A GUIDE TO WRITING FOR LITERARY MASTERPIECES:
I. OVERVIEW OF THE WRITING PROCESS:
(1) Summary of Various Types of Assignments:
We might begin by considering the kinds of writing assignments you might be given for courses such as Intellectual Heritage and Literary Masterpieces. All of the writing assignments in these courses focus on texts: on books, essays, plays and other works of "literaure."
The simplest type of assignment in such courses might call for exposition of a given writer's views or of a particular trend or genre. For example, you may be asked: "What, according to Engels, were the conditions of working class life in England?" or "What are the principal features of Liberalism?" or "What are the primary characteristics of an epic?"
A second common assignment is to write a paper based on comparison and contrast. For example, you could be required to contrast the critiques of capitalism offered by Karl Marx and a literary figure such as Shelley, Charles Dickens or Matthew Arnold; or you might be asked to compare and contrast two conflicting views of imperialism or of the appropriate status of women.
A third type of assignment might ask for a paper investigating cause and effect. For example, you could be asked to write on the causes of the French Revolution; or the immediate/long term effects of the Civil Rights movement in America.
A more complex kind of assignment may ask you to evaluate the argument(s) of one or more writers. You may be required, for example, to assess Edmund Burke's arguments against the French Revolution or the arguments of Thomas Paine in support of that revolution; or you could be asked to assess the arguments of various writers for and against racism.
Finally, you may have assignments requiring you to analyze a literary text. In this case, you must consider not only the text's content (what it says) but its form (how it says). For example, you might be asked to consider how Frederick Douglass' autobiography uses literary devices to intensify its argument against slavery; or you may need to reflect on the structure of a text such as the Odyssey or Dante's Inferno.
These, then, are the most common kinds of assignments you will be given. You need to recognize that there are no sharp bondaries between them; a paper contrasting the views of Burke and Paine will also consider the nature of their arguments; it will, of course, entail exposition of their views. However, you need to determine where the emphasis of each assignment lies and to structure your paper according to the appropriate format.
(2) Approaching the Assignment:
The most fundamental prerequisite of a good paper is that you read the text thoroughly, think about it carefully and have something worthwhile to say about it. Most poorly written papers are written by people who have little or nothing to say: this condition inevitably holds with those who don't give themselves enough time to complete the assignment and who have an inadequate knowledge of the text.
Assuming that you take time to read the text carefully, there are certain procedures which will help you in the various kinds of assignments noted above: