Archives for 2014

Essay template

March 4, 2014 by Roy Johnson

the stages and process of writing an academic essay

What is an essay template?

An essay template is a list of steps to follow when writing an essay or a term paper. The list provides you with a ready-made structure for the essay and a series of instructions on what to write.

If you follow these instructions, all you need to do is fill in the details of your responses to the question you have been asked to answer, or the topic you have been asked to discuss.

The presentation style of essays and term papers varies from one subject to another. The suggestions that follow are generally suitable for subjects in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Before you start

Writing the assignment is not the first part of the essay writing process. You only start writing after several stages of preparation. Before you start writing, you should have completed almost all of the following steps:

It is only in the final two stages — creating structure and a plan — that you will need to start using the essay template.

The title or question

The essay title or the question you have been asked to answer should be written out in full at the head of the essay.

Put the title in bold and as an optional extra you might wish to increase the font size very slightly. Do not underline the title. This makes the text harder to read and looks unsightly.

If the title is short, you might wish to capitalise the main words (Hobbes’ Leviathan and the Age of Reason).

If the title or question contains a quotation, put the quotation in single quotation marks. If the question contains a book title, remember that book titles are shown in italics.

The essay title or question should be followed by a double space.

The introduction

The introduction to an essay should be directly relevant to the question or topic(s) you have been asked to discuss. You should aim for a bright and crisp opening statement that will be interesting and seize the reader’s attention.

Do not merely restate the question, and avoid repeating the same terms in which it is posed. You may wish to translate the question into your own words, paraphrasing it as a demonstration that you understand what it calls for.

The introduction should not normally be more than five to ten percent of the total length of the essay. A paragraph of two hundred words on the first page should normally be enough.

Do not begin the essay by saying how hard it is to answer the question. Questions are set to pose problems: your task is to answer them. You can however name or outline any difficulties – so long as you go on to tackle them.

Many people find introductions difficult to write. The reason is likely to be one or all of the following:

you are not sure what you are going to say
you may not be sure what it is you are introducing
you can’t summarise an argument which doesn’t yet exist

There is a simple solution. Write the introduction last of all, when you have finished the first draft of the assignment.

The body of the essay

The body of the essay should be constructed from a number of arguments or topics related directly to the subject under consideration. These might be topics, ideas, observations, or instances from your study materials.

Each of these topics or arguments should be dealt with separately in its own paragraph (see below). Arrange the points so that they form a persuasive and coherent argument. This will help you to create a clear structure.

The order of the parts is often determined by the nature of the subject in question. This order might be created by any of the following:

logical progression
increasing significance
equal significance
chronological order
narrative sequence
category groupings

The paragraph

A paragraph should deal with just one topic or major point of argument. That topic should normally be announced in the opening sentence, which is sometimes called a ‘topic sentence’.

The sentences which immediately follow the topic sentence should expand and develop the statement, explaining and relating its relevance to the question in general.

This opening should then be followed by evidence to support the argument being made. You should provide illustrative examples which are discussed as an explanation of the central idea.

The recommended structure of a typical paragraph in academic writing is as follows. It is rather like a smaller version of the structure of a complete essay.

The opening topic sentence
A fuller explanation of the topic sentence
A discussion of its significance
Consideration of examples or evidence
A concluding sentence

Put double spaces between each paragraph.

Conclusion

The conclusion of an essay should draw together all the previous points of your argument into one general statement which is then directly related to the essay topic or the question you have been answering.

The conclusion should not normally occupy more than five to ten per cent of the total length of the essay – rather like the introduction.

Try to end the essay on a crisp note. This can sometimes be done with an appropriate phrase or a quotation. It should illustrate your argument and be directly related to the topic(s) in question.

Do not simply re-state the original question, and if possible try to avoid using the same terms as those in which it is posed. Avoid repeating any of the statements you have already made in your introduction.

Endnotes and footnotes

When you use quotations or mention someone else’s work in an essay, the source of the information is most conveniently given in endnotes or footnotes. Footnotes are more convenient for the reader, but much more difficult to control, even with the help of a word-processor.

A bracketed number is placed in your text, as A.B. Smith suggests, ‘at the end of the statement or the sentence in which the reference is made’ (1), and successive references to this or other works are given the next higher number.

These endnotes are then listed ‘with bibliographic exactness’ (2) at the end of the essay as follows:

Notes

1. A.B. Smith, How to Use Endnotes Correctly, Manchester: The Imaginary Press, 1999, p.345.

Judith Butcher, Copy Editing: the Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors, and Publishers, 3rd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p.234.

There are several systems of academic referencing and citation in current use – for instance the Harvard System, MLA System, and MHRA System.

If you are quoting repeatedly from one particular work, give full bibliographic details in your first note. Then add the statement All subsequent page references to this edition. After that, just give page references in the text of your essay.

The bibliography

A bibliography is a list of sources placed at the end of essays. It is a compilation of any works from which you have quoted or you have consulted during the composition of the essay.

Put book titles in italics. The traditional manner of recording this information is to use the following sequence:

Author – Title – Place of publication — Publisher – Date

Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.

In more scholarly works, such as dissertations and theses, this information may be given with the author’s surname listed first – as follows:

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.

List the items of a bibliography in alphabetical order of the author’s or the editor’s surname. Do not list works you have not consulted or from which you have not quoted.

You might find that your bibliography repeats much of the information given in your endnotes or footnotes. Don’t worry about this: your bibliography may contain works from which you have not directly quoted.

Presentation

Use A4 size paper, and word-process your work
Use wide margins (1.5 inches)
Select a serifed font at size 12
Choose 1.5 or double line spacing
Leave double spaces between paragraphs
print only on one side of paper

Buy Writing Essays — eBook in PDF format
Buy Writing Essays 3.0 — eBook in HTML format

More on writing essays
More on How-To
More on writing skills

His Father’s Son

July 2, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

His Father’s Son first appeared in Scribner’s Magazine issue number 45 for June 1909. The story was subsequently included in Edith Wharton’s collection of short fiction, Of Men and Ghosts published in 1910.

Old New Yotk

His Father’s Son – critical comments

From the late nineteenth century onwards there was a widely accepted convention that short (and even longer) stories ought to finish with something of a twist in the tale. In the most extreme cases, this became known as the ‘whiplash ending’. All the information provided by the story up to its conclusion was suddenly reversed or overturned – either by a sudden twist of fate, or by new information which had hitherto been concealed from the reader.

Modernist writers from Anton Chekhov, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce onwards felt that this was a cheap and unsatisfactory literary device. They created narratives that would stand alone as satisfactory constructs without any element of surprise or dramatic revelation. But the device continued to be popular, particularly amongst writers of second rank or lower. Edith Wharton certainly resorts to this plot strategy from time to time in her stories, but in His Fathers Son she gives the surprise ending a double twist which goes some way to justifying its deployment.

