The Mechanics of Writing

 what is Mechanics of Writing ? 

The mechanics of writing refer to the technical aspects of writing, such as spelling, punctuation, grammar, and formatting. It encompasses the rules and conventions that writers must follow to ensure their writing is clear, concise, and readable.

Effective writing requires attention to these details because even minor errors can detract from the quality of the writing and make it difficult for readers to understand. For instance, incorrect punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence, while misspelled words can create confusion and distract the reader.

By mastering the mechanics of writing, writers can communicate their ideas more effectively and convey their message with clarity and precision. It's essential to learn and practice these skills to improve your writing and make it more effective.

Video 1

What is academic Writing ?

Academic writing is a style of writing used in academic settings such as universities, colleges, and research institutions. It is a formal style of writing that is used to convey information and ideas in a clear, concise, and structured manner.

Academic writing requires a thorough understanding of the topic and the use of evidence to support arguments. It also involves critical thinking, analysis, and the ability to communicate complex ideas effectively.

Academic writing is typically characterized by its use of a formal tone, technical language, and adherence to specific formatting and citation styles. It is often used to communicate research findings, theoretical ideas, and critical analysis of various topics in various fields of study such as science, engineering, humanities, and social sciences.

academic writing is a specific style of writing used in academic and research contexts that involves critical thinking, analysis, and the use of evidence to support arguments.

What is Non- Academic Writing?

Non-academic writing refers to any type of writing that is not done in an academic or research setting, and is not intended for publication in academic or scholarly journals. It encompasses a wide variety of writing styles, including creative writing, technical writing, business writing, journalism, and personal writing.

Non-academic writing can take many forms, including letters, emails, blog posts, social media updates, memoirs, novels, and more. Unlike academic writing, non-academic writing is often intended for a general audience, rather than a specific academic or scholarly audience.

The tone and style of non-academic writing can vary widely depending on the purpose and audience. For example, creative writing may involve a more informal and expressive style, while technical writing may require a more precise and technical vocabulary. 

non-academic writing refers to any form of writing that is not done in an academic or research setting and is intended for a general audience, rather than a specific academic or scholarly audience.

Video 2

In this video Prof. Atanu Bhattacharya explained Academic writing very well.

1, What not to do.

2, What can be done.

3,  Web tools.

4, Case study.

Another Prof. Atanu Bhattacharya discussed that there are several kinds of scales that will also be helpful to understand academic writing.

A fake take away :

This academic writing has material effects. Some kinds of data, charts and rates material for academic writing.

Avoid a Jargon :

Also in this video we discussed Research and publication ethics, and carefully chose the topic.

Some tips for academic writing are given in the video. Tips like,

1. Introduction last : because at the end you are aware of what your research is and how it ends, so you can write a better introduction at last.

2. Create an Index literature review : Indexes are not needed to do in MLA or Chicago style but it is simply the names of books which helps to understand what there is in the books exactly.

3. Be sure of the triangulated methods : it means while doing research work one has to analyse work with various perspectives and various points of views for example historical views, from the point of view of biography or fiction etc.

So the three more suggestion given that are,

1) Do not repeat the same arguments.

2) Use available digital tools

3) Follow the literature

Also helpful digital tools are also suggested in the video. Like websites to publish our journals. like,

1) Zotero

2) Grammarly - it helps to improve writing and to refine writing.

3) Mendeley

4) Microsoft Word

5)OWL (Online Writing Lab)

6) Reverso

7) Excelsior Online writing lab

Avoid plagiarism :

 There are several types given in video of plagiarism are,

 Verbatim of rephrasing without acknowledgement.

 Inappropriate collaboration.

 Other assistance without acknowledgement.

 Cheating (copying others’ work).

Duplication (submitting the same work for different courses/ programs/ degrees).

Research fabrication and falsification.

 Using computer networks for false attribution

Video  3

Formulating propositions/ Defining- stating or defining some things and on it, the whole thesis/ dissertation is based. Its linguistic structure in

Key term + verb (be)/ is defined as/ Can be defined/ may be defined as/ is often defined as + [in] which/ that/ where/ when + Defining features.

We are not stating the truth we always state what we think is true. We should write in a way that we are not claiming anything. It's an important framework that guides us through our write-up.

Introduction

1) The Rational 

This includes several points like why we are doing such research? What is the point of doing this? How interested we are in research? What is your position in that research?

2) The thesis statement/ the topic sentence 

It is all about research topic that research is about what. and how it is supported by other evidence. It structures the entire thesis.

