Transcript BSTW week 13

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
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
Essay planning
• You need to look at some essay writing
advice websites this week.
• One recommendation is
http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/tld/student/7step
s/essay.htm
• ***Ignore websites that offer to write your
essay for money.***
(look at planning now)
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
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
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.ht
m
• 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!
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
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!
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
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
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!)
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…”
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.
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)
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
Planning your essay
• There should be three main sections
– What are they?
– http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/tld/student/7steps/es
say.htm#4
• What should you say in the Introduction to
your essay (in general terms)?
– You might like to check this out