Mason Grew is set up as a figure of mild pathos – the unfulfilled widower and man of commerce who is living out his youthful romantic aspirations via a son who appears to show no filial gratitude or appreciation. The doting patent is a common enough figure, both in life and in literature. And to the sad differences between them there is added the son’s higher social status, acquired at his father’s expense. The father is a manufacturer, and the son is a lawyer who mixes with wealthy New York socialites. How therefore to account for Ronald’s sensitive and artistic nature? The answer is – as Ronald himself thinks – in the long-hidden secret of his parentage. He is the love child of Fortuné Dolbrowski, whose letters to his mother Addie give proof of this idea.

That is twist number one – and there are hints enough in the story to encourage its credibility. But Wharton caps this revelation with a second more interesting twist. The correspondence with the great pianist was entirely the creation of Ronald’s father, Mason Grew, who seized a rare opportunity to exercise his own romanticism. Thus Ronald has inherited his romantic enthusiasms and disposition not from the pianist, but from his father, whose sensibility has been concealed beneath the trappings of manufacture and commerce.

His Father’s Son – study resources

The New York Stories – New York Review Books – Amazon UK

The New York Stories – New York Review Books – Amazon US

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon US

Tales of Men and Ghosts – Project Gutenberg

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

His Father’s Son – story synopsis

Part I. Following his wife’s death, Mason Grew moves from Connecticut to Brooklyn, so as to be near his son who is a New York lawyer. He tolerates Ronald’s lack of filial love by hiding behind a brash and over-confident exterior. As a practical businessman he nevertheless has romantic social ambitions which he lives out via Ronald, who is ashamed of his father’s lowly origins and success as a manufacturer of suspender buckles.

Part II. As Ronald has risen in society he has fulfilled his father’s own dreams of what might have been. Drew even secretly visits the theatre where he can observe his son mixing with wealthy socialites. When he receives a telegram from Ronald, his father thinks back over his humdrum past with his unexceptional wife Addie, and how they once went to a concert given by a famous pianist Dolbrowski.

Part III. Ronald is engaged to a rich girl Daisy and has come to tell his father that he can no longer accept his money because a cache of love letters from Dolbrowski to his mother have made him realise that he is the pianist’s natural son. Grew then puts Ronald straight by revealing that he wrote Addie’s letters to the pianist. He did it so that he could ‘breathe the same air’ as the great romantic, and this slender pleasure gave him the strength to continue in business for the sake of his son.

Principal characters

Mason Grew	a practical businessman with romantic feelings
Ronald Grew	his son, a New York lawyer
Addie Grew	his dead wife
Fortuné Dolbrowski	a concert pianist

Edith Wharton’s 42-room house – The Mount

Other works by Edith Wharton

The Custom of the Country (1913) is Edith Wharton’s satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father’s money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. This is a study of modern ambition and materialism written a hundred years before its time.

Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

The House of Mirth (1905) is the story of Lily Bart, who is beautiful, poor, and still unmarried at twenty-nine. In her search for a husband with money and position she betrays her own heart and sows the seeds of the tragedy that finally overwhelms her. The book is a disturbing analysis of the stifling limitations imposed upon women of Wharton’s generation. In telling the story of Lily Bart, who must marry to survive, Wharton recasts the age-old themes of family, marriage, and money in ways that transform the traditional novel of manners into an arresting modern document of cultural anthropology.

Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

The Short Stories of Edith Wharton
This is an old-fashioned but excellently detailed site listing the publication details of all Edith Wharton’s eighty-six short stories – with links to digital versions available free on line.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton at Fantastic Fiction
A compilation which purports to be a complete bibliography, arranged as novels, collections, non-fiction, anthologies, short stories, letters, and commentaries – but is largely links to book-selling sites, which however contain some hidden gems.

Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

Honeymoon

December 24, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Honeymoon was probably written in Paris and first appeared in the Nation and Athenaeum on 29 April 1922. The setting is not specified but seems to be the south of France, and the two characters in the story are ‘abroad’ which suggests that they are probably from New Zealand. In the workbooks for her writing Katherine Mansfield classified many of her stories by the designation L. or N.Z. according to their setting of London or New Zealand.

Honeymoon – critical commentary

George is like many of the male figures in Mansfield’s stories – a catalogue of gaucheness and insensitivity. He summons cabs in a peremptory manner which worries Fanny; he speaks French badly; thinks living in a villa would be ‘deadly’ unless surrounded by other people; deals badly with the restaurant manager; is xenophobic; and congratulates himself on his rudeness.

Whilst Fanny wants to stay at their ‘little table’ and feels that ‘nothing matter[s] except love’, George suddenly wants to go back to their hotel – the clear implication being that since he feels a flush of physical well-being, he intends to have sex with her.

The story is related largely from Fanny’s point of view, so we are presented with a rather negative character sketch of a male as perceived by a female – which is one reason why Katherine Mansfield is admired by feminists. Much of this presentation is made by understatement and implication, so none of her criticism is explicit. Indeed, Fanny is full of admiration for this man she has married – which is why it is important to register distinctions between Fanny’s views and those of the Mansfield-as-narrator.

‘Here you are, sir. Here you will be very nice,’ coaxed the manager, taking the vase off the table , and putting it down again as if it were a fresh little bouquet out of the air. But George refused to sit down immediately. He saw through these fellows; he wasn’t going to be done. These chaps were always out to rush you. So he put his hands in his pockets, and said to Fanny, very calmly, ‘This all right for you? Anywhere else you’d prefer? How about over there?’ And he nodded to a table right over the other side.

What it was to be a man of the world! Fanny admired him deeply, but all she wanted to do was sit down and look like everybody else.

George is gauche and immediately in conflict with the manager. He congratulates himself on his antagonistic view of the interchange, and his suggestion for alternative seating puts everyone into an awkward position. Fanny naively perceives his behaviour as masterful – and yet her instinct is for a simpler, calmer resolution to the episode.

Thus we are provided with three points of view in this one brief scene: the narrator’s perceptive image of the manager’s gesture; George’s self-congratulatory egoism; and (simultaneously) Fanny’s naive admiration of her new husband at the same time as her instinct for a more sensitive response to the situation.

Honeymoon – study resources

Katherine Mansfield’s Collected Works
Three published collections of stories – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

The Collected Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Wordsworth Classics paperback edition – Amazon UK

The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Penguin Classics paperback edition – Amazon UK

Katherine Mansfield Megapack
The complete stories and poems in Kindle edition – Amazon UK

Katherine Mansfield’s Collected Works
Three published collections of stories – Kindle edition – Amazon US

The Collected Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Wordsworth Classics paperback edition – Amazon US

The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Penguin Classics paperback edition – Amazon US

Katherine Mansfield Megapack
The complete stories and poems in Kindle edition – Amazon US

Honeymoon – plot summary

A young couple, George and Fanny, are on their honeymoon on the Mediterranean coast. George is a forceful and positive character, whilst Fanny is rather hesitant and uncertain about herself.