3) Contextualizing Material 

It is linked with 'The thesis statement'. It is all about other works happened in this area of your research paper.

4) A statement to gain the reader's interest 

One need his/her own sentence to write so that they can provide audience something that is of his own and not taken from anywhere. Researcher has to mentioned the work that has been done by others and then his/her own arguments in favor or opposed.

5) A basic Definition 

Researcher need to define his/her topic. And has to give basic introduction about the topic so it will be easy to guess what the content about.

6) Noun Phrase and Nominalisations.

A noun phrase is a group of words that functions like a noun in a sentence. It typically consists of a noun and any words that modify or describe it, such as adjectives, articles, and prepositional phrases.

For example, in the sentence "The red car parked on the street," "the red car" is a noun phrase. It consists of the noun "car" and the adjective "red" that modifies it, as well as the definite article "the."

Nominalisation, on the other hand, is the process of turning a verb, adjective, or other part of speech into a noun or noun phrase. This is done by adding a suffix such as -ment,tion, oring to the base word.

For example, the verb "to advise" can be turned into the noun "advice" by adding the suffixce. Similarly, the adjective "informative" can be turned into the noun "information" by adding the suffixation.

Nominalisation is often used in academic and technical writing to make sentences more concise and formal. However, overuse of nominalisation can make writing difficult to understand and less engaging.

a noun phrase is a group of words that functions like a noun in a sentence, while nominalisation is the process of turning a verb, adjective, or other part of speech into a noun or noun phrase.

The God of Small Things book review

 

The God of Small Things book Review 

Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" is a powerful and haunting novel that explores the complex and often tragic lives of a family in southern India. Roy's writing is both poetic and evocative, drawing readers into a world that is both beautiful and deeply flawed.

The novel tells the story of the lives of twins Estha and Rahel, as well as the events that lead up to their separation and reunion many years later. Along the way, the novel explores themes of love, loss, family, caste, and societal expectations.

One of the most striking aspects of the novel is its vivid and detailed portrayal of the setting - the small town of Ayemenem in Kerala, India. Roy's descriptions of the town, its people, and its customs are rich and immersive, transporting readers to a world that is both familiar and exotic.

Through her characters, Roy exposes the injustices and inequalities that exist in Indian society, particularly with regard to caste and gender. Yet despite the often grim subject matter, the novel is also full of moments of beauty, humor, and humanity.

Overall, "The God of Small Things" is a stunning debut novel that showcases Roy's incredible talent as a writer. Its unforgettable characters, evocative setting, and powerful themes make it a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary literature or Indian culture.

Work Cited

Book Cited : Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. Penguin Books, 2002.

Pdf : Kumari, Y. Kusuma. “A Searing Comment on Caste Discrimination in  Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” 4 Apr. 2021, http://languageinindia.com/april2021/drkusumakumarigodofsmallthings.pdf. 

Article : Jaiswal, Suvita. “Caste, Gender and Ideology in the Making of India.” Social Scientist, vol. 36, no. 1/2, 2008, pp. 3–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27644260. Accessed 27 Mar. 2023.

You tube Video : Gillespie, Iseult, et al. “Why should you read “Midnight's Children”? - Iseult Gillespie.” YouTube, 10 September 2019, https://youtu.be/x5pPo5KehCk. Accessed 27 March 2023.

Journal: SANAP, SANJAY. “SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN.” A QUARTERLY, INDEXED, REFEREED AND PEER REVIEWED OPEN ACCESS INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, vol. 9, no. 1,2022, 12 Feb. 2022, doi: 10.33329/ijelr.9.1.45.

Assignment: 208 Comparative Literature and Translation studies

Name – Janvi Nakum 

Paper No - 208

Paper Name : Comparative Literature and Translation studies

Roll no- 11 

Enrollment no –4069206420210020 

Email id – janvinakum360@gmail.com 

Batch- 2021-2023(M.A. Sem – 4) 

Topic : Comparative Literature In India : An Overview of its History

Submitted to – S.B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja  Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

 Abstract:

The essay gives an overview of the trajectory of Comparative Literature in India, focusing primarily on the department at Jadavpur University, where it began, and to some extent the department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies in the University of Delhi, where it later had a new beginning in its engagement with Indian literatures. The department at Jadavpur began with the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore’s speech on World Literature and with a modern poet-translator as its founder. While British legacies in the study of literature were evident in the early years, there were also subtle efforts towards a decolonizing process and an overall attempt to enhance and nurture creativity. Gradually Indian literature began to receive prominence along with literatures from the Southern part of the globe. Paradigms of approaches in comparative literary studies also shifted from influence and analogy studies to cross-cultural literary relations, to the focus on reception and transformation. In the last few years Comparative Literature has taken on new perspectives, engaging with different areas of culture and knowledge, particularly those related to marginalized spaces, along with the focus on recovering new areas of non-hierarchical literary relations.

