Essay

1. Essay • You have to write a 1500-2000 word essay • The length must be within these limits • You must write it alone • Each student’s report must be completely unique; no sharing or copying is allowed • You can use books from the library and websites to help you • But you must not just copy from the books and websites • The essay is due on 25th June

2. Your own ideas • You can use quotations from other people to support your arguments • You must think of your own ideas too • Give the two sides of your question • Use your own ideas AND other people’s ideas to reach YOUR conclusion about your topic

3. Essay planning • You need to look at some essay writing advice websites this week. • One recommendation is http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/tld/student/7steps/essay.htm(look at planning now) • ***Ignore websites that offer to write your essay for money.***

4. Essay researching • You need to start the research for your essay this week. • You can find some helpful hints at http://www.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/researching_faq.htm

5. Use a search engine to find information on the web • But you must not *ONLY* use the Internet for your research • You can use the library for • Books • Academic online databases • When searching, try • xyz article • xyz site:edu (in Google) • xyz bibliography • “books about xyz” • Search www.wikipedia.org and www.amazon.com

6. Starting your essay research • You must go to the library! • All the books about your major are in one place, so start there. • http://lib1.lib.mcu.edu.tw/spydus_eng/wsearch.htm • Newspapers, journals • Web • Search engines • Wikipedia (but not only Wikipedia!) • Keep a record of • Book title, author, date, publisher, publication city • Website name, URL, author, date visited • Newspaper/journal name, author, article title etc. • You need this information for your bibliography, so don’t lose it!

7. Journals • A lot of journals are available in the MCU library • Both in Chinese and English • Some are kept on the library shelves • Others can be accessed from the computers on the second floor in the library • Or you can set up your computer from home

8. Start a bibliography: homework for next week • Decide what topic you’ll write about • Syntax? Morphology? What is language? Semantics? Pragmatics? • I’ll give out the exact questions later • Twenty bibliographic items • Write your bibliography in Harvard format • At least half from printed materials (books and articles) • Not just all from the web!

10. References for your essay • Harvard style with a Chinese example • http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/p03_2.htm • Everything has an author, a title, a date • The author’s name goes first (family name first) • Websites have a URL and a title • Articles have a title and a newpaper or journal title • Everything (except a website) has a publisher and city

11. References • Author’s surname comes first • Alphabetical order please • Everything you consult and mention in your essay must be in your bibliography • Nothing except what you consult and mention must be in your bibliography • You must actually read your references (the relevant part) • Read textbooks first, then articles • Don’t try to read articles which are too difficult

12. Reading and references • You should have Yule in your references • There are suggestions for further reading in Yule: use them! • These references will have further references in them… and so on and so on • By Friday: • Choose a title • Or, choose a specific area (for example: lexical relations, not just semantics) • Or, give a general area like semantics and I’ll choose for you (for a lower grade!)

13. Quotations • Indirect quotations • Jones (1999:123) believes [claims, says…] that most Taiwanese students… • Direct quotations • According to Jones (1999:123), “most Taiwanese students…” • Jones (1999) writes“most Taiwanese students…”

14. Chinese • You can cite works in any language (as long as you understand it!) • In your reference section, give the English name if the publication has one • If not, give it in Chinese and translate the name yourself • Give indirect quotations in English • Give direct quotations in Chinese, and provide an English translation.

15. Your own work • If you use someone else’s work, you must show it is not your idea • You must cite the work • Direct quotations (English or Chinese) • Maximum: one sentence • DO NOT take something from the web and copy it • DO NOT translate a whole paragraph from Chinese (not even if you are the author)

16. Your own ideas • You can use quotations from other people to support your arguments • You must think of your own ideas too • Give the two sides of your question • Use your own ideas AND other people’s ideas to reach YOUR conclusion about your topic

17. Planning your essay • There should be three main sections • What are they? • http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/tld/student/7steps/essay.htm#4 • What should you say in the Introduction to your essay (in general terms)? • You might like to check this out