After shopping they decide to go for tea to a hotel-restaurant on the sea front. George patronises their cab driver, and Fanny feels a sense of trepidation at the freedom afforded her by her state of being as a newlywed.

At the restaurant George resists the manager’s attempts to control them, and Fanny admires his masculinity but wonders if he wants to understand her at a deep level.

Meanwhile a small group of musicians begin playing whilst they take their tea. Then the group is joined by an old man in faded clothes who sings in Spanish with passion and fervour.

Fanny is moved by the experience and wonders existentially about the cruelty and suffering in life; but George reacts differently, feeling optimistic and physically stimulated.

George suggests that they go back to their hotel at once, before the man can start singing again – so they leave.

Katherine Mansfield – web links

Katherine Mansfield at Mantex
Life and works, biography, a close reading, and critical essays

Katherine Mansfield at Wikipedia
Biography, legacy, works, biographies, films and adaptations

Katherine Mansfield at Online Books
Collections of her short stories available at a variety of online sources

Not Under Forty
A charming collection of literary essays by Willa Cather, which includes a discussion of Katherine Mansfield.

Katherine Mansfield at Gutenberg
Free downloadable versions of her stories in a variety of digital formats

Hogarth Press first editions
Annotated gallery of original first edition book jacket covers from the Hogarth Press, including Mansfield’s ‘Prelude’

Katherine Mansfield’s Modernist Aesthetic
An academic essay by Annie Pfeifer at Yale University’s Modernism Lab

The Katherine Mansfield Society
Newsletter, events, essay prize, resources, yearbook

Katherine Mansfield Birthplace
Biography, birthplace, links to essays, exhibitions

Katherine Mansfield Website
New biography, relationships, photographs, uncollected stories

More on Katherine Mansfield
Twentieth century literature
More on the Bloomsbury Group
More on short stories

House Style

October 31, 2014 by Roy Johnson

an explanation and guidance notes

House Style is a term used to describe the rules laid down by a business or organisation to regularise the presentation of its written communications and documents. In some cases these rules might be summarised formally in a published Style Guide or Style Manual.

The purpose of codifying what can be written may vary from a desire to control a corporate image (business documents); a need to maintain standards and follow established conventions (academic writing); or a need for accuracy and precision (technical manuals).

Many different types of institutions, businesses, publishers, or public bodies will establish a house style in order to maintain their corporate or brand image.

International	United Nations, European Union
Corporations	Lockheed, General Motors, Microsoft
Publications	New York Times, The Economist
Institutions	University of London, Department of Transport
Retailers	Amazon, Marks and Spencer, IKEA

The origins of house style lie in the realm of printing, where newspapers and book publishers originally sought to establish guidelines for standardising their productions. The best known of these guides is Hart’s Rules, first written at the end of the nineteenth century for the Oxford University Press. In the twenty-first century, house style is also likely to include writing and presentation guidelines for what will appear on computer screens.

There are differences of approach in the rules of these various style guides. This should alert us to the fact that they are not only dealing with matters of fact and correctness – but are offering a series of conventions which should be followed by their authors.

They are likely to have policies governing such matters as

The notes given below provide illustrative examples. For detailed information on any topic, follow the links to the online style guides and the newspaper house style sites. Some of their guides are the size of small encyclopedias.

House Style – a real example

Microsoft’s Manual of Style illustrates the company’s rules for both print and screen writing, as well as their requirements for visual presentation and language use.

For instance, each topic they discuss is illustrated by an example of ‘Microsoft style’ and then an example of ‘Not Microsoft style’.

They also specify such fine details as how to present numbers; how to choose the names for toolbars and buttons; how to punctuate lists; how to size titles, sub-headings, and paragraph spaces; and where to use quotation marks.

The following is their table of contents for the topics covered in their house style guide – many of them in extremely fine detail.

Microsoft style and voice
Writing for web delivery
Writing for a worldwide audience
Accessibility issues
The user interface
Technical procedures
Practical issues of style
Grammar
Punctuation
Indexing and keywords
Acronyms and abbreviations

Style guides might now make distinctions between house style for print and for online purposes – because the two mediums are considered quite distinct, and may have different readerships and purposes.

Reading on a computer screen is more tiring than reading from a printed document. For this reason, style guides for digital use may specify shorter sentences and paragraphs, wider margins, and the inclusion of graphics.

House style manuals very often specify how the various departments and personnel in an organisation should be described. They are also likely to specify such details as the size and spacing of titles, headings, and sub-headings.

Spelling

Some words (in English) have more than one spelling. The term judgement can also be spelled judgment. House style rules help to create consistency throughout a document. And consistency is a key principle in creating ease of comprehension.

Newspapers also strive to use consistent spellings for foreign names such as Reykjavik (the capital of Iceland) and Nizhni Novgorod (a port in European Russia).

They are also likely to specify the spelling of names of important people – such as Ban Ki-Moon (Secretary General of the United Nations) and Aung San Suu Kyi (opposition leader in Myanmar – formerly Burma). This shows respect for the person.

American English and British English have minor differences in spelling, so documents aimed at both audiences need to be consistent.

British	centre, harmonise, travelling
American	center, harmonize, traveling

Printed style guides

This is a selection of book reviews featuring style guides published by a variety of organisations.

MLA Style Guide
English – Modern Languages Association – Academic

Microsoft Manual of Style
American – Microsoft Corporation – Business

The Chicago Manual of Style
American – Chicago University – Academic

New Hart’s Rules
English – Oxford University Press – Publishing

The Economist Style Guide
English – Economist Magazine – Journalism

Note of interest — it is said that the complete printed maintenance manuals for the Boeing 737 jet weighed more than the aircraft itself.

Vocabulary

The choice of vocabulary is important because it reflects the nature and the attitude of the organisation. The language you choose needs to be understood by the audience(s). It should be clear, unambiguous, and consistent.

It is now very common for organisations to specify the terms used to describe people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and issues related to gender.

For instance, the BBC specifies that people with learning disabilities should be used – not mentally handicapped. It specifies Muslim instead of Moslem.

The Guardian newspaper used to prohibit the use of the term regime to describe a government – because the term is clearly derogatory and suggests a bias against a government which might become legitimate in a few week’s time.

The Telegraph newspaper has a list of ‘banned words’ in its house style guide. These are not ideologically taboo words so much as lists of journalistic clichés used in tabloid newspapers – terms such as bloodbath, clampdown, jaw-dropping, and prestigious.

Online style guides

BBC News style guide
Detailed guidelines for print, online, plus radio and television broadcasting. Also includes rules on pronunciation and spelling of foreign names.

English Grammar
Comprehensive grammar guide, with downloadable lessons, interactive exercises, grammar checker, videos, and daily updates.

Purdue On-line Writing Lab
Purdue’s famous OWL, useful for general writing concerns, with links to American academic style guides and how to avoid plagiarism.

The Elements of Style
William Strunk, Jr.’s original 1918 classic. The ‘bare bones’ approach to common problems, with illustrative examples.