The beginnings

• Long before the establishment of Comparative Literature as a discipline, there were texts focusing on comparative aspects of literature in India, both from the point of view of its relation with literatures from other parts of the world—particularly Persian, Arabic and English—and from the perspective of inter-Indian literary studies, the multilingual context facilitating a seamless journey from and between literatures written in different languages.

• Satyendranath Dutta in 1904 stated, “relationships of joy” (Dutta 124).

• The talk by Rabindranath Tagore entitled “Visvasahitya” (meaning “world literature”), given at the National Council of Education in 1907, served as a pre-text to the establishment of the department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University in 1956,

• Different from the British system of education prevalent at the time. Tagore (639) used the word “visvasahitya” (world literature), and stated that the word was generally termed “comparative literature”

• Buddhadeva Bose, one of the prime architects of modern Bangla poetry, did not fully subscribe to the idealist visions of Tagore, for he believed it was necessary to break away from Tagore to be a part of the times, of modernity, but he too directly quoted from Rabindranath’s talk on “visvasahitya” while writing about the discipline, interpreting it more in the context of establishing connections, of ‘knowing’ literatures of the world. Bose, also well-known for his translations of Baudelaire, Hoelderlin and Kalidasa, wrote in his preface to the translation of Les Fleurs du Mal that his intention in turning to French poetry was to move away from the literature of the British, the colonial masters, while in his introduction to the translation of Kalidasa’s Meghdutam, he wrote that it was essential to bring to life the literature of ancient times in a particular tradition in order to make it a part of the contemporary.

• Sudhindranath Dutta, also well-known for his translation of Mallarmé and his erudition both in the Indian and the Western context, to teach in the department of Comparative Literature.

• the Greek drama and the Indian nataka - and then it was a question of linking social and historical structures with aesthetics in order to reveal the dialectic between them.

• Comparisons between the Iliad and the Ramayana, and between Sanskrit and Greek drama taking both Aristotle’s Poetics and Bharata’s Natyasastra into consideration formed the core of a section of the syllabus.

• The Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, which went on to become an important journal in literary studies in the country, came out in 1961.

Indian Literature as Comparative Literature

• Indian literature entered the syllabus in a fairly substantial manner but not from the point of view of asserting national identity. It was rather an inevitable move – if comparative literature meant studying a text within a network of relations.

• Indian literary themes and forms, a focal point of engagement of the Modern Indian Languages department established in 1962 in Delhi University. In 1974, the department of Modern Indian Languages started a post-MA course entitled “Comparative Indian Literature”.

• A national seminar on Comparative Literature was held in Delhi University organized by Nagendra, a writer-critic who taught in the Hindi department of Delhi University and a volume entitled Comparative Literature was published in 1977. However, it was only in 1994 that an MA course in Comparative Indian Literature began in the department.

• As stated earlier the juxtaposition of different canons had led to the questioning of universalist canons right from the beginning of comparative studies in India and now with the focus shifting to Indian literature, and in some instances to literatures from the Southern part of the globe, one moved further away from subscribing to a priori questions related to canon-formation.

• Older definitions of Indian literature often with only Sanskrit at the centre, with the focus on a few canonical texts to the neglect of others, particularly oral and performative traditions, had to be abandoned. One also had to take a more inclusive look at histories of literature in different languages of India which were discrete histories based on language and did not do justice to the overlap between social formations, histories and languages, and to the multilingualism that formed the very core of Indian literature.

• voiced by Aijaz Ahmad, to trace “the dialectic of unity and difference – through systematic periodization of multiple linguistic overlaps, and by grounding that dialectic in the history of material productions, ideological struggles, competing conceptions of class and community and gender, elite offensives and popular resistances, overlaps of cultural vocabularies and performative genres, and histories of orality and writing and print”.

• Dealing with Indian literature from a comparative perspective also meant looking at the interactions taking place with literatures in regions beyond the geo-political boundaries of the nation state.

• Sisir Kumar Das, a faculty member at the department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies, with support from other members of the department and the Sahitya Akademi.

