Herbert Berg: On Writing Essays for My Courses

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Your course work in my classes will normally involve writing one or more papers. After you have written numerous papers, the very complicated requirements of such assignments -- requirements of both a stylistic and a substantive nature -- will seem like second nature. But, unfortunately, this ease takes considerable time and practice to acquire. The following, rather extensive, comments address various common problem areas involved in such written work, and offer guidelines for writing appropriate papers, whether primary-source or research essays. When I grade written work, I pay attention first and foremost to the paper's content, so this is the question I will address first. But issues of presentation, style, citation, and so on, inevitably end up having a significant impact on content and accessibility, and so should by no means be ignored. A stylistically perfect paper that is lacking in content will not receive a good grade -- but a good paper badly presented will tend to get a lower grade than it might deserve. Please read the following guidelines -- which I have attempted to organize in order of importance -- carefully and attentively, and incorporate them into your written work for this course. Some material may be irrelevant to this particular course. In general, though, ignore these guidelines at your own risk!

The following explains my use of letter-grades:

A's are given for excellence and originality.  They are exceptional grades.

B's are given for good papers, well thought-through, well written, few mechanical errors, good coherency, etc.

C's are given to those papers which are fine, demonstrate no real problems, but lack anything outstanding.  They have an understanding of the material, but do not develop the material.

D's are given to papers which demonstrate a lack of coherency, no clear logic, lack of clarity, abundance of mechanical errors, or lack of any real effort.

F's are given to those papers which are sloppy, poorly written, show a clear misunderstanding of the material, excessive mechanical errors, no clarity, or misuse of the material.

These grades are derived by looking at 4 main issues:

a. Topic and Content: relevance of topic and coverage of the chosen subject in strictly factual terms.

b. Argument: clarity of the argument and coherence of style.

c. Documentation and Sources: documenting your essay with footnotes, endnotes, or in-text notes, setting the footnotes out correctly, and giving a correctly formatted and complete bibliography; and the quality of the sources.

d. Presentation: clarity of expression, correct grammatical usage, correct spelling, and length.

A. Topic and Content.

The most important dimensions of your paper is its content and its argument, and these are the primary grounds on which it will be graded. You should do everything you can to make your papers intelligent, sophisticated, and, above all, coherent. While to a large degree the quality of your paper's content will depend on your grasp of the course material, your research skills, and your own intellectual sophistication, there are a number of things you can do to ensure that your paper's content and argument are as good as they can be.  First, let's deal with topic and content.

1. Appropriate and Inappropriate Topics.

Nothing is guaranteed to undermine your paper-writing efforts so much as an inappropriate topic. Although I usually provide a list of essay topics to help you, the best way to avoid an inappropriate topic is to clear it with me in advance. When formulating a topic, keep the course content always in mind, as well as the kinds of methods and approaches that have been used in the course. I have failed quite well-written papers because, although they were marginally relevant, they did not show any particular knowledge of the actual materials and approaches used in class. An "A" biology paper will very probably be an "F" paper for a Religious Studies (or another humanities) course.

2. What is relevant?

However, if you want to create your own topic, you may ask yourself, "what is relevant?" The rule of thumb you should use in assessing the relevance of your paper topic is this: "Could I have written this paper without having taken this course?" If the answer is "Yes," something is probably amiss. Your paper should focus directly on a subject-matter that either has been or could have been covered in detail in the course. This does not mean that the topic of your paper need have been covered in class, but rather that the material to which this topic pertains ought to have been pertinent to class material. Thus, in a New Testament course, you could write on "the Gentiles in Matthew" even if we didn't directly address this question; but "the Gentiles in Milton," or "T. S. Eliot's concept of Christ" is completely inappropriate for such a course. Your paper should also approximate the kinds of methods used in the course. If our focus has been on the historical interpretation of the gospels' textual data, a paper on, say, the medical effects of crucifixion -- in spite of a superficial connection to the subject-matter -- is utterly irrelevant.

3. Ignoring the Class.

One of the most irritating of student practices, at least from the perspective of the instructor, is completely ignoring comments that have been made in lectures or advice given about papers, particularly if I have required you to submit an outline first. You do not have to agree with everything I say in class -- in fact, I usually take disagreement with my positions as a sign of thoughtful engagement with the material. But even if you do disagree with my views, I'm up here talking for a reason! Do not ignore the positions I take in class, or the methodological assumptions I make, in your own approach to the material. By all means depart from them, but in doing so, show that you have assimilated and understood what I've said, even if you disagree with it. This pertains to the relevance question, insofar as a topically on-target paper can end up having only minimal relevance to a course that I'm teaching simply because what I've taught is completely absent, even where it might be relevant. Often, when I get papers that do this, I find myself wondering if the paper was purchased. Don't buy papers, write papers; and write them in such a way that I know you've actually learned something from me.

4. Factual Accuracy

If you don't get your facts right, not only is your argument undermined, but your paper will suggest poor research and a poor understanding of the course material.  If in doubt, you can always ask me.

B. Argument

The most important thing to bear in mind when writing a paper for my courses is that -- unless I explicitly state otherwise -- all written assignments are to be treated as essays. What this means is not that there must necessarily be a formal introduction or conclusion or any such thing (I would hardly require these on a test, even for "essay questions"), but rather that your papers must be focused and argumentative. A very frequent mistake that students make in composing written work is treating their assignments like encyclopedia articles, that is, providing tons of general information without any clear reason for doing so. Don't bother: chances are, I already know this information! There should, instead, be a single, clear point that your paper is designed to prove, and to which all information presented in the paper should be related. Every sentence in the paper ought, ideally, to support (directly or indirectly) the paper's thesis (its main argumentative point). A paper with the intention of describing, for instance, "what the Gospel of Matthew's main theological interests might be" is not framed in a sufficiently argumentative fashion; a paper attempting to argue that "Matthew was not (or was) receptive to Gentiles in the church," by contrast, is perfectly focused and argumentative. This is perhaps the most important point of all for writing decent essays, and if you are unclear about it at all, you should speak with me. Note that description-oriented test questions do not need to have such an argumentative focus.

1. What constitutes an argument.

"Argument" does not mean simply disagreeing with people, or yelling and getting excited about something. In the context of essay-writing, rather, "argument" indicates a point intended to be demonstrated, and demonstrated in an intellectually satisfying and convincing way. That means that the composition of your paper will ideally revolve around an explicit and reasoned use of evidence to indicate that the reader should adopt your point of view. Thus, to return to the Gospel of Matthew example, a statement such as "anyone who claims that Matthew was open to Gentiles is an idiot" is argumentative in the popular sense, but will not do for an academic essay. Rather, one will need to trot out the relevant evidence (on which see below) and provide explicit reasons why that evidence demonstrates the cogency of your thesis. You should also be able to discuss evidence that appears to contradict your thesis, and indicate why in fact your thesis can be sustained in spite of such evidence. Ignoring opposing interpretations of the data does not strengthen your argument--it weakens it!

2. Clarity and Sophistication.

One of the most important things to keep in mind in constructing your argument is that clarity, lucidity, and comprehensibility make your argument more effective. An essay is not a mystery novel, where the reader waits until the end to find out "who did it"! Rather, it is an effort to sway the reader to your point of view, even if the reader should initially hold a different opinion. Thus you should begin by stating exactly what it is you intend to prove, and then keep returning the reader, in your argumentation, to that thesis:

"Thus this material likewise indicates that Matthew fully intended to exclude Gentiles from the church. Another text that makes essentially the same point, and thus confirms this interpretation, is . . ." It may seem a little like you're beating the argument to death, but better that than being too obscure. If you get stuck, just ask yourself, "what am I trying to say here?" and whatever the answer to that question is, just write it down!

On the other hand, being explicit and clear does not mean being simplistic. A sophisticated thesis, well-argued, is better than a simplistic or obvious thesis that could be argued by anyone. The thesis of your paper should be informed by the course material, which means you should have been unable to come up with the thesis in the first place without having spent some time in the course. A thesis like "Paul believed salvation comes through Jesus" is indeed somewhat argumentative (in the sense that someone could conceivably say, "no, he didn't"), but is so obvious as not to be worth saying. If you begin your paper with a simplistic thesis like this, no matter how many great individual insights you might have, the chances are that your whole essay will be equally simplistic. Aim, always, for conceptual sophistication: try to write a paper that I will enjoy reading, and maybe learn something from.