On-Line Study Resources
Style, grammar, essay-writing, citations and footnotes, plagiarism and presentation from the University of New South Wales.

alt.usage.english – Style FAQ
Mark Israel’s Frequently Asked Questions covers common English usage questions, word etymology, online and offline references, and more.

WebGrammar
Judy Vorfeld’s excellent site covers some of the most common writing mistakes, including spelling, grammar and homonym errors.

Capitalization

The correct use of capital letters is not quite so straightforward as it might seem. It is not always immediately clear if someone, somewhere, or something warrants a capital or not. The following are some of the more common instances.

days of the week	Wednesday, Friday
places	Scotland, East Anglia
rivers	the river Mersey
buildings	the Tate Gallery
institutions	the Catholic Church
firms	British Aerospace
organisations	the National Trust
months of the year	April, September

However, when such terms are used as adjectives or in a general sense as common nouns, no capital is required:

the King James Bible / a biblical reference

Oxford University / a university education

the present Government / governments since 1967

Capitals are used when describing intellectual movements or periods of history:

Freudian – Platonism – Cartesian – the Middle Ages
the Reformation – the Enlightenment

They are also used in the titles of books, plays, films, newspapers, magazines, songs, and works of art in general. The normal convention is to capitalise the first word and any nouns or important terms. Smaller words such as ‘and’, ‘of’, and ‘the’ are left uncapitalised:

A View from the Bridge
The Mayor of Casterbridge
North by Northwest
The Marriage of Figaro

UK journalism style guides

Financial Times Lexicon

More on publishing
More on journalism
More on creative writing
More on writing skills

How to write a business document

March 1, 2014 by Roy Johnson

effective business communication skills

What is a business document?

A business document can be any form of writing connected with commerce, administration, government, industry, or non-personal communication — any of the following:

Business letter
Commercial invoice
Delivery order
Executive summary
Five year plan
Invoice
Memorandum
Purchase order
Annual report

These are normally documents printed onto paper, but modern business also includes documents in the form of email messages, web pages, Powerpoint presentations, and online instruction manuals.

You should follow the same principles for writing such documents, no matter in which form they will finally appear.

Five stages of planning

There are five basic stages in the process of writing a business document.

If you are conscious of each one as a separate activity, it will help to make the task of writing a business document easier.

Visualise the document
Determine the content
Create a structure
Write the first draft
Make any revisions

Visualise the document

Visualise the finished document as a material object. We now know that visualisation is a great aid to achievement.

For this stage you need to know what the business document looks like. Make sure you have at least one good example of the following:

a letter
a report
a proposal
a memo
a bulletin

Keep these examples in a handy place in your office where you can refer to them at any time. It is a good idea to keep them in a binder, each in its own plastic wallet, so that you can browse and find them easily.

Set up some templates in your word-processor which correspond to the list of document types shown above. This way, you save yourself the repeated task of creating a new layout for every document.

Your templates should conform to the principles outlined in How to Write a Report as follows:

Modules — write text in bite-size chunks
Relevance — one topic only – exclude anything which doesn’t belong
Navigation — use headings and sub headings to guide your reader
Consistency — of vocabulary, expression, layout, visual features
Hierarchy — multi level text with correspondence between levels

Writing the content

Be sure you know exactly what it is you need to write. If you are not sure about your purpose, it makes the writing more difficult.

Here are some tips for making sure that you start out with a confident and accurate idea of what is required.

Write down the purpose(s) of your document and the response you require.

Put yourself in the place of the person receiving the letter. Answer the three crucial questions yourself before you start writing your document. There are three questions a reader asks about a document:

What is this? — a letter, proposal, memo, report
What’s it about? — new rules, I’m fired, I’m going on a trip
What do I do? — reply, accept an invitation, disagree with the points, give my permission

Creating the structure

Create an overall structure using diagrams or titles in a hierarchy. This will give you confidence – because you can see the complete outline of your document before you fill in the detailed content.

Create a structure using a form you find useful:

Lists of topics — every important topic you wish to include
Diagrams — which works for you – spider, matrix, mind-map
Boxes — a page with several rows of blank boxes, each representing a level of your document

This writing strategy will also deter you from meandering from the topic, because you are writing your text according to the part titles you have created.

You may also wish to use the OUTLINER facility in your word-processor.

You can also create an overall structure using working titles in a hierarchy. Make up quick working titles for your modules chapters and sections.

Don’t agonise about them. You can always change them easily after you have written your draft document.

Here’s an example of an outline in titles

New services available
Advantage to customer
New pricing structure
Special discounts
Ordering details
Names, contacts, numbers

If the document contains a lot of material which needs to be organised in some way or other, use one of the common approaches to creating structure. The parts can be arranged in –

logical progression
increasing significance
equal significance
chronological order
narrative sequence
category groupings

Document titles

There are three kinds of title in business documents.

function title
topic title
combination title

A function title — tells your reader what the section or module is doing. This kind of title is independent of the topic in the text. Here are some examples:

Introduction
Problems
Background
Criteria
Solution
Comment
Recommendation

A topic title — tells your reader what the section or module is about. Examples of topic titles:

Additional monthly benefits
Loan payment methods
Calculating overtime
Cash-flow difficulties
Recruitment methods

A combination title — is made up of two parts, which are topic and function. The combination title does most work in terms of communication. Examples of combination titles:

Problem of information overload
Solution to staffing problems
Way forward for programmers
Introduction to new parking rules
Action by team members
Decision on compliance issues

Titles in general

Be clear — Use titles that clearly describe the function or the content of the module.

Be brief — Make titles brief. Shorter titles are better than longer ones, provided they don’t create any ambiguity. Use no more than three to five words.

Be consistent — Use the same vocabulary in the title as you use in the text module.

Be familiar — Use terms which are generally familiar to any reader. Avoid technical jargon except when you write as one specialist to another.

Be independent — Make each title stand alone and act as an advance organiser for a document, section, chapter, module.

Write the first draft

Write your initial draft in separate sections, parts, or modules. This is a very efficient way of writing your first draft.

You already have your data and the structure of your argument worked out. Now you write the separate sections for each title you have created.

This is much less stressful than trying to write the whole document at once. If you find one section getting out of hand, then break it down into two or three smaller parts.

You can also re-write any individual part which is not successful.

Make revisions

Now is the time to take an overview of what you have done so far. First check the structure of your document and put the parts in order.

Put yourself into the shoes of your reader and ask yourself if the content is properly structured. If you are satisfied that you have created a clear and logical arrangement for the contents of your document, then you can complete the piece with confidence.

If you have followed the five stages, any alterations required at this stage will be minor ones and easily carried out. This process is very easy if you use the editing facilities of a word-processor.

You might also wish to save different versions of the document – in which case, make sure you label them clearly.

More on How-To
More on literary studies
More on writing skills

How to write a personal statement

February 26, 2014 by Roy Johnson

making a good impression on paper

What is a personal statement?

