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Doing stylistic analysis (or four steps to heaven)
READ THROUGH THE WHOLE OF THIS PAGE CAREFULLY
BEFORE YOU BEGIN WORK ON YOUR ANALYSIS ... FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS
BELOW.
Step One: Initial Guidance
DO NOT DO ANYTHING BUT READ THROUGH THIS SECTION
DO NOT START WRITING OR NOTE-TAKING YET!
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If you are offered a choice, DO NOT choose
to analyse any text that you really think you don't understand! Go
for something you think you can make some sense of, even on an initial
reading. Do give the author credit for having thought about the way
the text is phrased: assume that it's unlikely that s/he simply stuck
something down without thinking, though you may feel (and eventually
be able to prove from linguistic evidence) that a particular choice
is not working well.
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Once you have the text(s) you intend to work on, START
THINKING AND NOTE-TAKING AS SOON AS POSSIBLE after finishing this
handout, so that if you have a deadline to meet, you don't have to
rush at your work at the last minute.
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STRUCTURE YOUR WORK, either along lines
indicated to you (if any), or in any other way that you prefer. But
if you create your own structure, make it explicit
by using (sub-)headings. Make sure you cover all the areas you need
to. You could also number your own paragraphs and sub-paragraphs,
to help you decide if you've got things in the best order, but It's
not necessary to retain the numbers once you are satisfied you've
finished moving things about.
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ALWAYS refer to line or sentence numbers
in your chosen text, unless you are referring to longish sections.
This avoids confusion and saves time and space. If however you find
you have a very
large number of such references in a short space, consider
rephrasing or referring to longer stretches of the text you are analysing,
in order simplify and clarify for the marker.
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Follow the normal conventions for general presentation and short
quotations as described in 'General Instructions' above. In addition,
remember the following layout requirements (which are normal for all
academic work) :
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INDENT any long quotes from the course
reading, with the attribution following aligned to the right-hand
margin, and including page numbers: and always leave a one-line space
before and after the quotation;
-
SINGLE INVERTED COMMAS are used for short
(one-line or less) quotes, and these are not indented, and can simply
follow a colon;
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UNDERLINING (or italicisation) is appropriate
for single words or short phrases quoted as part of your own sentence.
Step Two: Producing material and planning your work
YOU MAY NOW PICK UP A PEN!
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Allow yourself plenty of time
to do the analysing. No matter how long you allow, it will take longer
than that!
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It's impossible to start writing an analysis immediately you feel
you can begin to interpret the text, so don't try it! But DO
note down your major reactions and responses to the text as you
read, especially any 'impressions' as to what the more
subtle meanings are. A record of your initial understanding will be
essential later on.
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Next, you are going to SKETCH OUT YOUR
ROUGH ANALYTICAL NOTES as you analyse. If you do this carefully,
it will provide you with much more material than you can possibly
use, so that later you can select the most pertinent parts to include
in your final write-up.
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START METHODICALLY: decide which bits of
your text are foregrounded or obviously deviant, and then decide what
language levels the foregrounding operates on. This will enable you
to decide which language levels to analyse throughout the text in
most detail. If nothing seems foregrounded or deviant, look at each
language level separately, and collect as much information as you
reasonably can.
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DO NOT EXCEED about 12-15 sides of double-spaced
A4 in all (i.e. including lists, appendices,
etc.) for this draft analysis (often referred to in the trade as 'scribble'
! ). More than that and you can be sure you are going into too much
detail, getting bogged down, or stuck on one aspect, or repeating
yourself! On the other hand, you will find you can't produce less
than an absolute minimum of 5 sides, even in note form, if you cover
all basic aspects.
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KEEP TO YOUR PLANNED STRUCTURE for analysing
: following inspiring thoughts as they occur will not produce good
stylistic analyses. If such thoughts intrude, however, don't lose
them: note them down (on a separate sheet of A4 kept for that purpose)
and at a later stage, decide consciously
whether or not you want to use them.