3. Text and Evidence.

When dealing with scriptures, the main source of evidence -- and often the only source of evidence -- are the texts themselves. Thus almost any good essay will have to refer copiously to the texts in order to have any evidence on which to base an argument. If we are arguing that the Gospel of Matthew wished to exclude Gentiles from the church, where else are we going to get evidence for this assertion, except from the Gospel of Matthew itself? Since you can usually assume that I have access to the texts you are discussing, you may simply wish to cite the texts to which you are referring. But sometimes, especially if the point you're making has to do with the details of the text, it is useful to quote the text in question. In any case, a paper without copious primary-source textual references is a paper without evidence. Note too that other peoples' opinions do not exactly constitute evidence. Even if you are writing a research paper, the fact that someone or another has agreed with your position in print doesn't mean much. Citations of secondary literature should be used to acknowledge sources of information or dependence on someone else's arguments, but they do not actually prove anything other than that someone else agrees with you. So what? Maybe you're both wrong -- let's see the evidence!

4. Original Language Arguments.

Another practice I find both irritating and certainly pushing the envelope of both relevance and original thought, is the citation of original languages when those languages are not known by the student. Most of the material I teach -- regardless of the course -- was originally written in a language other than English, and is being taught in English translation. Unless you know the original language of the text and are able to consult the text in that original language, you have to be satisfied with working in translation. The fact is, most translations that we use are very, very good. So there is no problem: assume that your English version accurately represents the sense and wording of the original. But I have noticed that some students, apparently under the influence of certain irresponsible secondary sources, will make linguistic claims that they are absolutely incapable of verifying themselves. Since, chances are, you do not know Hebrew, Greek, or Arabic, do not use arguments that appeal to the original meaning of the Hebrew, Greek or Arabic, regardless of what some secondary sources might say. If such an argument is really important to your thesis, at the very least check it with me first, just to ensure that your information is accurate.

C. Documentation and Sources.

Most essays and some other types of written assignments require a measure of research, i.e., the use of secondary sources. Generally, these sources should be scholarly sources -- they should come from academic books of the sort to be found in the University library, or from articles in academic journals. Material found in popular magazines (including news magazines such as Newsweek and Time) are usually not acceptable unless the topic in question pertains directly to current affairs. Using secondary sources can be tedious and time-consuming, but it is the only way to ensure that your ideas are in dialogue with, and informed by, scholarly discourse. The following comments are not relevant to primary-source writing assignments.

1. Using books.

Much of the secondary information you find for an essay will come from books on the topic, usually from the University's library. If you can't find what you're looking for at UNCW, you can always get books through interlibrary loan.  For some topics in my courses, the use of interlibrary load is essential.  However, getting books this way takes time (read: weeks).  Start your research early so you can get access to the books you need. Also, when researching using books, remember that any single book will contain a lot of information. This means that you do not need to find books that directly address your particular subject-matter. If you are working on "the presentation of Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew" you do not need to find a book entitled The Presentation of Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew -- just about any book on Matthew will touch on this subject. So grab a bunch of books on the Gospel of Matthew generally and either check their indexes or skim through their tables of contents. This also means that, unless you find a book that is entirely and directly relevant to your topic, you do not need to actually read the books you cite or list in your bibliography, cover to cover. Use these texts scrupulously and selectively: as a result, you will not only derive much more information from them in less time, but you will also be able to cite many more works, and thus have a better-looking (i.e., bigger) bibliography. So, at least when it comes to books, it is best to interpret the parameters of what might be relevant as widely as possible.

2. Using Articles.

Scholarly articles, in contrast to books, are usually focused on very specific subjects. They are therefore not as useful as books for deriving general information, but are much more useful than books for determining the character of current, cutting-edge scholarly discussion. The difficulty with researching journal articles is that it is difficult to find exactly what you are looking for. There are some electronic search databases for journal articles, and for selected topics there are annual print volumes that list journal articles by subject, author, and title (for religious studies one such resource is the Religion Index, for Islamic studies one such  resource is Index Islamicus, both of which the library has in its reference section). Another way to find useful journal articles is simply by tracking down references to articles that appear in the bibliographies and/or notes of the books you consult. If a title grabs your attention as especially relevant, by all means write down the bibliographic information, and find that article. Then track down its citations, and so on. A good research paper will have as many -- or more -- references to scholarly articles as to books.  These articles are also available by interlibrary loan, if our library does not have them.  Once again, start your research early so that you can get these articles in time. 