A personal statement is an account of your own qualities, skills, and ambitions which is made to accompany job applications, funding bids, sponsorship requests, and applications for a place in further or higher education.

Think of it as being like a personal introduction, presenting yourself to an individual or an organization, and putting a human personality to a formal request.

do yours with a word-processor

A personal statement is separate from your curriculum vitae (CV) which lists your formal qualifications and your previous experience.

A personal statement is most commonly required in the UK by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) when you are applying for a place at a university.

The personal statement is where you can tell your preferred universities why they should offer you a place on the course you have chosen.

Who will read a personal statement?

The reader of your statement will be a potential employer, a personnel manager, or an admissions tutor in your chosen faculty of study – arts, science, or technology.

The admissions tutor might be a lecturer on your chosen course (if you are lucky). He or she will decide whether to offer you a place on the course or an interview, based on the information you have written on the form.

First they will look at your academic achievements and decide whether you seem capable of completing their course.

Then they will read your personal statement, and judge whether you are the kind of person who has the motivation and personality to complete the course successfully.

First impressions

Your personal statement is an opportunity to make a positive impression. You will need to convince them that you are also a person who should be accepted on the course or considered for employment.

You need to show the reader that you are:

able to express the reasons for your choice of course
motivated, and committed to your subject
aware of your career options and have some clear ambitions
somebody who has outside interests, apart from your studies

You may be applying to several different universities in the hope of securing a place. But your personal statement should not be identical in each case. You need to tailor the statement to your chosen subject of study, or the ethos of the institution.

The same would be true of a personal statement made in conjunction with a job application. You’re trying to convince that particular employer that you are suitable for the position and interested in working for the company.

The same would be true if you were applying for a bursary, a grant, or funding of some kind. Your personal statement confirms that there is a fully rounded human being making the application. It is also an opportunity to say what you would do with the funding if it were granted.

Interviews

If the university or the employer does not interview prospective applicants, then a personal statement is your only chance to convince them to accept you.

Many institutions and employers no longer conduct interviews with all prospective applicants, because of the costs involved. They make a preliminary choice by skim reading through written applications, and only interview the few they select on written evidence.

If you are offered an interview, the interviewers will use the personal statement as a starting point for the questions they ask you. So it’s important for your statement to be interesting, fresh, and honest.

If you’ve written something which isn’t true, you’re likely to become confused if you’re asked a question about it at the interview.

Warning

There are lots of web sites that show you examples of personal statements. Many of them ask you to pay for this service. You should avoid using these services because they may encourage you to do two things:

pay to see other people’s personal statements
copy parts of other peoples statements instead of writing your own original words

It’s far better to write your own statement, honestly and imaginatively. Everyone is different, and you should be proud of your achievements and aspirations, and pleased to express them.

You can apply online using the UCAS Apply system – but you should prepare all your information in advance.

Use the UCAS guidelines if necessary.

How to write the personal statement

Don’t imagine you can sit down and write your personal statement in one attempt. First you need to plan the structure of the statement, and then generate its content in several drafts.

Planning

Sit down and make a list of all the general areas you might wish to cover in your statement. The list might include items such as:

hobbies
personal achievements
part-time jobs
life skills
social activities
special interests

If the personal statement is to accompany a curriculum vitae (CV) do not list your formal educational qualifications or a record of your employment.

These items should be arranged to create a clear structure. Show your first ideas to family and friends. They might think of skills or advantages that you possess but have taken for granted or forgotten.

Here are some general points about generating ideas for writing your personal statement.

Multiple drafts

Do it all your preliminary writing in rough first, and be prepared to do two or three versions before you get the right combination of words.

Do not be tempted to cut and paste materials off the Internet. There are now plagiarism checkers which will spot text that has been copied from somewhere else.

If you are applying to university, try to link your hobbies and experience(s) to the courses you are applying for. You need to show why you are interested in your chosen subject.

Write the final draft in short clear sentences, and use short paragraphs that make the content easy to read. Use sub-titles that indicate clearly what each section is about.

When you have produced your final draft – no matter how long it has taken – always check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation before submitting the final document.

More on How-To
More on literary studies
More on writing skills

Joseph Conrad close reading

March 18, 2014 by Roy Johnson

how to read and analyse a text

In literary studies there are various types of close reading. It is possible and rewarding to scrutinise a text closely, keeping any number of its features in mind. These can reveal various layers of significance in the work which might not be apparent on a superficial reading. You might focus attention on the text’s –

language
meaning
structure
philosophy

The most advanced forms of close reading combine all these features in an effort to reveal the full and even hidden meanings in a work. The following tutorial shows a very simple form of close reading. It pays attention to the first two of these approaches – looking at the language that Conrad uses and how it is closely linked to what we know about the text.

This type of exercise can only be successful once the text has been read in its entirety. You need a grasp of the events and the story as a whole before it is possible to see how its meaning(s) are built up from small linguistic features of the narrative.

The Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov once observed ‘Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only re-read it’. What he meant by this apparently contradictory remark is that the first time we read a text we are busy absorbing information, and we cannot appreciate all the subtle connections there may be between its parts – because we don’t yet have the complete picture before us. Only when we read it for a second time (or even better, a third or fourth) are we in a position to assemble and compare the nuances of meaning and the significance of its details in relation to each other.

This is why the activity is called ‘close reading’. You should try to get used to the notion of reading and re-reading very carefully, scrupulously, and in great detail.

The extract which follows is the opening of Conrad’s early story An Outpost of Progress, first published in 1897. It deals with two European characters who have recently arrived at a trading station somewhere in central Africa. If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

An Outpost of Progress

An Outpost of Progress – the opening lines

There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs. The third man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who maintained that his name was Henry Price. However, for some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola, and it stuck to him through all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship of evil spirits. His wife was a negress from Loanda, very large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before the door of his low, shed-like dwelling. Makola, taciturn and impenetrable, despised the two white men. He had charge of a small clay storehouse with a dried-grass roof, and pretended to keep a correct account of beads, cotton cloth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and other trade goods it contained. Besides the storehouse and Makola’s hut, there was only one large building in the cleared ground of the station. It was built neatly of reeds, with a verandah on all the four sides. There were three rooms in it. The one in the middle was the living-room, and had two rough tables and a few stools in it. The other two were the bedrooms for the white men. Each had a bedstead and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered with the belongings of the white men; open half-empty boxes, torn wearing apparel, old boots; all the things dirty, and all the things broken, that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men. There was also another dwelling-place some distance away from the buildings. In it, under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man who had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched the construction of this outpost of progress.

Close reading

01. ‘White men’ is significant because the story is about the exploitation of black Africans by white Europeans. And ‘in charge’ is mildly ironic because we rapidly learn that they are only nominally in charge. It is their African assistant Makola who really determines what goes on, whilst they are hopelessly incompetent.

