Dr Anand Mahanand Dept of Materials Development EFL University Hyderabad500007 Selecting a topic How do you get a topic How do you select How do you narrow it down What are the criteria of your selection ID: 513080
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Slide1
How to Write an Assignment?
Dr
Anand
Mahanand
Dept. of Materials Development
EFL University, Hyderabad-500007Slide2
Selecting a topic
How do you get a topic?
How do you select?
How do you narrow it down?
What are the criteria of your selection?Slide3
Collection of Materials
Preparing a working bibliography including
Books, articles, abstracts, dissertations
Follow
MLA
style of documentation from the beginningSlide4
Survey of m
aterials
First reading(go through all but select
whatever
is
relevant to your topic.
Choose your primary texts and read them
closely.Slide5
Prepare an outline of your paper. It may include:
Topic
Objective
Review of Literature
Your focus
Approach/theoretical framework
Texts to be used
Introduction
Argument
Conclusion
ReferencesSlide6
Reading and making notes
Read the primary texts again closely and
Identify important points and make notes
Don’t forget to write the page no below
If possible key in your notes on your computer
See how notes have been
made
from the novel
Heart of DarknessSlide7
Conrad, Joseph.
Heart of Darkness
. London: Vintage,2007
.
Notes from the Primary Text.
Note 1
“ I had then, as you remember, just returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas- a regular close of the East-six years or so I was loafing about, hindering your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you.”(9).Slide8
Note 2
“The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster but these you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were- No, they were not inhuman. Well you know that was the worst of it- this suspicion of their not being in human.” (50).Slide9
Note 3
“They howled and leaped, and spun and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity-like yours” (50).Slide10
Notes 4&5
“Mind,” he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand
outwords
, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without a lotus flower-“ ( 8).
Marlow ceased and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha.” (110).
Slide11
Notes from
critical texts
Note 1
Harold Bloom’s
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
“Conrad like many novelists today, was both drawn to idealism repelled by its hypocritical abuse.”(6).Slide12
Note 2
In Under Western Eyes. Sophia
Antonova
makes a distinction between those who burn and those who rot, and remarks that it is some times preferable to burn. The Kurtz who had made himself literally one of the devils of the land, and who in solitude had kicked himself loose on the earth, burns while others rot.” (
qtd
. In
Guerard
7).
“ Before the Congo I was just a mere animal”Slide13
Note 3
Marlow says“ Going up was like travelling back to the easiest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick , heavy and sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted , into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sand backs hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side.” (
Guerard
15).Slide14
Note 4
“
Heart of Darkness
nevertheless remains one of the great dark meditations in literature, and one of the purest expressions of a melancholy temperament.(16).Slide15
Writing the Paper
Now we can go back to the outline expand it using the notes we have from the primary text and the critical materials.
Let us write the first draft starting with the abstract.
Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness
(1902): A Story of Inner JourneySlide16
Abstract
Ingredients in an abstract
Objective
Methodology
Specification of texts
ApproachSlide17
Introduction
Background
Author, historical
context (e.g. colonialism)
ThematicSlide18
Argument
Supported by evidence from textsSlide19
Conclusion
To be drawn from your argument
Linked to your objective statementSlide20
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph.
Heart of Darkness
. London: Vintage Books, 2007.
Guerard
, Albert J. “The Journey Within.”
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
. Ed. Harold Bloom.
Delhi: Viva Books, 2007.Slide21
Writing an Assignment in ELT area
Selecting a topic
Survey of Materials
First Reading
Preparing an outline
Data Collection
Preparing a questionnaire
Interpretation of data
Second Reading (for
theory+Review
, etc.)Slide22
Writing the Assignment
Make a draft of
your assignment
Follow APA
style of
documentation
Tone, Style and academic conventions
Editing- Macro and MicroSlide23
Sample of a questionnaire
This survey is done for a research paper to know about difficulties of students in understanding university lectures. Please feel free to give your responses. Your identity will not be disclosed.
Name…………………………..
Can you decode/understand fully what has been said in the lectures.
Yes______
No______
To some extend_____
Can you identify the main and the subsidiary points in a lecture?
a. Yes_______
b. No_______
c. To some extend______.
Can you distinguish between important points and less important points?
Yes______
No______
So some extend_____
Can you identify the topic of the lecture and follow the topic development?
Yes______
No______
To some extend_____
Do you face problem in understanding the British accent?
a.Yes
____
b.No
_____
c.Not
sure_____
Do you face problem in understanding Indian (intelligible)accent ?
Yes_____
No_____
Not sure____
Do you face problem in understanding regional varieties of English ?
a.Yes
______
b. No_____
c. Not sure_____
Are the lectures structured?
a.Yes
_____
b. No_____
c. Not sure____
Any suggestions you would like to give to your professor on lectures?
Slide24
Data Interpretation
The responses that we got from our questionnaire reveal that out of twenty students, 12 are able to comprehend lectures completely. There are 8 who cannot comprehend fully. 15 students are able to identify important points and less-important points and 5 students face difficulties in identifying the main and subsidiary points. 15 students can identify the topic of the lecture successfully where as few can do it sometimes depending on the particular lecturer. But we can not say that no students has any difficulty, because there are very few (2 of them) who cannot identify the topic at all.
We can say that probably almost all (20) students can understand the British accent as well as Indian (intelligible) accent with out much difficulty. But they say that it takes some time to be familiar with it. When it comes to the regional varieties of English , many are not comfortable with it. About the organization of the lecture, 13 students are not sure. They say some lectures are well-organized where as some other lead to digressions. Students suggest that they need more examples to understand the content clearly. They don’t like long lectures and suggest for breaks in between. Perhaps some kind of interaction in between will be better. Slide25
Anand
Mahanand
amahanand991@gmail.com
Thank You