Indholdsfortegnelse
Sådan skrives et essay – How to write an essay
Et essay i gymnasiet er en sammenhængende analyse og fortolkning af en tekst. Det består grundlæggende af tre dele:
- Indledningen (the introduction).
- Hoveddelen (the body).
- Afslutningen (the conclusion).
Essayets indledning har to formål:
1. Temaet skal præsenteres
Her er det de faktuelle oplysninger fra teksten, du skal have frem, men samtidig lidt begyndende analyse. Indledningen skal præsentere nogle centrale konklusioner og være præcis og forholdsvis kort. Du skal her bruge krudt på at lave en spændende indledning, der fanger din læser og giver ham/hende lyst til at læse videre.
- Tænk i en pang-indledning (teaser), der slår tekstens tone/tema an og griber læseren.
- Benyt en tragtindledning, altså en indledning der går fra noget generelt til noget konkret i selve teksten.
- Præsentér dit fokus ved af afsløre en central konklusion – enten på tema, budskab eller lignende. Dermed dannes der en cirkelstruktur, hvor din indledning fører frem til din konklusion og omvendt.
- Angiv faktuelle oplysninger omkring novellens titel, forfatter,antologi, udgivelsesår.
- Genrebestem: er det en novelle (short story), et uddrag fra en roman (excerpt from novel) etc.?
2. Læserens interesse skal vækkes
Indledningen skal også vække læserens interesse; dette kan gøres på flere forskellige måder:
Nedenfor præsenteres 4 forskellige typer indledninger:
- “The Relevant Quotation”
- “The Anecdote”
- “The Dramatic Entrance”
- ”The Tunnel”
“The Relevant Quotation”: man kan begynde med et velvalgt citat, for eksempel fra teksten.
Sunday in the Park
“She sensed that it was more than just an unpleasant incident, more than defeat of reason by force.” (p.99 ll. 12-13). And that is exactly what the reader realizes about this “unpleasant incident”: it turns out to be a turning point in the lives of this small family out to enjoy a peaceful Sunday afternoon in the park. – The short story evolves around the moral question of how to face up to brute force exemplified by the threatening man on the next bench; how do you defend yourself and your family? Do you have to resort to violence yourself – especially if you are a man?
Scary Movies
“The good fear was gone from the Roxy, replaced by the real thing”(ll.191-2). In this American short story, set in 1968 at the height of racial clashes in the US, the narrator, a white nine-year-old boy, is confronted with the harsh realities of life. He comes to realize that the comfort he has found in giving in to the pleasurable thrills of horror movies can no longer keep the horrors of real life at bay.
“The Anecdote”: man kan fortælle en lille historie, der på en eller anden måde illustrerer tekstens centrale tema.
Sunday in the Park
Sunday morning at the baker’s; we are all patiently waiting our turn when a bodybuilder type of man enters the shop. He does not heed the many people already there, – who were there before him, – but marches directly to the counter pushing other customers as he goes; slamming his gloves down in front of the frightened, young girl behind it he barks out the orders for whatever it is he requires. – Aggression rises in the shop: this is not just a question of getting home quickly to your morning coffee, this is a moral issue: the man has broken the rules: because he is “big,” he apparently feels that normal, civilized behaviour does not apply to him. – How do we – the rational, civilized, peace- loving people in the shop deal with that in a way so that we can keep our self-respect?
This is also the main theme in the short-story “Sunday in the Park”.
“The Dramatic Entrance”: det er også muligt at begynde med et provokerende udsagn eller spørgsmål, som vil få læseren til at spidse øren.
Sunday in the Park
“Survival of the fittest”: that is the order of things, just like Darwin said, is it not? – If “fit” means physically strongest and most aggressive, it seems to apply to the short-story, “Sunday in the Park,” where we meet two men and their families: a “real” man and an intellectual, weak one who cannot even defend his own child, because he afraid to fight. In that way brute force wins over reason and justice, and that is not an outcome that sits easily with many of us. What is it the author is trying to tell us? – That even in everyday situations we have to defend our values even if it costs us a bloody nose? – That in order to defend peace we have to turn violent? If we don’t, we shall lose our self-respect?
Scary Movies
What on earth makes people pay good money for tickets to horror films that are guaranteed to scare them out of their wits? One explanation could be that the imagined horrors in films make the real horrors of life seem more bearable, but the nine-year-old narrator of this short story learns that this is not so. He is an avid fan of scary movies, but the frightening racial disturbances in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 make him realize that there is no escaping the horrors of real life.
”The Tunnel”: den mest traditionelle (og derfor måske den mest brugte) form for indledning kaldes ”tragten”. Man begynder på det generelle plan for derefter at arbejde sig ind mod teksten, dvs. det specifikke plan.
Sunday in the Park
Example one:
Most people do not care for confrontations with their fellow men; we have only survived as a species because we stuck together in groups with a social order; confrontations and power struggles would mean pain and death and threaten the social order and harmony of our family group. Knowledge of that is part of our genetic heritage, and it fits in well with the way we see ourselves now: as civilized beings, who rate intellectual strength higher than brute force. Occurrences where the brute defeats intellect and reason are therefore deeply disturbing to all of us, – and certainly to the small family that we meet in “Sunday in the Park”: How can a reasonable, peace-loving man defend himself and his family thus keeping his wife’s respect, without turning into a brute himself?
