strawberrye
Premium Member
Introduction:
There are no shortcuts to excelling in essay writing besides practice, feedback, practice, feedback. You must put in the effort to practice writing essays, analysing your texts, researching deeper into specific parts of the post WWII context. A holistic engagement and persistent effort, as well as integrated responses are ESSENTIAL for top marks.
Feel free to supplement anything I have missed by replying to this post below
Top tips for excelling in essay writing for after the bomb:
1)When you encounter any essay question, the first thing you need to do is don’t panic. Start underlining the key words of the question and think about the various ways in which these words relates to the syllabus. I.e. do they relate to ways of thinking, is it focusing on different techniques/forms of representation composers use to convey these ways of thinking? What are the best prescribed and related texts that I have that relates more to the key aspect that the question is asking?
2)There are many possible ways to structure your essay, you can experiment or you can ask your teacher what is the way he/she prefers in terms of essay structure as a guide. Personally, I did integrated paragraphs where I could be discussing four main points for a question, but for each point, I would have a prescribed text and a related text, so essentially, that constitutes 8 mini paragraphs-but I made conceptual connections across the paragraphs. However, other structures are possible-just find out one that works for you.
3)In After the Bomb, you must make sure your essays are not just jammed pack with techniques and quotes, you really need to spend some time delving into the historical context of the era, and make the link in how the texts composed in the era critique/respond/challenge/emerge from the transformations in the ways of thinking during the post WWII era. Remember, this is not analytical analysis of the texts in isolation; it is an analytical analysis of texts with a specific historical context. No text is created in a vacuum-it is essential you highlight why composers have illuminated certain ideas-which are ultimately influenced by the contextual concerns of the time the text was composed within. (to do this effectively, you need to research the context of the composer and the text thoroughly-and referring to specific events of the era in your essay where appropriate shows this EXTENSIVE RESEARCH-don’t be vague)
4)It is essential that during your independent research, that you collect significant quotes from philosophers, journalist, historians, literary critics, that relates to the different ways of thinking in after the bomb. If you can appropriately insert these quotes-integrate it within your discussion of your text-it will instantly show EXTENSIVE RESEARCH and as a result, you are likely to get higher marks. Make sure you make the essential link in HOW THESE QUOTES RELATE TO YOUR TEXTS, otherwise inserting quotes without making this link is pointless.
5)The depth of analysis required in this module is a lot deeper than in an Advanced English module. Don’t just analyse the text and come up with ideas that can be generalised to the entire module, for example, come up with a specific idea about AFTER THE BOMB that is UNIQUE to a prescribed text, and contrast/compare it with a unique idea extracted from the relevant related text-this is also part of the reason for re-reading texts multiple times-it allows you to develop that critical thinking that is essential for a SOPHISTICATED, PERSONALISED response.
6)Avoid adopting a prescribed mentality of you must integrate all four paradigms, scientific, religious, philosophical and economic somehow into every single essay question you encounter. I highly don’t recommend you to write a generic essay for this module-you will be stuck if the exam essay question asks for a very specific aspect of the module. Remember to answer the DEMANDS of the PARTICULAR essay question, answer what the question is, not what you think or want the question to be, if including the four paradigms is not the central task the questions asking, then you really don’t have much of a reason to try to include four-you won’t be answering FULLY to the DEMANDS of the question, and thus, you will lose marks.
There are no shortcuts to excelling in essay writing besides practice, feedback, practice, feedback. You must put in the effort to practice writing essays, analysing your texts, researching deeper into specific parts of the post WWII context. A holistic engagement and persistent effort, as well as integrated responses are ESSENTIAL for top marks.
Feel free to supplement anything I have missed by replying to this post below
Top tips for excelling in essay writing for after the bomb:
1)When you encounter any essay question, the first thing you need to do is don’t panic. Start underlining the key words of the question and think about the various ways in which these words relates to the syllabus. I.e. do they relate to ways of thinking, is it focusing on different techniques/forms of representation composers use to convey these ways of thinking? What are the best prescribed and related texts that I have that relates more to the key aspect that the question is asking?
2)There are many possible ways to structure your essay, you can experiment or you can ask your teacher what is the way he/she prefers in terms of essay structure as a guide. Personally, I did integrated paragraphs where I could be discussing four main points for a question, but for each point, I would have a prescribed text and a related text, so essentially, that constitutes 8 mini paragraphs-but I made conceptual connections across the paragraphs. However, other structures are possible-just find out one that works for you.
3)In After the Bomb, you must make sure your essays are not just jammed pack with techniques and quotes, you really need to spend some time delving into the historical context of the era, and make the link in how the texts composed in the era critique/respond/challenge/emerge from the transformations in the ways of thinking during the post WWII era. Remember, this is not analytical analysis of the texts in isolation; it is an analytical analysis of texts with a specific historical context. No text is created in a vacuum-it is essential you highlight why composers have illuminated certain ideas-which are ultimately influenced by the contextual concerns of the time the text was composed within. (to do this effectively, you need to research the context of the composer and the text thoroughly-and referring to specific events of the era in your essay where appropriate shows this EXTENSIVE RESEARCH-don’t be vague)
4)It is essential that during your independent research, that you collect significant quotes from philosophers, journalist, historians, literary critics, that relates to the different ways of thinking in after the bomb. If you can appropriately insert these quotes-integrate it within your discussion of your text-it will instantly show EXTENSIVE RESEARCH and as a result, you are likely to get higher marks. Make sure you make the essential link in HOW THESE QUOTES RELATE TO YOUR TEXTS, otherwise inserting quotes without making this link is pointless.
5)The depth of analysis required in this module is a lot deeper than in an Advanced English module. Don’t just analyse the text and come up with ideas that can be generalised to the entire module, for example, come up with a specific idea about AFTER THE BOMB that is UNIQUE to a prescribed text, and contrast/compare it with a unique idea extracted from the relevant related text-this is also part of the reason for re-reading texts multiple times-it allows you to develop that critical thinking that is essential for a SOPHISTICATED, PERSONALISED response.
6)Avoid adopting a prescribed mentality of you must integrate all four paradigms, scientific, religious, philosophical and economic somehow into every single essay question you encounter. I highly don’t recommend you to write a generic essay for this module-you will be stuck if the exam essay question asks for a very specific aspect of the module. Remember to answer the DEMANDS of the PARTICULAR essay question, answer what the question is, not what you think or want the question to be, if including the four paradigms is not the central task the questions asking, then you really don’t have much of a reason to try to include four-you won’t be answering FULLY to the DEMANDS of the question, and thus, you will lose marks.
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