How to Write an Assignment?

Dr Anand MahanandDept. of Materials Development

EFL University, Hyderabad-500007

Selecting a topicHow do you get a topic?How do you select?How do you narrow it down?What are the criteria of your selection?

Collection of MaterialsPreparing a working bibliography including

Books, articles, abstracts, dissertationsFollow MLA style of documentation from the

beginning

Survey of materialsFirst reading(go through all but select

whatever is relevant to your topic.Choose your primary texts and read them

closely.

Prepare an outline of your paper. It may include:TopicObjectiveReview of LiteratureYour focusApproach/theoretical frameworkTexts to be usedIntroductionArgumentConclusionReferences

Reading and making notesRead the primary texts again closely and Identify important points and make notesDon’t forget to write the page no belowIf possible key in your notes on your

computerSee how notes have been made from the

novel Heart of Darkness

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).

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).

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).

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).

 

Notes from critical textsNote 1Harold Bloom’s Joseph Conrad’s Heart of

Darkness.“Conrad like many novelists today, was both

drawn to idealism repelled by its hypocritical abuse.”(6).

Note 2In 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”

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).

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).

Writing the PaperNow 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 Journey

AbstractIngredients in an abstractObjectiveMethodologySpecification of textsApproach

IntroductionBackgroundAuthor, historical context (e.g. colonialism)Thematic

ArgumentSupported by evidence from texts

ConclusionTo be drawn from your argumentLinked to your objective statement

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.

Writing an Assignment in ELT areaSelecting a topicSurvey of MaterialsFirst ReadingPreparing an outlineData CollectionPreparing a questionnaireInterpretation of dataSecond Reading (for theory+Review, etc.)

Writing the Assignment Make a draft of your assignment Follow APA style of documentation Tone, Style and academic conventionsEditing- Macro and Micro

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?    

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.

Anand Mahanandamahanand991@gmail.com

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