3. Citing the Web.

One recent source-related issue that requires special attention is the World Wide Web. I have noticed increasing citation of web pages in academic papers over the last several years. There is nothing especially wrong with using the web as a source of information, but it should be recognized that web pages are not in themselves academic sources. There are none of the usual controls and reviews of web material that are the norm for print media and especially for academic print media. As a result, using web sources is often no more useful (or is even less useful!) than using a popular magazine or a pamphlet as a source. Thus, I will not accept web pages as bibliographic sources in your papers. There are only two exceptions to this.

a. I will accept as sources documents that have appeared in print, but are only accessible to you over the web. That is, if an article, for instance, has appeared in an academic journal, and you cannot find that journal in the library, but can find a version of the article on the web, you may cite that web version as a source. If you do so, however, you must provide both the print citation and the URL where you found the material. 

b. I will also accept statistical information pertinent to specific organizations or to their areas of expertise, provided that the information comes from the web page of the organization itself. Thus for instance if the Amnesty International web page provides information about persecution of non-Muslims in Indonesia, you may use that information. If, however, someone's personal web page claims to provide such information, you may not use it, at least not without finding external verification.

4. Class materials.

There are times when information that is derived from a particular secondary source does not need to be cited. In general, there are two main reasons for citing secondary material. First, you should cite your source when you rely upon someone else's arguments. And second, you should cite your sources of information, but only provided that this information is not common knowledge. For instance, if it should come up in our hypothetical paper on Matthew that Jewish males practice circumcision, this is not something that one needs a secondary-source citation to establish. I tend to assume that material covered in class also represents such "common knowledge," for the purposes of the course. Thus, while it is certainly not common knowledge that the Gospel of Matthew was composed around 85-90 CE, this is a fact that would be known to all persons in any class I was teaching on the subject. Hence you can bring up this detail without citing your source. One implication of this is that there is very little good reason for actually citing or quoting lectures and other class materials -- treat all of this as common knowledge, and only provide citations when your comments go beyond what has been covered in class.

5. In-Text Citations.

Usually, when citing primary sources in the course of your paper, you will want to cite them in the body of your text. Specific scriptural citations, for instance, or the book under examination in a book review, should never be cited using notes. Rather, place the references within the context of the sentence, or in parentheses. Thus, for instance, in a book review of Burton Mack's A Myth of Innocence, you might say something like "In A Myth of Innocence, Mack argues that the miracles of Jesus circulated separately (p.165)." Biblical citations, whether parenthetical or in the body of a sentence, should use a 3-5 letter abbreviation for the book in question (thus "Matt" for Matthew, but "Luke" for Luke), followed by a space, the chapter number, a colon, and the verse numbers. Quranic references simply use "Qur'an" (thus Qur'an 2:13, for surah 2, verse 13).  Consecutive verses are indicated with a hyphen or n-dash, non-consecutive verses with commas. Thus: "Luke 6:20" or "Qur'an 13:34-35" or "Luke 12:2-4, 10-15." Separate non-consecutive citations should be separated with semi-colons. Thus: "Luke 6:20; 13:34_35; Matt 4:15." When referring to the whole biblical books, however, do not use the abbreviations. Thus: "The perspective of the Gospel of Matthew is one in which Gentiles are held in suspicion."

6. Quotations.

Quoted text -- including very short and even single-word quotations -- should be enclosed in double quotation marks, thus: The author of the Gospel of Matthew refers to Gentiles as "dogs." Most of the time, final punctuation (commas, periods, etc.) is placed inside the quotation marks; the exceptions are colons and semicolons, as well as question marks and exclamations if they are not part of the actual quotation. Single quotation marks are used for quotations within quotations, thus: The professor said, "The author of the Gospel of Matthew refers to Gentiles as `dogs.'" Direct quotations of four or more lines should be single-spaced and block indented, and appear without quotation marks around them.

