flows the stream
Those I fight I do not hate, those I defend I do not love.

Parenthesis
Start a sentence, then interrupt its natural flow with something else, even a complete sentence:
This crime - and I use this word deliberately - must be punished.
When he is angry - something which I am sorry to say occurs quite often - he loses all sense of proportion.

Apposition
Two things side by side, one explaining or modifying the other. (In Latin, of course, they can be some way from each other)
Ted, the village postman, has just been arrested. ['the village postman' is in apposition to 'Ted' - it saves using the relative clause ' who is the village postman']

Schemes of Omission

Ellipsis
Missing out a word or words which the reader has to 'fill in' from context.
I must to England [Obviously, 'I must go' is intended]
If you want a harder essay title, fine.
Idleness is the main vice of the young, wasted effort of the middle-aged, and despair of the old.

Asyndeton
Missing conjunctions between successive clauses.
I came, I saw, I conquered.
You were warned. You ignored this warning. You must be punished.
The teams went onto the field, the referee blew his whistle. The game had begun.

Polysyndeton
Opposite of asyndeton: lots of conjunctions.
And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.
It was cold and dark and silent and suddenly we felt very scared.
I entered the room although it was dark and atood very still but heard nothing.

Schemes of Repetition

Alliteration
Repeated initial or medial consonants. A useful sound effect:
Bruised and bloody, but not beaten.
A lovely, long, lazy summer afternoon.

Assonance
Repeated vowel sounds in stressed words, surrounded by different consonants.
An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king. [It's the 'i' sound in blind that gets repeated here]
Sing with a voice of joy.
The hard, dark path.

Anaphora
Starting successive clauses with the same word or words.
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.

Epistrophe
Ending successive clauses with the same word or words.
I don't like cricket. I don't play cricket. I don't want to hear another word about cricket.

Epanalepsis
Same word at beginning and end.
Blood will have blood.
Year chases year, decay pursues decay.

Anadiplosis
End a clause with a word, and begin the next clause with the same word.
Cars have parts, parts need repairs, and repairs are expensive.

Climax
Words, phrases or clauses arranged in order of increasing importance.
I serve my employer, my family, my country and my God.

Antimetabole
An ABBA structure where words are repeated in inverse order.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

Chiasmus
ABBA structure where grammatical structures or parts of speech are repeated inversely.
We proceeded at night, and by day we slept.
It's easy to make friends; to lose them is difficult.

Another post will give a list of tropes and reading recommendations.

Guides to Good Writing

Here are a few links to guides to good writing which I can personally vouch for. They are aimed principally at anyone having to turn in a hefty piece of coursework / personal investigation / dissertation; but they contain much useful advice for all those of us who would like to express ourselves more clearly.

Student Guides
Ideal for English Literature students is this one, generously placed in the public domain,by Hazel Hutchison (Royal Holloway College, University of London), Guide to Good Writing


For a book-length guide for students, I recommend Peck and Coyle's Write it Right


Books on Style
The resources above are aimed at the student market. Other books deal with the wider question of clear style, which is applicable to various academic and professional fields.

Strunk and White's Elements of Style is a classic older book. Today it perhaps seems a little dogmatic in its precepts, and it does not go far into he mechanics of how to be clear. But it is constantly engaging, blessedly short and inspires us to get rid of some of the clutter in our prose. A few pounds very well spent. The original 1918 text by Strunk is accessible here.


The best thing I have found on writing clearly is Style by Joseph Williams. His wonderful guide actually provides a course of exercises to help you get better (Strunk and White  generally tell you get better). There are a rather confusing variety of editions of this book, which has gone through various publishers, but you won't go wrong with these two:

Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace contains the principles, with exercises

Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace gives you the essence


Williams is commending a certain style, which one may call 'classic', characterised by the virtues of concision, clarity and balance.  This is explored rather beautifully, with plenty of examples, in a book by Francis-Noël Thomas and Mark Turner, Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose




My Stuff
That's more than enough to choose from. But just to round things off, last and least, here's a little handout of my own, largely drawn from Williams, with some practical experience thrown in:


And below is a brief summary of my own commandments. Looking at it again it seems rather hectoring, telling not showing, but maybe it's of some service as a memo. Good luck to all those coursework scribes out there.

Writing Clearly: Some Guidelines

1.  Read. If you want to write well, you have to read well.

2.  Find a model.

 If there is an author you find clear and compelling, try imitating his / her style.

3. Be honest. Don’t pretend to have something to say when you don’t. Don’t try to make your point sound bigger than it really is.  Show off by being precise, not by being fancy.

Shakespeare uses alliteration which adds to the effect and helps the poem flow.

A completely empty sentence.

4. Choose the right subject. Sentences should start with a precise, simple subject.

One of the aspects of Wordsworth’s poetry which we see at once in these lines is his love of nature.  Subject is long and vague

Wordsworth’s love of nature is immediately apparent in these lines. Subject is more accurate.

An erotic atmosphere is built up by the poet by means of imagery of sensual pleasure.

Uncertainty over subject has led to awkward construction

Images of sensual pleasure create an erotic atmosphere.

Clear subject leads to a cleaner sentence.

5. Find a verb which expresses the idea. Don’t rely on is all the time. Write a list of verbs and put it where you can see it:

Some things that writing can do: explore, illustrate, describe, suggest, echo, allude ….

And things that people (the subject of writing) do: rejoice, mourn, ask, regret, deny …

6. End strongly. The important point should come at the end of the sentence.

In Wordsworth’s philosophy, our emotional responses to Nature form our moral character.

Our attitude towards the Duke varies over the course of the play.

Over the course of the play, our attitude towards  the Duke varies.

Don’t tail off:

Our attitude to the Duke varies over the course of the play, and this keeps us interested and involved.

7. Open paragraphs with a topic sentence.

Although he is the villain of the play, Edmund has some admirable traits.

Openings of paragraphs can also work as a chain:

These early preoccupations return in the later poetry.

Macbeth is not the only character to display his conscience.

8. Use the main body of the paragraph to develop the theme. For example, support it with quotations, add a detail.

9. End paragraphs strongly.  Keep a special ‘hit’ for the end of an essay.

10. ‘Tell the story’ from a consistent point of view.

Compare:

The girl in ‘We Are Seven’ does not understand death. The speaker keeps asking her why she counts the children in the family as seven, but she does not understand what he means. The reader notices the man’s incomprehension as much as the girl’s. Wordsworth emphasises her simplicity by using simple language and verse forms. Innocence and the natural wisdom of children are important ideas in the Lyrical Ballads. The romantic movement was particularly influenced by the ideas of Rousseau concerning children, and several later poems also deal with the subject.

We Are Seven presents two kinds of incomprehension: there is the girl, who does not understand death, and the speaker, who does not understand the girl. This subject is matched by the poetic treatment: the poem’s simple language and unsophisticated verse forms suit the ideas of innocence and the natural wisdom of children. In this choice and handling of material, the poem is an important example of the romantic movement’s preoccupation with childhood. It points back to the influential theories of Rousseau, and forward to much later work on the subject.