• Indian literature from a comparative perspective, beginning from language origins manuscript cultures, performative traditions along with painting, sculpture and architecture, the history of print culture and questions related to modernity.

• T.S. Satyanath developed the theory of a scripto-centric, body-centric and phono-centric study of texts in the medieval period.

Centres of Comparative Literature Studies

During the seventies and the eighties Comparative Literature was also practiced at a number of centres and departments in the South of India such as in Trivandrum, Madurai Kamaraj University, Bharatidasam University, Kottayam and Pondicherry. Although often Comparative Literature courses were held along with English literature, a full-fledged Comparative Literary Studies department was established in the School of Tamil Studies in Madurai Kamaraj University. A reputed poet, author and critic, K. Ayappa Paniker, from Kerala, must also be mentioned while talking about the south for his work in the area, particularly that related to comparisons of literary theory, and for his book on the narrative traditions of India. In Tamil, apart from studies related to the comparison of texts from two different cultures, Classical Tamil texts were compared with texts from the Greek, Latin and Japanese counterpart traditions. Later in them eighties and the nineties other Centres were established in different parts of the country, either as independent bodies or within a single language department as in Punjabi University, Patiala, Dibrugarh University, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Sambalpur University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. In 1986 a new full-fledged department of Comparative Literature was established at Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, where focus was on Indian literatures in Western India. Also in 1999 a department of Dravidian Comparative Literature and Philosophy was established in Dravidian University, Kuppam. It must also be mentioned that comparative poetics, a core area of comparative literature studies and dissertations, particularly in the South, was taken up as a central area of research by the Visvanatha Kaviraja Institute of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics in Orissa. During this period two national associations of Comparative Literature came into being, one at Jadavpur called Indian Comparative Literature Association and the other in Delhi named Comparative Indian Literature Association. The two merged in 1992 and the Comparative Literature Association of India was formed, which today has more than a thousand members. In the early years of the Association, a large number of creative writers participated in its conferences along with academics and researchers, each enriching the horizon of vision of the other.

Reconfiguration of areas of comparison

• In the last years of the seventies, along with Indian literatures, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude became a part of the syllabus with a few other texts from Latin American Literatures and then Literatures from African countries were included. Questions of solidarity and a desire to understand resistance to oppression along with larger questions of epistemological shifts and strategies to bridge gaps in history resulting from colonial interventions were often the structuring components of these areas in the syllabus.

• Later during the nineties, Area Studies papers on African, Latin American, Canadia literatures and literature of Bangladesh were introduced.

• Components from the diverse Area Studies could possibly have been included as integrated parts of the main curriculum.

• The present author entitled Bibliography of Reception of World Literature in Bengali Periodicals (1890 – 1990).

• Reception studies : also pointed to historical realities determining conditions of acceptability and hence to complex configurations between literature and history.

• Burns and Wordsworth were very popular and it was felt that their romanticism was marked by an inner strength and serenity. The much talked about ‘angst’ of the romantic poet was viewed negatively. The love for serenity and ‘health’ went back to the classical period and seemed an important value in the tradition. 

• Again while Shelley and Byron were often critiqued, the former for having introduced softness and sentimentality to Bengali poetry, they were also often praised for upholding human rights and liberty in contrast to the imperialist poetry of Kipling. 

• It must be mentioned that Shelley, the poet of revolt, began to have a very positive reception when the independence movement gathered momentum. 

• In another context, a particular question that gained prominence was whether Shakespeare was imposed on Indian literature, and comparatists showed, as did Sisir Kumar Das, that there were different Shakespeare.

• Shakespeare’s texts might have been imposed in the classroom, but the playwright had a rich and varied reception in the world of theatre. Parsi theatre was rejuvenated by the enactment of the comedies of Shakespeare, political theatre groups appropriated his plays, while critics in different periods interpreted Shakespeare in accordance with the needs of the time. From reception studies the focus gradually turned to cross-cultural reception where reciprocity and exchange among cultures were studied.

• Reception studies both along vertical and horizontal lines formed the next major area of focus – one studied for instance, elements of ancient and medieval literature in modern texts and also inter and intraliterary relations foregrounding impact and responses.

• While one studied Vedic, Upanishadic, Buddhist and Jaina elements in modern texts, one also looked at clusters of sermons by Buddha, Mahavira and Nanak, at qissas and katha ballads across the country.

