The Literary Mind

Taken from Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, daughter of the Tiger Mother

the part of writing academic essays i really struggle with is making them flow. i always feel like my essays sound somewhat “clunky”, and i’ve been researching ways to correct this. whilst recently reading barbara fine clouse’s book, 265 troubleshooting strategies for writing nonfiction, i came across a chapter on this very subject, and so far it has been unbelievably helpful so i thought it would be a good idea to share it. i’ve listed all the pointers she gives below, however, i have adapted the examples using finnegans wake as i was trying to test it out for myself.

use difference sentence openers—open with a descriptive word:

‘unusually, the diagram is constructed out of four points, rather than three. This introduces…’

‘curiously, Joyce uses multilingual puns to create an image…’

‘interestingly, the interplay between the family adds to a feeling of …’

open with a descriptive phrase:

‘despite my better judgement, it seems that’

‘although the chapter appears frivolous and nonsensical, it is in fact’

open with a subordinate clause: (a dependent word group with a subject and verb):

‘when joyce first wrote the opening chapter of finnegans wake’

‘when the children are first participating in the ‘night lesson’

‘before the parents enter the equation, the children appear to be’

‘if the chapter takes the form of a lecture…’

open with to and the verb:

‘to argue my point convincingly, we must examine Plato’s theory of the cave’

‘to gain an insight into shem’s destructive nature, we should analyse….’

open with the subject:

‘shem’s destructive persona is revealed throughout the text using…’

‘joyce approaches metaphysics through vico’s new science’

‘the diagram is formed of two circles and a triangle, echoing…’

vary the placement of transitions:

‘in addition, joyce seems to be using metaphysics as a means of’

‘shaun’s appearance, on the other hand, is calm and collected, taking on a serious persona as..’

‘the night lesson’s use of education as a tool for understanding metaphysics is, to some extent, reasonable, however…’

combine short sentences:

use one of these words: and, because, but, for, nor, or, so, yet

short sentences (choppy): finnegans wake is ambiguous.

combined: finnegans wake is ambiguous, but its complex style leaves room for interpretation.

follow long sentences with shorter ones and short sentences with longer ones:

‘shem embodies the figure of vico. although he frequently switches place with shaun, he appears to maintain a crazed persona throughout the chapter.

‘shem’s crazed persona appears to embody the traits of vico’s ‘first universals’, for he appears to be driven by his senses with little understanding of reason. this forms the chapter’s complex structure.

use parallel construction:

not parallel: ‘shaun is quick-witted, sharp and he is intelligent.

parallel: shaun is quick-witted, sharp and intelligent.

when i started my undergraduate literature degree my writing was no way near up to scratch. my punctuation and grammar was all over the place, i didn’t know how to properly structure my essays and as a result my ideas were often all over the place. in the second year of my degree i made it my priority to work on this and spent HOURS trying to improve my writing. it took time, a lot of patience and there was a lot of frustration (especially since it wasn’t reflected in my grades until my third year). but, eventually, it really paid off. it’s important to acknowledge that being able to write well can take time and is often not something that comes naturally, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get there in the end.

here are a few things i learnt:

first things first, sort out your punctuation and grammar. these are easy marks to lose and it’s just a matter of practice. firstly, to find out where you’re going wrong go and talk to someone. universities often have writing sessions or one-to-ones aimed at tackling problems like these. this is where you can show them your essay and they can guide you through what you need to improve on (having someone else point out your common mistakes can be really helpful). secondly, find yourself a copy of hazel hutchinson’s how to write great essays and dissertations. this book was my go-to during second year. it covers everything from structure, to punctuation and using secondary sources, so it is a great way of figuring out the basics. another one i’d recommend is my grammar and i (or should that be ‘me’?).

once you’ve got that down, begin to closely read academic essays and secondary sources. whilst these are great means of research, they are also super useful for seeing what an academic essay should look like. take note of the way they structure sentences. what do their introductions look like and how do they shape their ideas? by the end of your degree your essays should essentially be shorter versions of these so it’s a good idea to use them as a base for your own writing.

essay structure: throw out your a-level paragraphs! when i first started my BA, i thought each paragraph was expected to contain a point, evidence and explanation (p.e.e. as it was taught to me in school). what i later learned is that, although this is to some extent true, starting a new point every paragraph makes the essay sound choppy and the argument can be stunted and undeveloped - especially as you’ll be writing longer essays at undergrad. rather than doing this, i ended up making just one or two points throughout the essay and spreading this across a few paragraphs each time, using two or three bits of textual evidence, close analysis and lengthy explanation to develop my argument.

writing is about rewriting. it’s rare that your writing will be as good as it can be after the first draft. try and finish your essay a week before it’s due (although this is not always possible), have a few days off and then look back through it. at this point, i normally print a hard copy, take a highlighter and read it through slowly, highlighting anything that sounds out of place or could be explained further as i go. this way, you can go back through and tighten things, make your sentences smoother, and ensure your argument is as clear as it can be.

Masterpost of Free Gothic Literature & Theory

Classics Vathek by William Beckford Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Woman in White  & The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu The Turn of the Screw by Henry James The Monk by Matthew Lewis The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin The Vampyre; a Tale by John Polidori Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Dracula by Bram Stoker The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Short Stories and Poems An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience by William Blake The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Pre-Gothic Beowulf The Divine Comedy  by Dante Alighieri A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Paradise Lost by John Milton Macbeth by William Shakespeare Oedipus, King of Thebes by Sophocles The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Gothic-Adjacent Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood Jane Eyre & Villette by Charlotte Brontë Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens The Idiot & Demons (The Possessed) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas Moby-Dick by Herman Melville The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

Historical Theory and Background The French Revolution of 1789 by John S. C. Abbott Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle Demonology and Devil-Lore by Moncure Daniel Conway Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism by Inman and Newton On Liberty by John Stuart Mill The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle by Frederick Wright

Authorship: Barthes, Death of the Author; Foucault, What is an Author?

Formalism: Eichenbaum, The Theory of the “Formal Method”;  Brooks, from The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry

Structuralism: Saussure, Course in General Linguistics ; Barthes, from Mythologies

Psychoanalysis: Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams; Lacan, The Mirror Stage & The Significance of the Phallus

Ideology: Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses; Foucault, Truth and Power

Feminism & Queer: Sedgwick, from Between Men; Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa; Wittig, One Is Not Born a Woman; Butler, Gender Trouble

Deconstruction: Derrida, from Of Grammatology;

Postcolonial: Fanon, from The Wretched of the Earth; Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?

Cultural Materialism: Adorno & Horkheimer, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception; Williams, Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory