Notes on Essay Writing:  Format, References and Bibliography

 

Introduction These notes are presented for general use to show the formal standards expected in your essays.  Some of the comments and advice may seem elementary, but if you do not know basic principles, these notes should help.

1. Spacing, Layout and Title Please use double spacing and leave wide margins (at least 1 1/2 in. or 40 mm.) on the left and right edges of the page and at the top and bottom.  A dense page of text prevents us from commenting and correcting.  Please also write on only one side of the page; and number each separate page of writing.  Put your name, date, course-title and Department on the first sheet.  Do remember to give a title to your essay; and make sure it is at the top of the essay itself.  (This latter point is important; for you may think it enough to put the title on a course-work cover-sheet.)

 

2. Word Limits If a word limit is set, please observe it. The purpose of word limits is to accustom you to writing concisely and to the point to an agreed format, and to ensure parity across a course. For assessed work, the word limit should be observed quite strictly: do not overshoot or undershoot by more than 5%.

 

3. How and when to use quotations Whenever you use a quotation in your essay, ask yourself whether you really need it . Can you say it just as well in your own words? Or does it say something in a particularly useful way? Does it support your point? Avoid posturing and padding by citing what you perceive to be ‘authority’ and ask yourself whether you understand the critic or scholar you are quoting, and whether you think s/he is right or not. If  after all this you decide you do need the quotation, then use it, BUT

• comment on it and analyse it, don’t assume that  it speaks for itself but evaluate what the quotation adds to what you want to say in the essay.
• Make sure, also, that you give enough context for a quotation, by introducing it with a short sentence or phrase and by mentioning the author's name: ‘Brian Lee suggests with regard to The Great Gatsby for example that ‘...’; or ‘In this section of the novel, Dick is still seen by Rosemary as the ideal man: ‘....’
• Avoid the use of very short quotations, such as half a sentence or only a phrase--they are not informative or distinctive enough to help you to make your point.
• Make clear which part of your text is quotation by using single inverted commas at the beginning and end of your quotation, ‘like this’, and use double quotation marks “like these” for quotations within quotations, for example: ‘John told me “I really don’t care” and put the phone down.’

Quotations of more than 40 words should be ‘blocked off’, i.e. indented (set in) from both the left-hand and right-hand margins and typed in single spacing, like this:

Such indented quotations should not have quotation-marks; nor should they be embellished with italics. Setting quotations as indented passages makes a writer think whether the original wording needs to be repeated. Again, always ask yourself whether you really need a quotation—quoting too much can be a way of avoiding arguing for yourself.

4. Referencing Everything you quote from a primary or secondary source (books or articles you have read to prepare your essay) should be acknowledged (referenced). You can do this with foot- or endnotes, or simply in brackets at the end of the quotation, or at the end of the sentence in which it occurs. Whichever system you use, footnotes, endnotes, or brackets, stick to it throughout your essay—don’t mix them up.

• If you choose the short form of referencing, where you give the source at the end of your sentence or quotation rather than in a foot-or endnote, then you should include author’s name, year of publication (of the edition you have used, which will be in your bibliography at the end) and the page number from which the quotation is taken: (Steinbeck 1995: 28).
• If you to use foot-or endnotes, the reference should include author’s name, title of the text, and page number, like this:

If you are not quoting directly, but you are borrowing an idea from a secondary source or you are paraphrasing in some detail from a primary one, this should also be acknowledge. For example if you say : ‘some critics have stated that The Great Gatsby critiques the American Dream....’ then you should give references to those critics(Lee 1993: 86; King 1975:162). If you don’t do this, you could be accused of derivative work or, at worst, plagiarism.

• Don’t exaggerate it, however; you don’t have to acknowledge ‘seminar notes’ nor do you have to refer to everything you have read in the course of preparing your essay. But ask yourself continually when you are writing your essay: did I read this somewhere? If the answer is ‘yes’, consult your notes and find the appropriate reference; if on the other hand you feel that what you say is or has become your idea, or it is a commonplace observation, then you don’t have to worry about acknowledgement.

So, every time you quote someone else’s words or you borrow someone else’s idea, you MUST provide a reference to the original words. If you don’t do this, you could be accused of plagiarism (passing off someone else’s work as your own) which the University regards as a very serious offence against academic discipline. Remember also, that it is now very easy for your tutors to use special search engines that will detect plagiarising from the Internet as well as printed sources—don’t do it, it really is not worth it.

 

5. Documentation The main principles for referencing are clarity, conciseness and consistency. The crucial distinction is between a) references to books, and b) references to articles and essays in books and periodicals/journals. You are unlikely to get a particular convention exactly right and achieve consistency without much practice.  So don't despair - but do begin timplement these principles as soon as possible.

• When giving a reference underline or italicise titles of books and journals. So, to give an example of a book reference in a footnoor endnote :Royden J Dangerfield, In Defense of the Senate: a Study in Treaty-Making (Norman: Oklahoma University Press 1933) p.36. If you reference this at the end of your sentence in short form, then it becomes (Dangerfield 1933: 36)
• Titles of articles, poems etc. (i.e. things which are part of a greater work) should be set in single inverted commas, like this: T.S.Eliot, 'The Waste Land' in The Collected Poems (London: Faber 1991), p.24; Michael Dunne, ‘Isolationism of a Kind: Two Generations of World Court Historiography in the United States’, Journal of American Studies 21 (1987), p. 327. Or again, in short form (Eliot 1991: 24) and (Dunne 1987: 327).
• You use the long form of a reference (complete with book title, place of publication, publisher and year of publication) only when you use this reference for the first time in a foot-or endnote. Later notes can refer to the same book or article in short form simply as Dangerfield, In Defense of the Senate p.20; or Eliot, ‘The Waste Land’ p.39.
• You can also use phrases such as op.cit. (Latin opere citato, meaning ‘the work just cited’) or ibid. (Latin ibidem ‘in the same place’) for references which have already been given in an earlier foot- or endnote. For example, if note 10 says Dangerfield, In Defense of the Senate p.121 and note 11 refers to the same work, but a different page, then note 11 can read: op.cit. p.133. If note 12 then refers also to page 133 of Dangerfield, it can simply read: ibid.
• Always give the volume number of the periodical and the year of publication. So, to give an example of a journal reference: David Brion Davis, ‘American Equality and Foreign Revolutions,’ Journal of American History 76 (1989), p. 729. 
• A reference to an article in a collection (a book, not a journal) is slightly different again. To give an example of a reference to an essay in a collection: Thomas G Paterson, ‘The Quest for Peace and Prosperity: International Trade, Communism, and the Marshall Plan,’ in Barton J Bernstein, ed., Politics and Policies of the Truman Administration (Chicago, 1970), p. 78.  Later references to this essay can be made as: Paterson, ‘Quest for Peace and Prosperity’, p.89.
• ALWAYS give a page number when you give a reference for a quotation; without it, the reference is useless (because the reader won’t be able to find where your quotation came from).

5. Bibliography This should do two things: one is to gather together in alphabetical order by author's  name the works cited (surname followed by first names/initials); and, secondly, list other material used in the writing of your essay. 

The bibliography should come at the end of your essay, preferably on a separate sheet. It should be  arranged in alphabetical order of the author’s surname. In any alphabetical listing, give the (first) author's surname first, followed by given names/initials. Thus the books cited above would be listed as:

Bernstein, Barton J, ed., Politics and Policies of the Truman Administration (Chicago Press: 1970).

Dangerfield, Royden J, In Defense of the Senate: a Study in Treaty-Making (Norman Press, Okla.: 1933).

Dunne, Michael & Tiziano Bonazzi, eds., Citizenship and Rights in Multicultural Societies (Keele Press: 1995).

You should stick to the following format:

• book:  Anderson, Sherwood Winesburg, Ohio (London: Picador 1990)
• collection of articles: Brown, Cheryl L. and Karen Olson (eds) Feminist Criticism: Essays in Theory, Poetry and Prose  (Metuchen, NJ : Scarecrow Press 1978)
• article in collection: Dehler, Kathleen ‘The Need to Tell All: a Comparison of Historical and Modern Feminist “Confessional” Writing’ in Cheryl L.Brown and Karen Olson (eds) Feminist Criticism, pp.339-52.

article in journal: Dunne, Michael ‘Hemisphere and Globe: the Terms of American Foreign Relations’, International Affairs 70(1994), pp. 701-20; Klingopoulos, G.D. ‘The Novel as Dramatic Poem II: Wuthering Heights’ in Scrutiny  Vol.9 No.2 (Winter 1947) pp.269-86.

• If there is more than one work by the same author, organise the entries alphabetically by the title of the publication or chronologically, by the date of (original) publication in square brackets [ ]:
• Walker, Alice Meridian [1976] (London: Women’s Press 1983)
• ---------------- Possessing the Secret of Joy [1991] (London: Jonathan Cape 1992)

 

• 6. Writing your essay Essay writing is hard work, and you only get better at it by doing it and by learning from your mistakes. Here are some common ones:
• the use of the ’s (apostrophe s) and s (possessive or genitive s): its=of it  (‘the cat chased its tail’) it’s=it is (‘it’s a hard life’). When in doubt ask yourself whether you are shortening from ‘it is’ or not. In any case, the shortened form is not good practice in written language ( ‘I should not have done that’, would be better than ‘I shouldn’t have done that’; ‘It is a hard life’ better than ‘It’s a hard life’).
• the plural s can also be a problem: Americans= more than one American, but  Americans’= of the Americans (‘Americans’ image abroad tends to be filtered through the media’).
• But, when the word ends in a vowel, you do need an apostrophe even in the singular: America’s destiny= the destiny of America; Joe’s self-perception=the self-perception of Joe; Joe Smith and Joe Brown make two Joes; hence ...the two Joes’ self-perception...

 

When writing about literature, the most important rule is to write about it in the present tense, because literature, as an art form, has no past, no history. To us, as readers, it is always present. When you write about fiction in the past tense, it sounds naive, as if you assume these people are real.

Punctuation exists to clarify your writing and to give it a rhythm for ease of reading. It is generally better to aim for relatively short sentences, by being more straightforward and keeping it simple. There are good books on essay writing in the library.

Structure your essay in a logical way. You can do this with the conventional order of introduction-argument-conclusion/summary of argument. The introduction is of crucial importance, since this is where you state what the central problem/question of your essay is and how you are going to go about answering or exploring it. Ultimately this is what your essay will be judged by: whether you succeed in doing what you say you are going to do.

• Always  make sure your paragraphs bear a clear relation to each other, by linking them explicitly.You can do this in several ways: ‘having explored the reasons why .....we can now turn our attention to...’ or ‘Two aspects need to be discussed in this context. The first is.... Secondly...’ and so on. This is called ‘signposting’, because phrases such as these  guide the reader through your argument. If you find this too boring, then adopt a less explicit mode of signposting: ‘We can usefully compare Eliot’s use of the tradition [which you have just discussed] with H.D.’s....[your next point]’; or you can say simply ‘By contrast, .....’ or ‘What follows from this is...’

Nothing helps as much in learning to write well as looking at writers whom you admire. In a very concrete sense then, good writing depends on good reading (of other people’s work, and your own). But here are some tips:

• Use full sentences, which means: sentences including an active verb in the main part. 'Thus proving she is right' is not a full sentence, because 'Thus proving' belongs to a statement made in the preceding sentence. 'In doing this, she proves she is right' is a proper sentence, because the main statement here is active: 'she proves'.
• It is not forbidden to use ‘I’ in an academic essay, but neither is it good form to do so constantly. The ‘I’ should be used when you are stating your intention, giving an opinion, or when you want to pose a question (preferably not a rhetorical one). Whenever you are conveying knowledge (whether common or specialist) avoid ‘I’, and write objectively.
• Try and avoid the passive voice (‘It can thus be seen that ...’) and use active verbs instead—it makes your writing more lively: ‘We can see that...’ is more direct. But perhaps you don’t need phrases such as these at all; perhaps you only need what you would say after ‘it can thus be seen that’: ‘...in Invisible Man Ellison presents a social history of African-Americans.’
• Other things to avoid are: generalisations of most kinds (be strict with yourself about whether you are conveying information or merely warming up, and whether you really know what you are talking about; vagueness  (like ‘of most kinds’, or ‘in various ways’, which carries no informational content at all, it just suggests that it does) ; moral judgements (it is not our job, as scholars, to judge but to understand); and existential statements (‘We all know that life presents us with challenges, and that they are there to be overcome’—but pronouncing on the meaning of life is not what academic essays are for ).
• Be as precise and specific as you can; work from what you know or find useful in other people’s work, and do not feel that somehow everything you say has to be  couched in very complicated language. Part of what you learn at University is how to use a professional vocabulary, but don’t overdo it: clarity, always, is key..
• Use gender-neutral language, whatever material you are dealing with. When you mean ‘men’ say ‘men’, when you mean ‘men and women’ use ‘people’; when you mean ‘humankind’ use that, not ‘man’ or ‘mankind’. Other forms you can use are s/he (instead of ‘he’ as a universal pronoun), but most people like to avoid this awkwardness altogether and use the plural form: ‘they’.

And finally: edit your work before you submit it. A fresh eye (your own after a few days’ break or someone else’s) can do wonders for your writing, because whilst you are writing your essay or straight after you often cannot see your own mistakes or confusions. This requires a bit of planning, but once you get used to including the editing stage in your essay writing schedule, you will see that your work will really benefit from it.

Other Guides and Style Manuals The most useful guide for beginners is Kate L Turabian, Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations, 6th ed., rev. (Chicago, 1996); while a somewhat more professionally-directed work is A S Maney & R L Smallwood, Style Book: Notes for Authors, Editors and Writers of Theses, 5th ed., rev. (London, 1996). Both these works are available in British paperbacks.  In the USA and for American readers, the standard tends to be set by The Chicago Manual of Style: for Authors, Editors and Copywriters, 14th ed., rev. (Chicago, 1993). This work too is currently available in the UK.  A very good way of learning-by-doing is to choose a scholarly text and use this as a model.

The library now has an on-line tutorial in which you can learn and practice your referencing skills. The address is http://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/infosuss/ On this site you will also be able to learn how to use electronic resources (on-line journals and websites); how to find and evaluate information on the Internet, and how to use reading lists. Of course, the site is linked to the Library catalogue, and it teaches you how to use the catalogue effectively. Have a go at some of the exercises: here you have all the tools you need to research and write and present your essays in an appropriate academic style in one place, and at your fingertips!

7. Plagiarism

For more information, please consult the "Handbook for Undergraduate Candidates (post-2003 cohort)",  Section 7, pages 17-18, via web address: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/academic/academicoffice/ugmatters/ughand2003.
pdf