7. Bibliography and Note Formats.

Finally, when citing secondary materials, you should use a consistent and academically-acceptable format. I do not particularly care which format you use, as long as your use is consistent. You may use either footnotes or endnotes or MLA parenthetical notes.  Whatever format you use, make sure it is an accepted format.  Be consistent, and eventually you'll be able to do it in your sleep.

8. Plagiarism.

It goes without saying that plagiarism is a bad thing.  If you are uncertain what constitutes plagiarism, I suggest consulting the UNCW Code of Student Life.  It points out that unacknowledged  "paraphrase" and "mosaic" are as bad as word-for-word plagiarism.  What is worth pointing out here, however, is that there are certain marginally-ethical practices that do not constitute plagiarism, but which may, depending on your instructor, be frowned upon.

a. One such practice is collaboration on papers. On this matter, you need to use your own judgment. If talking about your topic with classmates helps you develop your ideas, more power to you. But, on the other hand, developing your paper in tandem with a classmate who is working on the same topic is dangerous: it becomes difficult to tell at what point you have stopped merely bouncing ideas around and have started to collaborate on the paper. Unless s/he explicitly states otherwise, an instructor who receives two identical or even substantially similar papers (in terms of ideas, argumentative structure, organization, wording) is quite likely to fail them both. 

b. Another ethically-ambiguous area is the practice of reusing papers. Some instructors will go so far as to regard the reuse of the main arguments from one of the course's papers (or from a paper written for a different course) as equivalent to plagiarism. I do not take this view: learning strikes me as cumulative, and if you want to develop ideas that you have worked at elsewhere, or earlier in the course, that's great. But at the same time, it is unwise and unethical to simply recycle a complete paper written for a different assignment. Chances are, the requirements for one paper will differ sufficiently from the other that such a practice will ensure a mediocre grade at best. So feel free to develop ideas you have expressed elsewhere, but do not actually reuse papers.

D. Presentation Issues.

While a sophisticated and intelligent paper should be read on its own merits, poor or obtrusively sloppy use of the English language can distract the reader from your brilliant insights, and even -- at worst -- make your paper incomprehensible. There are a number of things you can do to prevent poor use of language from getting in the way of your ideas, even if you are not a great writer.

1. Spelling.

Arbitrary though it is, correct spelling is a prerequisite to an effective paper. It is not that I would ever grade on a paper on the basis of spelling, but misspellings or typographical errors have a way of jumping out at the reader and have a very jarring effect. If you are writing your paper on a computer, use the computer's spell-check -- it is an easy and effective way to avoid this particular problem. Note, by the way, that a spell-check will not catch wrong word usages or typos that correspond to real words in the English language. Thus, for instance, if you accidentally type "nave" for "have," your spell-checker will understand "nave" as a correct English word, and will not prompt you for a correction. Thus, even with a spell-checker, you will need to proofread your work.

2. Grammar.

There are also grammar-checkers in most wordprocessors to help you catch grammatical errors, wrong word usages, missing words, and so forth.  Poor grammar, like poor spelling, detracts from the quality of a paper.  Even a paper having a clear argument and evidencing good research in support of that argument will seem at best unsophisticated if it has too many grammatical errors.  At worst, the paper will not make any sense.  In order to catch both errors that a spell-checker and grammar-checker might miss, proofreading is indispensable. Proofread carefully -- better still, have a friend proofread your paper for you. Not only will they be better able to pick out your errors than you might be, but they can also tell you whether the paper is understandable, makes sense, and reads well.

3. Clarity of Expression.

Since the point of an academic paper is to communicate rather than to entertain, aim first and above all for a style that is clear and lucid. Simplicity and clarity will carry much more weight than fancy language and stylistic tricks. Some people prefer to adopt a rather formal -- even ponderous -- style for essays, but this is not absolutely necessary. It is acceptable to be relatively casual, to refer to yourself (as in "I think that" or the like); but at the same time, it is best to avoid contractions (write out "does not" rather than "doesn't"), and generally to be brisk and straightforward. By no means should you sacrifice clarity for stylistic flair. The various sections of the paper should also flow together.  By that I mean, topics and paragraphs in the essay should follow one another in a understandable and logical fashion.