02. The names ‘Kayerts’ and ‘Carlier’ tell us that the setting of the story is the Belgian Congo. Carlier is a French name, Kayerts is Flemish, and these are the two linguistic groups which comprise Belgium. The physical descriptions contrast the two men in a way that makes them slightly ridiculous, rather like the fat and thin man of comedy stereotypes. The term ‘perched’ reinforces this.

03. ‘Maintained’ suggests just the opposite – that Makola has given himself the name Henry Price because he wants to identify his interests with those of his European employers. Conrad’s use of the racist term ‘nigger’ would have been considered unremarkable in 1897 when he wrote the story.

04. The natives call him ‘Makola’ — and so does Conrad, which reinforces our interpretation of the previous sentence. His ‘wanderings’ suggest that he is experienced.

05. Makola speaks two foreign languages in addition to his own native African language and his wife’s, which would be different. He is also a skilled clerk. Thus he has absorbed European culture, in contrast to the two Europeans, who are completely incapable of absorbing his culture. Yet he still worships evil spirits. He has a foot in both cultures.

06. Loanda is on the coast of Angola, close to what was once called the ‘Slave Coast’. This is why it is ‘Mrs Price’ who understands what the slave traders are saying later in the story.

07. ‘Rolled about’ suggests that the children are at ease in their natural environment. ‘Shed-like’ tells us how poor their accommodation is.

08. ‘Impenetrable’ (a typically Conradian term) suggests that he keeps his feelings and motivation well hidden. It is a similar term to those which Conrad uses later to describe the topographical surroundings – ‘hopeless’ and ‘irresistible’. Such details contribute to why Africa in a moral sense defeats Europe in the story. ‘Despised’ however is a key insight into Makola’s judgement and feelings: this points to the element of racial conflict in the story.

09. We notice that the ‘trade goods’ are an assortment of cheap rubbish. They are being traded for ivory, which is a precious commodity in Europe. The Africans are therefore being cheated by the Europeans. But ‘pretended’ tells us that Makola might be engaged in a little cooking-of-the-books on his own account.

10. ‘Only one large building’: this is a very undeveloped trading station, and its isolation is emphasised.

11. ‘Neatly’ and ‘verandah’ contrast sharply with Makola’s ‘shed-like’ dwelling. In other words, the Europeans have the better accommodation.

12. The furniture is sparse, but the two men have a room each.

13. The mosquito net would be very important: they are close to the equator , and therefore a long way from their European homeland.

14. Notice how the two men do not know how to look after themselves. The floor is ‘littered’ with their ‘broken’ and ‘dirty’ goods. And how inappropriate some of those goods are: they have brought ‘town wearing apparel’ when they are in the tropics.

15. ‘Dwelling place’ is another irony of Conrad’s as the narrator of the story. What he is referring to is the grave of the first station chief who has died of fever. So, Africa has already killed off one representative of Europe when the story opens.

16. Conrad piles on more grim humour with the expression that the first director ‘slept’ under the cross – an ironic euphemism given that the director is dead. There is also a neat structural link here – because this is also the location of the story’s ending, where Kayerts will commit suicide, hanging himself on the cross.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance starts off with simple issues of language, then progresses to more complex literary criticism.The volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance on this site was written by the same author.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad’s writing table

Joseph Conrad – video biography

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim (1900) is the earliest of Conrad’s big and serious novels, and it explores one of his favourite subjects – cowardice and moral redemption. Jim is a ship’s captain who in youthful ignorance commits the worst offence – abandoning his ship. He spends the remainder of his adult life in shameful obscurity in the South Seas, trying to re-build his confidence and his character. What makes the novel fascinating is not only the tragic but redemptive outcome, but the manner in which it is told. The narrator Marlowe recounts the events in a time scheme which shifts between past and present in an amazingly complex manner. This is one of the features which makes Conrad (born in the nineteenth century) considered one of the fathers of twentieth century modernism.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Heart of Darkness (1902) is a tightly controlled novella which has assumed classic status as an account of the process of Imperialism. It documents the search for a mysterious Kurtz, who has ‘gone too far’ in his exploitation of Africans in the ivory trade. The reader is plunged deeper and deeper into the ‘horrors’ of what happened when Europeans invaded the continent. This might well go down in literary history as Conrad’s finest and most insightful achievement, and it is based on his own experiences as a sea captain. This volume also contains ‘An Outpost of Progress’ – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Joseph Conrad prose style

March 18, 2014 by Roy Johnson

how to start analysing prose style

Joseph Conrad was famous for his prose style – yet English was his third language, the first two being Polish and French. He was not unlike the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who began writing in his native Russian, then switched to French, and finally started writing in English when he emigrated to America in 1940. Both of these authors are widely regarded as great prose stylists and masters of the English language.

Nevertheless, it is not unusual for some readers to complain about the difficulties they feel in grappling with Conrad’s style when encountering his writing for the first time. It’s true that his writing is not the clearest and easiest to understand: in fact a liking for his style is something of an acquired taste. But it is possible to come to terms with the difficulties he presents (the long, complex sentences and abstract language) with concentration, thoughtful reflection, and practice.

The tutorial notes that follow are one way of diffusing these problems by analysing some technical aspects of Conrad’s prose style. They are in no way rigorous or systematic: there are other types of close reading and analysis which can throw light on aspects of a writer’s prose style (see the examples listed below).

The extract which follows is from the opening pages of Conrad’s early story An Outpost of Progress, first published in 1897. It deals with two European characters who have recently arrived at a trading station somewhere in central Africa. If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

An Outpost of Progress

First edition – J.M.Dent & Sons 1912

Sample text

The two men watched the steamer round the bend, then, ascending arm in arm the slope of the bank, returned to the station. They had been in this vast and dark country only a very short time, and as yet always in the midst of other white men, under the eye and guidance of their superiors. And now, dull as they were to the subtle influences of surroundings, they felt themselves very much alone, when suddenly left unassisted to face the wilderness; a wilderness rendered more strange, more incomprehensible by the mysterious glimpses of the vigorous life it contained. They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To the sentiment of being alone of one’s kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one’s thoughts, of one’s sensations—to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike.

Joseph Conrad prose style – analysis

Sentence length
Some of the sentences here are quite long – particularly the last. This is because he is expressing quite complex ideas or generating a very charged atmosphere. But they are not all long: the first, which deals with an action by characters, is much shorter.

Narrative mode
Conrad adopts the common third person omniscient narrative mode. That is, he tells us what his characters do, how they feel, and what they think. But you might notice that statements such as the one begriming ‘Few men realise’ is of a different kind than, say, ‘The two men watched’. Conrad stops telling the story for a moment and is offering us his opinion. In fact everything else up to the end of the paragraph is Conrad’s own general view of the world. He suddenly becomes what is called an ‘intrusive narrator’ at this point. He intervenes in his own narrative to comment on the story and offer his philosophic reflections on life in general.

It’s easy to overlook this distinction when engaged with the drama of the narrative, but it has an important bearing on our interpretation of the story. That’s because these intrusions into the story help him to project a particular view of the world – which add up to an ideology.

