Allan Johnson

A Discovery of Academics

Posted on July 15, 2012July 7, 2013 by Allan Johnson in Observations

I’ve finally made peace with my Cloud, and come to terms with the fact that while I will continue to read books for pleasure on my Kindle, most of my actual research will be distinctly paper-based for the immediate future. (I’m just waiting for the next great piece of kit to make that change.) But, oh, have I been reading a great book on my Kindle lately. It might be about early modern history and written by Deborah Harkness, a well-regarded scholar in the field, but it is certainly not academic. Here’s the run down:

An American academic is spending a year at the Bodleian working on her latest research on the history of alchemical science. There she meets Matthew, a handsome, 30-something professor who has more publications to his name and more interdisciplinary interests than could ever be possible for a person his age. It’s a charming love story set amid the city of a thousand spires, but the salient fact here is that she is a witch and he is a vampire.

Everyone around me seems to reading Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches at the moment, and for good cause. It is well-paced, inventive, a bit escapist, and quite stylish. What strikes me most, though, is its portrayal of academics and their circles. Professorial phenoms, the book playfully suggests, are simply millenia old vampires who have had years to perfect their research and to develop their experience. Matthew’s poise, his polish, and his ability to turn out a slew of books in one semester seems supernatural precisely because it is. (And it’s a fun way to think of academics in the real world–just imagine how many thousands of years Harold Bloom has been around.)

More delightful, though, is the book’s portrayal of Diana, the American witch, and her understanding of academic insight. As a child she shunned magic, not only because of the tragic death of her parents, but also because she wanted to be certain that her achievements really were her own. And it’s a resolution, she is certain, which she has largely stuck to, particularly in her professional academic life. When she happens to get stuck in her research or can’t see the next route her work will take, she simply imagines a large white table filled with the puzzle pieces of all that she needs to fit together–the dates, the events, the speculations, and the controversies of history. And, in a snap, the puzzle comes together in her mind. But it is only part way through the novel when Matthew finally explains to her that this visualization is magic, and, in fact, she had used magic all along.

Maybe there is something peculiar and even a bit supernatural about academics, from the young publishing wizards who defy their years, to the profoundly intuitive thinkers who can make sense of even the most illogical of analytical puzzles. A Discovery of Witches is giving many readers an insight into the mania and joys of an academic life, and its an insight that perhaps many academics could learn from as well.

Writing the English Literature Exam

Posted on March 14, 2012August 22, 2012 by Allan Johnson in Observations

English: A portrait of Anton Chekhov by his br... — A portrait of Anton Chekhov by his brother Nikolay Chekhov (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If there is one element of university education that tends to strike fear in students, it is surely the dreaded end-of-semester exams. Exams do take a lot of preparation, and even once you think you have a pretty good handle on the module content, it is still going to take some hard work to make sure that you are prepared to demonstrate to the examiners what you have learned. But in the same way that essays are a learning tool as well as a form of assessment, the preparation leading up to exams is when the ideas from the semester will finally ‘click’, and you will finally begin to see the connections.

Writing an exam response is different to writing an essay for one vital reason: in an exam, you only have one chance to get it right. This one distinction has a lot of important connotations. Because you only get one chance to get it right, it is essential to know exactly where you are headed right from the beginning. Just like in an essay, your exam should present an argument and then offer the reader adequate evidence and support to validate that argument. The process of writing an essay is often when the shape of the argument emerges. But in exam conditions, you need to discover your argument a bit more quickly.

Students will often write in the margin of their scriptbook a list of topics in lieu of an outline. But this kind of record doesn’t really demonstrate much in the way of the shape of argumentation. Instead, you can actually use the creation of an outline to help you find your argument. In an exam, begin with what you know, and then consider what argument this information might be supporting. Let’s take a look at this with a sample exam question:

Consider the way in which social change was explored by at least two playwrights from the early 20^th century.

Remember, our goal here is to ultimately present an argument. We need to be able to tell the examiners something along the lines of “X and Y were the ways in which social change was explored by playwrights from the early 20^th century.” We have revised the material extensively, have an hour to write the response, and aren’t quite sure what this argument might be. Well, let’s start with what we know:

Thesis Statement (argument): X was the way in which social change was explored by playwrights from the early 20^th century.