4. Length

My word-counts or page-counts are flexible.  An essay which is short, but is concise and covers the material is acceptable.  An essay which is long, but is contents are relevant to the argument is also acceptable.  However, short essays that inadequately cover the subject and long essays full of irrelevant material will be penalized.

5. Generalities.

Your paper should employ a standard typeface that is easy to read, and should include a fair bit of "white space" on the page to make the paper easy on the eye. Typically, all margins should about one inch, and the text should be double-spaced. If you're using a proportional font like Times Roman, a 12 point font is probably best. If you are using Courier or some other non-proportional font, a 10 pitch size is about right. Whatever you do, do not attempt to disguise excessively long or excessively short papers by playing with font, spacing, or margins -- this is obvious and tends to make for unattractive papers. Also, always number your pages.

6. My Personal Preferences and Suggestions.

Here are some things that I think (a) important but don't want to force on you, or (b) pet-peeves.

a. Inclusive language is increasingly the norm in academic writing in English. When you are referring to human beings in general, therefore, attempt to do so in such a way that both genders are grammatically indicated. "They" is increasingly an acceptable singular neuter pronoun; "s/he" is acceptable as well. Do not use "Man" or "Mankind" to denote the human race. On the other hand, when the reality to which you are referring is exclusive, by all means reflect that in your language. Thus, e.g., references to Roman Catholic priests can quite appropriately take the masculine pronoun or the general noun "men," because, in fact, all Catholic priests are men. 

b. Avoid pious usages, if it is at all possible to do so in good conscience. I will not force you to write "God" if anything other than "G-d" offends your sensibilities, but I would prefer that your own religious beliefs not be reflected in the language of your written work. References in the first-person plural to religious or other ideological commitments -- such as references to "what we believe" or to "our Lord" -- are unacceptable. You have no way of knowing if your Lord is my Lord! 

c. The word "however" is not a conjunction. You cannot link two separate clauses with it. Thus, a usage such as "the author of the Gospel of Matthew is distrustful of Gentiles, however he does accept that they can be saved" is grammatically incorrect. "However" is a particle that can be used to introduce sentences, either at the very start of the new sentence, or further along in the sentence, but referring back to the sentence before. Thus: "The author of the Gospel of Matthew is distrustful of Gentiles. However, he does accept that they can be saved" or "The author of the Gospel of Matthew is distrustful of Gentiles. He does accept that they can be saved, however." 

d. Pluralization and possession are indicated grammatically in completely different ways. Pluralization is never expressed with an apostrophe. If you want to pluralize a noun, add an "s" or "es" (usually) -- not an apostrophe + "s"; and if you want to indicate possession, do so using an apostrophe + "s" or just an apostrophe. Plurals and some other words that end with the letter "s" are made into possessives by tacking just an apostrophe (without an "s") to the end of the word. Thus: "Augustus' empire," or "the laborers' union," and so on. The possessive of the pronoun "it" is "its" (no apostrophe) in order to distinguish it from the contraction of "it is" (which is "it's").

e. Never, never, begin a paper with "The Websters Dictionary defines . . . ".   I am interested in your thoughts and ideas.  I can tolerate quotations at the very beginning of an essay -- if they are relevant -- but I suggest not using them in your concluding paragraph.  You are summing up your argument. Why would you need to use a quotation?

f. If you ask a series of questions in your paper, you had better answer them.  Why would I say that?  What does that mean?  Why is it wrong?  Will you lose points?  You are trying to convey information to me in your essay, and questions do not do that.  

g. In narrative fiction ellipses (". . .") are sometimes used at end of sentences, especially in dialogue to suggest "and so on," a fading away, an interruption, or to create a little suspense.  You will never use ellipses for such functions in a research essay.  They are used in quotations to indicate missing text.

h.  If you don't know exactly what a word means (that is, what it denotes) and how it is used (that is, what it connotes), then consult a dictionary or don't use the word.  You will not impress me with your vocabulary by using words incorrectly.

A lot of stuff to think about while writing a paper.  But if you are interested in getting A's or B's from me, you will try to think about them.

Last modified on July 15, 2005 by Herbert Berg