Language
You will probably notice that he uses a number of terms which will cause most people to think ‘Now what exactly does he mean by that?’ These are expressions such as ‘irresistible force’, ‘unmitigated savagery’, ‘negation of the habitual’, and ‘discomposing intrusion’. What make these difficult to grasp at first is that he is switching from the very concrete and specific descriptions of the two men and the trading station to an abstract and very general consideration of their moral condition.

This is almost the language of philosophy. The terms ‘force’, ‘savagery’, ‘habitual’, and ‘intrusion’ are all abstract nouns. We are not necessarily conscious of this whilst reading the text, but they take us away from the ‘story’ and force us to consider rather large scale social reflections.

In fact the combination of rather unusual and powerful adjective qualifying an abstract noun – ‘unmitigated savagery, ‘profound trouble’ – is a ‘trade mark’ of Conrad’s prose style. You will see many other examples in almost all his stories and novels.

Prose rhythm
In prose writing, rhythm is easier to feel than to define. You do not need to go into all the technical detail of stress analysis as you might with poetry, but it should be possible to sense that Conrad puts a lot of rhythmic emphasis into what he writes, using a number of literary devices more commonly found in poetry:

alliteration
repetition
balanced clauses

Alliteration
‘The courage, the composure, the confidence’ is a fairly obvious example of alliteration, with an insistent stress falling on the initial letter c in each of these words. Notice too that they are all abstract nouns.

Repetition
The expression ‘with primitive nature and primitive man’ combines both alliteration (in the initial letter p) with repetition of the word ‘primitive’ itself. You might also note that his use of the second ‘primitive’ here throws the emphasis onto the word that follows it – ‘man’. There are plenty of other examples of the same thing in this paragraph: ‘more strange, more incomprehensible’ and ‘every great and every insignificant’ are just two.

Repetition is just one of the rhetorical devices at work here: and rhetoric is ‘the art of speakers or writers to persuade, inform, or motivate their audience’.

Balanced clauses
The rather long sentences in this passage also contain a different kind of repetition – that is, clauses which are similar to each other in grammatical construction. These are sometimes called ‘balanced clauses’. The final sentence begins with the phrase ‘To the sentiment of being alone’, and in order to ‘tug’ us through the fairly lengthy reflection that follows Conrad repeats the initial ‘to’ and the construction of the clause of which it is a part. So we have, ‘To the sentiment of being … to the clear perception … to the negation of the habitual’.

Finally, look at the construction of the sentence that begins ‘Few men realise that their life’. Conrad wants to explain what he has in mind by using the term ‘life’, so he inserts two clauses which expand the notion. But in doing so, and whilst we are so to speak ‘waiting’ for the end of the sentence, his terms of expansion are nicely balanced: ‘the very essence of their character’ (with its emphasis falling on ‘essence’ and ‘character’, is paralleled by the following clause ‘their capabilities and their audacities’ with the emphasis falling again on two abstract nouns.

The abstraction forces readers into a quasi-philosophical mode of thinking about ‘life’. What exactly does he mean by people’s ‘capabilities’ and ‘audacities’? His answers will come from the events of the narrative itself – which show his two characters to be lazy, stupid, and moral cowards. This appears to ‘prove’ or at least justify his judgements about human beings and society in general – which is part of any writer’s conscious or unconscious objective.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance is carefully graded, starting from simple issues of language then progressing to more complex issues. The single volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance notes on this page were written by the same author.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Close reading exercises

Sample close reading of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House

Sample close reading of Katherine Mansfield’s The Voyage

Sample close reading of Virginia Woolf’s Monday or Tuesday

Other novels by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

Julia Stephen

January 8, 2014 by Roy Johnson

Julia Stephen (1846-1895) was Virginia Woolf’s mother – and you can see their resemblance very clearly in the picture below. She was born in Calcutta, India to parents Dr John and Maria Pattle Jackson, and was the youngest of their three daughters. She was also the niece of famous Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. In 1848 she moved back to England with her mother and sisters to live in Hendon, her father following some years later.

Photo by Julia Margaret Cameron

One of her sisters, Sarah, married the Victorian politician and historian Henry Thoby Prinsep, whose home at Little Holland House was an important meeting place for writers, painters, and politicians. Visiting her brother-in-law’s house, the very attractive Julia became something of a famous society beauty and was a model for painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, George Frederick Watts, and William Holman Hunt.

In 1867 she married the barrister Herbert Duckworth, with whom she had three children, the youngest of whom (Gerald) went on later in life to establish the Duckworth publishing company. Her marriage was blissfully happy, and when her husband died suddenly in 1870 she went into a profound state of shock which left her in a permanent state of stoical gravity and bereavement

Through her friend Anne Thackeray, the daughter of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, she met the biographer and essayist Leslie Stephen, who at that time was married to Thackeray’s other daughter, Harriet.

Julia was influenced by Leslie Stephen’s writings on agnosticism, and when his wife died suddenly in 1875 she helped him to move to a house nearby her own in Hyde Park Gate in Kensington. Stephen declared his love for her in 1877, but she felt that she could not ever marry again, so they agreed to remain very close friends. However, a year later she changed her mind and they both married for a second time.

Four children appeared in quick succession – Vanessa (1879), Thoby (1880), Virginia (1882), and Adrian (1883) – and they lived together with the three children from her first marriage, George, Stella, and Gerald Duckworth. Julia participated (erratically) in the home education of her daughters, but a great deal of her emotional energy went into supporting her husband Leslie, who suffered from depression. She also nursed her own parents until their deaths.

In fact she dedicated herself to looking after other people, and spent a great deal of her time to nursing the sick and dying. She travelled around London visiting hospitals and workhouses, and in 1883 she published Notes from Sick Rooms which is a discussion of good nursing practice and includes a rather witty section discussing the discomfort caused by crumbs in bed. Despite these humanitarian activities, she signed a petition against female suffrage in 1889, believing that a woman’s role in society should be limited to philanthropy and the domestic sphere.

Following a bad bout of influenza she died in 1895 at home in Hyde Park Gate, and was buried in Highgate cemetery.

The Bloomsbury Group is a short but charming book, published by the National Portrait Gallery. It explores the impact of Bloomsbury personalities on each other, plus how they shaped the development of British modernism in the early part of the twentieth century. But most of all it’s a delightful collection of portrait paintings and photographs, with biographical notes. It has an introductory essay which outlines the development of Bloomsbury, followed by a series of portraits and the biographical sketches of the major figures who had such a profound influence on the world of literature and the arts between 1900 and 1940.
Buy the book at Amazon UK
Buy the book at Amazon US

Bloomsbury Group – web links

Hogarth Press first editions
Annotated gallery of original first edition book jacket covers from the Hogarth Press, featuring designs by Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, and others.

The Omega Workshops
A brief history of Roger Fry’s experimental Omega Workshops, which had a lasting influence on interior design in post First World War Britain.

The Bloomsbury Group and War
An essay on the largely pacifist and internationalist stance taken by Bloomsbury Group members towards the First World War.