Example 2
How should we deal with bullies? – How do we hold our own and keep our dignity and self-respect without resorting to threat and violence ourselves? There are no easy answers to that, but the way we handle that kind of confrontations may have lasting influence on our lives as shown in the short-story “Sunday in the Park”, where a small bully in a sandbox causes a conflict to break out not only between families, but also inside one, triggering a (fatal?) rift between husband, wife and child.
Scary Movies
Horror movies seem to have universal appeal from Godzilla in Japan to The Chainsaw Massacre in America. Audiences seem to enjoy the thrill of seeing other people in frightening situations, maybe because it can make them forget for a couple of hours that it is a dangerous and scary world out there. Or maybe it makes them feel better equipped to deal with the horrors of reality. However, the narrator of this short story learns that this is not true. The nine-year-old boy is an avid fan of scary movies, but the frightening racial disturbances in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 make him realize that there is no escaping the horrors of real life.
Hoveddel
Her føres ”beviser” for indledningens tese, og her uddybes og detaljeres det tema, som er introduceret i indledningen.
Paragraphs:
Som regel er hoveddelen delt op i underafsnit (paragraphs). Et afsnit defineres som en del af teksten, der behandler et underemne eller et aspekt af argumentationen.
Topic sentence:
Hovedideen i et afsnit kan med fordel defineres i en enkelt sætning (topic sentence: en sætning, der klart formulerer hovedideen i et afnit; man kan sige, at en topic sentence har sammen funktion i et afsnit, somthe thesis statement har for essayet som helhed). De enkelte afsnit i hoveddelen skal hænge sammen både indholdsmæssigt og sprogligt.
Paragraph bridge:
Denne sammenhæng kan tydeliggøres ved hjælp af en ”overgang” (paragraph bridge: dette er en sætning eller et ord, der fører læseren fra underemnet i et afsnit til underemnet i det næste).
For opgaven på B-niveau betyder det f.eks., at du skal skabe en sammenhæng mellem pindene og ikke bare behandle det ene og så gå videre til det næste uden at skabe logisk sammenhæng.
Eksempler på forskellige former for sammenhæng (kohærens – se nedenfor). LINK.
Afslutning
Afslutningen bør være kort. Her opsummeres og afrundes teksten, og du bør ikke tage nye ideer op. Man kan gøre det på forskellige måder:
- Genfremsættelse af hovedtesen (men ikke bevidstløs gentagelse).
- Yderligere generalisering.
- Evaluering med eventuel fremtidsperspektivering.
Typical points in a literary essay:
- setting – time, place & environment
- point-of-view, narrative technique
- characterization and character development
- themes
- message
- imagery, figurative language
- symbols
- title
- the ending
Kohærens betyder sammenhæng
Selv de mest overbevisende argumenter kan ikke bevæge din læser, hvis de ikke hænger sammen. Selvom din tankestrøm forekommer dig selv klar og logisk, må du aldrig gå ud fra, at din læser kan følge den uden videre. Derfor må du give ham/hende hjælp til at forbinde dine sætninger, idéer eller afsnit med hinanden. Det kan du gøre ved at udlægge en række ”trædesten”, som vil give din læser mulighed for at følge din røde tråd. Nogle af ”trædestenene” vil føre læseren fremad og antyde opbygningen af en idé, andre vil få ham/hende til at sammenligne to eller flere idéer, og atter andre kan pege tilbage og få læseren til at konkludere på tidligere idéer.
Adverbielle konjunktioner som trædesten
Her følger en liste over ”trædesten”, også kendt som adverbielle konjunktioner. Du skal selvfølgelig ikke bruge dem alle, men hvis du ved gennemlæsning af din færdige stil ikke kan få øje på andre konjunktioner end and og but, er der noget alvorligt galt med sammenhængen!
fortsættelse af eller tilføjelse til en tankegang: |
and, again, and then, besides, equally important, finally, further, furthermore, nor, too, next, lastly, what’s more, moreover, in addition, first (second etc.), similarly, for example
konstatering eller forstærkelse af en tankegang: |
in fact, as a matter of fact, indeed, actually, certainly, undeniably, surprisingly, obviously
Sammenligning af tankegange: |
whereas, by comparison, to compare
modsætning eller tilbagetrækning af en tankegang: |
but, however, yet, still, where, although, though, meanwhile, although this may be true, on the other hand, nevertheless, on the contrary, unlike
illustration af en tankegang: |
for example, for instance, in this case, on this occasion, take the case of, to demonstrate, to illustrate, as an illustration, in other words, that is
rækkefølgen i en tankegang: |
first (second, third osv), next, then, following this, now, at this point, subsequently, finally, consequently, previously, simultaneously, thus, therefore, hence, next, soon
gentagelse af en tankegang: |
in brief, as I have said, as has been noted, as above mentioned
begrundelse af eller konklusion på en tankegang: |
so, therefore, accordingly, as a result, consequently, thus, on the whole, as I have shown, hence, in brief, in short, in other words, to conclude, to sum up
Pronomener er glimrende “trædesten”.
I stedet for bevidstløs og monoton opremsning af hovedsætninger bør du bruge de relative pronomener who, whom ,whose, which, where til at sammenkæde hoved- og bisætninger.
- She looks at Larry, he is happily playing… = She looks at Larry, who is happily playing…
- The big man, whose reading consists of comics…
- The story takes place in a park where we find…
De demonstrative pronomener this, these anvendes om det, der er taleren nært og er derfor fine at bruge, når du skal knytte an til noget, du lige har skrevet.
- How do you defend yourself and your family? This is what the story is about.
- How should we deal with bullies? How do we hold our own? These are the questions asked in the text.
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