When you have produced and noted down all
the analytical material you think you could need, TAKE A BREAK, or
leave the work until the next day.
Step Three: Drafting your work
You now need to link up your analytical data
and your initial impressions,
and make them into a coherent ESSAY PLAN.
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Compare your collection of analytical data with the first impressions
that you noted down under 2.2 above. Select those bits of data that
support your initial interpretation, and those, if any, that interestingly
contradict it. Specify closely all these
aspects of the analytical data, so that you can explain clearly how
they relate to meaning.
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Plan to use only the most salient material in your final submission.
(You can always include lists, etc., as an Appendix, but don't put
anything significant there, as your tutor/marker may not spot it.)
Be firm - exclude data that only amounts to a statement of what's
there, and does not link to interpretation interestingly. But don't
yet throw away what you think you don't want to use : you may find
as you go along that some parts of it come in useful.
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TAKE YOUR TIME AT THIS STAGE AND KEEP REFERRING
BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN THE DATA AND YOUR INITIAL UNDERSTANDING OF
THE TEXT. It may be at this point that looking at the data affects
how you have understood the text. Highlight or otherwise mark any
bits of the data that cause this to happen, and indicate what they
made you think.
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Arrange your material in a coherent way, whether by language level
or otherwise: make sure you are not repeating the same conclusions
under different headings (if you are, perhaps you should organise
by 'foregrounded/deviant areas'). You don't need much of an introduction
: If you want to put one in, just say how the text works overall,
and what you think it means. I would advise you to plan out any introduction
LAST, when you know what you are 'going' to say (because you will
already have said it!).
Now take a break, or leave the final writing
up to another day (this will give you the necessary perspective on
what you finally include/exclude).
Step Four: Writing up
TAKE YOUR TIME: BE SURE YOU'VE COVERED EVERYTHING
NECESSARY BEFORE you consider writing your work up (especially if for
submission)
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Look again at your 'linking notes', and number the items you intend
to cover, in the order you intend to cover them in your final presentation.
Make sure that you have in mind the need to produce INTERESTING
comments as well as ACCURATE analysis.
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Make additional notes of any RELEVANT
quotations/citations or terminological language from the course reading
or any other independent reading that you feel may be useful, keeping
them to a minimum, and ensuring that you ONLY
INSERT THEM WHERE THEY RELATE CLOSELY TO WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SAY.
Try not to include very general definitions or broad statements from
the course reading.
Make sure that any individual organisational plan you have decided
to use does not oblige you to write very long sections: this could
mean that you include irrelevant or uninteresting information, and
possibly obscure the 'good bits'! Lists or parts of lists (e.g. of
word functions or sentence structures) MAY
be included if you feel that they will be essential, but beware of
taking up good writing time with simply reproducing lists, tables
and the like. You may use footnotes and/or appendices, and these are
not normally included in word counts.
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Write up each section as independent from the others. Then look
at them collectively to decide whether or not they are in the best
order for you to draw any conclusions.
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Remember that this is NOT a literary essay.
Any conclusion should relate very narrowly to what you found through
analysis that affected your initial interpretation in any way.
After all this, it should be more obvious
than usual that you are aiming to produce a specialised piece of academic
writing, not an impressionistic or casual response to the text you
are examining.
KEEP THIS SHEET to hand during your preparation
- and afterwards. As well as keeping you on the right track for your stylistics
work, it will also serve as a general working methodology for any material
that requires careful analysis; for example, you may wish to use it
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as a guide to producing your own notes from academic reading (except
that you don't do Step Four, the 'write up', of course);
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to examine short extracts of any literary texts that you are studying,
to see if you can work out what an author is actually doing, rather
than just accepting the judgements of others;
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to enable you to produce orderly and elegant linguistic analyses
of any texts you are working with (you would then probably include
much more of your technical data).
In fact, wherever there's text to be examined, your training in stylistic
analysis will help you (advertising, political speeches, partisan language
of any kind, etc, ...). Try it!
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