Tate Gallery Archive Journeys: Bloomsbury
Mini web site featuring photos, paintings, a timeline, sub-sections on the Omega Workshops, Roger Fry, and Duncan Grant, and biographical notes.

Bloomsbury: Books, Art and Design
Exhibition of paintings, designs, and ceramics at Toronto University featuring Hogarth Press, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, Quentin Bell, and Stephen Tomlin.

Blogging Woolf
A rich enthusiast site featuring news of events, exhibitions, new book reviews, relevant links, study resources, and anything related to Bloomsbury and Virginia Woolf

Hyper-Concordance to Virginia Woolf
Search the texts of all Woolf’s major works, and track down phrases, quotes, and even individual words in their original context.

A Mrs Dalloway Walk in London
An annotated description of Clarissa Dalloway’s walk from Westminster to Regent’s Park, with historical updates and a bibliography.

Women’s History Walk in Bloomsbury
Annotated tour of literary and political homes in Bloomsbury, including Gordon Square, University College, Bedford Square, Doughty Street, and Tavistock Square.

Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
News of events, regular bulletins, study materials, publications, and related links. Largely the work of Virginia Woolf specialist Stuart N. Clarke.

BBC Audio Essay – A Eulogy to Words
A charming sound recording of a BBC radio talk broadcast in 1937 – accompanied by a slideshow of photographs of Virginia Woolf.

A Family Photograph Albumn
Leslie Stephens’ collection of family photographs which became known as the Mausoleum Book, collected at Smith College – Massachusetts.

Bloomsbury at Duke University
A collection of book jacket covers, Fry’s Twelve Woodcuts, Strachey’s ‘Elizabeth and Essex’.

More on biography
More on the Bloomsbury Group
Twentieth century literature

Kerfol

June 15, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Kerfol first appeared in the Scribner’s Magazine number 59 for March 1916. The story was included in the collection Xingu and Other Stories published in New York by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1916. It is one of the many ghost stories Edith Wharton wrote and was also included in the collection Ghosts published in 1937.

cover design by Parish Maxfield

Kerfol – critical commentary

The principal feature of interest in this story is the manner in which the narrative is unfolded. The un-named narrator is encouraged to buy the old Brittany chateau, and visits a perfectly credible if slightly romantic old building with a moat, high walls, a garden and a tower. The only strange element is the absence of human habitation and the presence of so many unusually quiet dogs.

This introductory episode is then contrasted with and expanded upon in the reconstruction of the murder trial which the narrator makes from old court records. These events reveal the passionate drama of the imprisoned beauty (Anne) her cruel husband (Yves) and her would-be lover (Hervé). who is a relative and namesake of the friend of the narrator in the fictional ‘present’.

The ghosts of the story are not those of former human beings, but dogs seeking vengeance on the man who has strangled them to terrorise his wife. This is a reasonable variation on the Gothic horror story which has lingered from its heyday in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to its fashionable revival at the begriming of the twentieth.

Edith Wharton wrote a number of ghost stories, and like her friend Henry James who did the same, she tried to create inventive variations on the plots and themes of this genre. Kerfol has a number of standard elements – the old deserted chateau, a wicked ‘King’, his beautiful young wife, and the would-be swain (all figures out of medieval romance) but to make the ghosts a pack of avenging dogs is something of a novelty, even if the outcome so far as Anne is concerned provides the tale with a conventionally grim ending and tragic victim.

Kerfol – study resources

The Works of Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Works of Edith Wharton – Amazon US

The New York Stories – NYRB – Amazon UK

The New York Stories – NYRB – Amazon US

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Descent of Man and Other Stories – Project Gutenberg

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

Kerfol – plot summary

Part I. At the suggestion of his friend Lanvirain, an un-named narrator goes to visit an old semi-fortified mansion in Brittany. He is impressed by its age and the sense of history it exudes. No guardian or owners appear, but he is met by a pack of assorted dogs which are mysteriously quiet. When he returns to his friend’s house that night, Mrs Lanvirain tells him that the dogs are the ‘ghosts of Kerfol’.

Part II. Next day Lanvirain lends him an old book containing the history of Kerfol, which the narrator then transcribes to reconstruct the historic events that constitute the remainder of the story.

Part III. Some time during the seventeenth century, the lord of Kerfol, widower Yves de Cornault takes a new young wife Anne. The marriage is childless but successful. He is very strict with her, but showers her with valuables. After one trip away on business, he brings her a little brown dog.

When de Cornault is suddenly found mutilated and dead in the mansion, suspicion falls on his young wife, because she is discovered in the same place, covered in blood.

There is a trial, throughout which she maintains her innocence. But she is prepared to admit that on the night of the murder she had an assignation with Hervé de Lanvirain. She also claims that her husband had strangled her pet dog.

She met Lanrivain whilst on a religious visit, and he offered her his sympathy and support. When he leaves for a foreign journey, she gives him the dog’s collar as a memento. Her husband returns to the mansion and strangles the dog with the same collar. She obtains another dog, but he strangles that one too. The same thing happens to further dogs.

She then receives a secret message from Lanvirain and that night goes to meet him. When her husband suddenly appears at the top of the stairs, she claims he was attacked and mauled to death by a pack of dogs.

At the trial she is not convicted, but put in the care of her husband’s family. They shut her up in the dungeon at Kerfol where she dies many years later, having gone mad.

Kerfol – Principal characters

I	an un-named narrator
Hervé de Lanvirain	his friend
Yves de Cornault	despotic lord of Kerfol
Anne de Cornault	his pretty and much younger wife
Hervé de Lanvirain	her would-be lover

Edith Wharton’s writing

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

Archives for 2014

the stages and process of writing an academic essay

What is an essay template?

Before you start

The title or question

The introduction

The body of the essay

The paragraph

Conclusion

Endnotes and footnotes

The bibliography

Presentation

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

His Father’s Son – critical comments

His Father’s Son – study resources

His Father’s Son – story synopsis

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Honeymoon – critical commentary

Honeymoon – study resources

Honeymoon – plot summary

Katherine Mansfield – web links

an explanation and guidance notes

House Style – a real example

Spelling

Printed style guides

Vocabulary

Online style guides

Capitalization

UK journalism style guides

effective business communication skills

What is a business document?

Five stages of planning

Visualise the document

Writing the content

Creating the structure

Document titles

Titles in general

Write the first draft

Make revisions

making a good impression on paper

What is a personal statement?

Who will read a personal statement?

First impressions

Interviews

Warning

How to write the personal statement

how to read and analyse a text

An Outpost of Progress – the opening lines

Close reading

Further reading

Joseph Conrad – video biography

Other writing by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad web links

how to start analysing prose style

Sample text

Joseph Conrad prose style – analysis

Close reading exercises

Other novels by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad links

Bloomsbury Group – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Kerfol – critical commentary

Kerfol – study resources

Kerfol – plot summary

Kerfol – Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

Get in touch