Topic Sentence: Chekhov utilized doctor figures in his plays to figuratively ‘diagnose’ the problems of modern Russian society.

Topic Sentence: Shaw used bold symbolism (e.g. the destruction of an ark-like house by an unexplained bomb) to depict the more subtle problems of movement into a modern world.

Once you have you topic sentences, try to figure out what argument they might be adding up to. You will be surprised by the kind of extraordinary new connections that will find by looking at your topic sentences in this way. What seems to be connecting these two topic sentences is the idea of symbolism: Chekhov uses doctors as a symbol of the treatment of modern society; Shaw uses physical symbols to convey the issues faced by modern society. Suddenly, we have an argument:

Even those early 20^th playwrights often considered to be working in the realist style turned to bold symbolism in their work in order to explore the often painful and incomprehensible changes faced by the modern world.

That is an argument, and exactly the kind of thing that the exam markers will be looking for. By working backwards through the outline during the first 2 or 3 minutes of the exam, you have a clear and sustainable argument that can be used to structure the entire essay. This argument can be introduced in your opening paragraph, supported with evidence in each of your body paragraphs, and then recapitulated in your conclusion.

This post is based upon teaching resources I developed while teaching at the University of Leeds.

Effective Use of Secondary Sources

Posted on February 21, 2012August 21, 2012 by Allan Johnson in Observations

There are three main ways in which secondary source material can be integrated into an essay: summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting.

Summarizing

Summarizing means explaining the central argument of a secondary source in your own words. It is generally the case that a summary cannot be attributed to a specific page number, so simply the date (in Harvard style) or the bibliographical information without a page number (in MHRA style) can be used. Summarizing can be helpful because it shows, firstly, your ability to extract the main point from a source and explain it in your own words. By boiling down the argument in such a way, you will be able consider several important sources simultaneously. In this way, it makes source material work for your argument, and frees up the time and space for you to develop your own response rather than laboriously outlining the argument of someone else. Make sure, though, that your summary takes into account the full scope of the author’s argument, otherwise you might be paraphrasing, which is dealt with in a different way and serves a different function.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is a more specific form of summarizing, in that you are explaining in your own words a short passage from the source material. You might paraphrase a single sentence or perhaps a full page. Doing so allows you to integrate the source material seamlessly into your own essay, and to streamline passages that would be too long to quote directly. You must make sure that your paraphrase is substantially different to the original, because otherwise it will be considered plagiarism. The key difference between summarizing and paraphrasing is that, while a summary explains a source’s argument, a paraphrase explains a piece of evidence that the source uses to support that argument. Because the paraphrase refers to a specific portion of the text, it is required in MHRA style that you cite the page number in your footnote.

Direct Quotations

The selection of direct quotations to include in your essay is an important component of the overall effectiveness of the argument that you pose. Firstly, they give the reader a sense of the original style and tone of the source material. While, in one sense, professional academic writers often contrive to be neutral and evenhanded in argumentation, you may find that occasionally the style and tone of the writer is a significant component of their main point. If so, a direct quotation could allow you to highlight this feature. Direct quotations also prove to the reader that the text says what you claim it says. I don’t want to suggest that you must slavishly validate every point that you make about a secondary source, but direct quotations can often serve a helpful illustrative purpose when introducing them to your reader. Direct quotations also highlight an especially interesting or well-stated point in the author’s own words. Sometimes the original author simply said something better than anyone else ever could. If so, celebrate this fact—share this quotation with your reader.

This post is based upon teaching resources I developed while teaching at the University of Leeds.

Posted on February 21, 2012August 21, 2012 by Allan Johnson in Observations

Good writers anticipate the kinds of questions that their imaginary readers might pose and answer those questions in order to avoid leaving any holes or loose ends.

Posted on December 21, 2011August 21, 2012 by Allan Johnson in Observations

Donʼt think that stating your argument in your introduction is like spoiling a surprise ending for your reader. The anticipation in an academic essay comes not from waiting to see what the argument is, but waiting to see how the argument is developed.