The ability to understand, use, and insert
in your text is an easy way to make it readable and make it mean what you want it to mean. If you are on MacOS, inserting these characters are easy. Windows might need AutoHotKey or some such. Linux has this ability built into it, but requires some set up. RL Trask’s penguin dictionary of punctuation is a succinct guide to the world of punctuation. For more, read Eats, Shoots, and LEaves and if you are so inclined, try Shady Characters and the section on Analphebatical Symbols from Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographical Style.
Learn what these things mean and what they do
Use https://practicaltypography.com/type-composition.html for an excellent explanation of these terms. You might also want to wander this site and pick up more information about making form serve content.
I am not a typograher, but
are ways through which your text becomes easier to work with for your readers. Not just eye-candy, but efficiency and kindness. An easy way is to use xelatex (through pandoc) to make PDFs. Or follow Matthew Butterick or tufte.css (for web) or leave the layout to designers.
While the sentence is the basic unit of an argument, undue attention to the paragraph eclipses the importance of sentences.
A simple academic sentence can be something of this sort: “The novel is about how John killed Mary.”
The problem here is that this sentence merely summarises the plot of the novel. This is a summary. But in academic writing, especially in literary studies, what matters is how something is presented, and what it does.
To achieve this, write the sentence this way: “The novel (verbs) (form) (content) to (ideological move) (effect).”
(verbs) is the action that the novel does. Such as ‘stages’ or ‘frames’ or ‘mobilises.’ There are a lot of such critical-verbs which can be used to write such sentences. I will link to a collection of them here soon.
(content) is the subject that you want to discuss. The killing of Mary.
(form) is how the novel presents it. Atmospheric description, irony, subplot and so on.
(ideological move) is what the content+form really does. In our case, it is perhaps the making-visible of patriarchal domination through corporeal means and ontological extinguision.
(effect) is what all of this does to the reader/the novel itself/the world. Say, it orients the reader to the injustic of the world.
Rewritten, the sentence would be: “The novel frames through vivid atmospheric description John’s killing of Mary to visibilise patriarchal domination through corporeal means and ontolgical extinguision. This orients the reader to the injustice of the world.”
Schema: verb-form-content-move-effect
The entire schema is too long to post here. I shall give a basic outline.
Few paras introducing the arguments and the readings. A map of the chapter.
Discussing the author and the text in light of her other works and life. Discussing what the current scholarship on the author is, and how you differ from this/your take on it.
Argument x (something the novel does) supported by R1 (close reading example 1) and R2, ultimately resonating with A (a larger concern that resonates with x).
repeat Section 2 with y, B and z, C, each with their own R1 and R2.
Concludes the chapter by summarising xyz, ABC, discussing what is missed, what else is possible etc.
schema: intro(untitled)-author+text-x-y-z-conclusion
The dissertation is the thesis T which is in turn supported by arguments O, P, F.
O, P, and F are arguments of the constitutent chapters 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
Each of O, P, F are in turn supported by arguments A, B, C.
These A, B, C are the slightly abstract arguments of a single chapter, say, chapter 1 that makes up the argument O.
Each of A, B, C are in turn supported by a topics identified as X, Y, and Z. (X, Y, Z are observations made from the text studied; is embedded in the text and is concrete.) X is related to A, Y is related to B, and Z is related to C.
Each of X, Y, Z are in turn supported by R1 and R2, which are two instances where X (or Y or Z) is made more complex, is dealt with in a particular way, is played with and so on.
Thus, T=O+P+F=(OPF)·(ABC), where A, B, C are of the structure X+R1+R2
R1 and R2 are the most grounded, then comes X Y and Z which are still based on the text, then A B and C (goes out of the text to society and history), then O P and F (a figuration, a way of seeing), and then T.
Literary studies dissertations, although they have an inner schematic, is built through rhetorical moves using certain phrases. Mastering this is key to good writing. There are academic phrasebanks available online for reference. Or you can write a basic regex-searching script in python and run a dissertation through it to find phrases such as “I read…” “The novel examines…” and the like. You might be able to find a few on my github page (there is a long term plan to provide a front-end for this text parsing).
A doctoral dissertation is an argument (the thesis) split over multiple sections (chapters), each of which makes an argument that contributes to the thesis.
Each chapter is a self-contained unit that makes an argument. This argument is in turn made up of three (typical) observations made about the novel using just the text as evidence, each of which is supported and detailed by two (typical) readings/examples from the novel. If x, y, and z are these observations, each of them should have an R1 and an R2 as highly specific examples. These x, y, z, should map on to a, b, c, which are arguments that can be made about the world outside the novel. That is to say x should resonate with the wider issue of a, y should resonate with the wider issue of b and so on. abc supported by xyz in turn supported by (R1R2)*3 is the basic structure of a (typical) chapter.
Each paragraph has three units: the topic sentence, the body, and the conclusion. The topic sentence is the first sentence in the paragraph. This is a gist of the entire paragraph; a reader should be able to understand the point of the paragraph from the topic sentence alone. THe body supports this topic sentence by providing examples and instances of what the topic sentence suggests. The conclusion mentions the topic once again and segues into the next paragraph.