The Term Paper Guidelines

Organisation of the Term Paper -

Formulate a research question as a basis for your argument (you can also begin by making a claim or expressing a hypothesis).

Develop an argument; this means, you need to interpret, explain and argue, rather than just summarise what others have said.

Avoid simple plot summaries.

Make sure that your paper is structured logically.

Check that your sentences follow on from each other; this is, check for coherence.

Avoid subjective statements. Instead support your interpretations with evidence from the text or arguments from scholarly background sources: "this phrase can be interpreted as xyz because ..."   Remember the phrase "no evaluation without justification".

Note that good papers move been general comments and specific discussions of details.

Language and Presentation -

Keep in mind that the standard of your English accounts for 50% of your mark.

Check that your sentences are complete.

Read your paper through carefully before submitting it so that you can avoid basic grammatical errors (agreement, tense inconsistency, spelling).

Quotations -

Quotations from literary works and scholarly background sources need to be identified by quotation marks.

Give page numbers in brackets after quotations from individual literary works.

Type out any quotation accurately (mistakes in your quotations are embarrassing).

Remember that quotations need to be interpreted; this is, you need to explain why you quoted a particular passage. (Rule of thumb: your interpretation should be longer than the passage you have quoted.)

You need to refer to at least 4 scholarly essays.

All quotations need to be acknowledge appropriately.