• Cross-cultural Literary Transactions, where Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora, were taken up, or sometimes in courses entitled Literary Transactions one looked more precisely at the tradition of Reason and Rationalism in European and Indian literatures of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries.

Research directions 

• The late nineties and the early twenties were a period of great expansion for Comparative Literature research in different parts of the country with the University Grants Commission opening its Special Assistance Programme for research in university departments.

• The English department of Calcutta University for instance, received assistance to pursue research on literary relations between Europe and India in the nineteenth century. Several books and translations emerged out of the project. The department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Saurashtra University, Rajkot, took up the theme of Indian Renaissance and translated several Indian authors into English, studied early travelogues from Western India to England and in general published collections of theoretical discourse from the nineteenth century.

• The Department of Assamese in Dibrugarh University received the grant and published a number of books related to translations, collections of rare texts and documentation of folk forms. The department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University also received assistance to pursue research in four major areas, East-West Literary Relations, Indian Literature, Translation Studies and Third World Literature. Incidentally, the department had in Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, an avid translator who translated texts from many so-called “third-world countries”.

• Hemanta Kumar Sarma, for instance in his history of Assamese literature divided the modern age into the pre-Romantic (1830-1889), Romantic (1889 to World War II) and post Romantic or contemporary that he

• also called post Swaraj (World War II to the contemporary, that is before 1961). Post Romantic simultaneously termed post Swaraj erased simple equations between terms used in European and Indian literatures.

• Under the Special Assistance programme the department also conducted eight inter-literary translation workshops translating texts from one Indian language to another without the mediation of English, a process not very common in the field of translation at the time.

• A particularly important question for Comparative Literature in this area could be linked with questions of Dalit literature’s relationship with mainstream writing, subverting, questioning and at the same time also inflecting other discourses while continuing to maintain its unique identity based to a large degree on performativity to draw the reader in as an ethical witness to the extreme limits of human suffering on which it is poised.

• Bhakti and Sufi were studied together and a volume was published. Visiting Professors were invited to give several lectures on Japanese and South Korean literatures. A one-day colloquium on Kolkata’s Chinese connections was held in collaboration with the H.P. Biswas India-China Cultural Studies Centre of Jadavpur University and a seminar on framing intercultural studies between India and China was held with the Centre and the department of International Relations, Jadavpur University.

Interface with Translation Studies and Culture Studies

• Comparative Literature in the country in the 21st century engaged with two other related fields of study, one was Translation Studies and the other Cultural Studies.

• Translation Studies cover different areas of inter literary studies. Histories of translation may be used to map literary relations while analysis of acts of translation leads to the understanding of important characteristics of both the source and the target literary and cultural systems. Other dimensions of literary studies are opened up when one sees translation as rewriting.

• The department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University today has a Centre for the Translation of Indian Literatures.

• Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature had always engaged with different aspects of Cultural Studies, the most prominent being literature and its relation with the different arts. 

• The M Phil course on the subject at Jadavpur University highlights changing marginalities, ‘sub-cultures’ and movements in relation to contemporary nationalisms and globalization, and also sexualities, gender and the politics of identity. Cultural Studies may also be a key component in different kinds of interdisciplinary courses within the discipline. 

• For instance, a course in Delhi University takes up the theme of city and village in Indian literature and goes into representations of human habitat systems and ecology in literature, looks for concepts and terms for such settlements, goes into archaeological evidences and the accounts of travellers from Greece, China, Persia and Portugal to demonstrate the differences that exist at levels of perception and ideological positions.

Non-hierarchical connectivity

It is evident that Comparative Literature in the country today has multifaceted goals and visions in accordance with historical needs, both local and planetary. Several University departments today offer Comparative Literature separately at the M Phil level, while many others have courses in the discipline along with single literatures. As in the case of humanities and literary studies, the discipline too is engaged with issues that would lead to the enhancement of civilizational gestures, against forces that are divisive and that constantly reduce the potentials of human beings. In doing so it is engaged in discovering new links and lines of non-hierarchical connectivity, of what Kumkum Sangari in a recent article called “co-construction”, a process anchored in “subtle and complex histories of translation, circulation and extraction” (Sangari 50). And comparatists work with the knowledge that a lot remains to be done and that the task of the construction of literary histories, in terms of literary relations among neighbouring regions, and of larger wholes, one of the primary tasks of Comparative Literature today has perhaps yet to begin. In all its endeavours, however, the primary aim of some of the early architects of the discipline to nurture and foster creativity continues as a subterranean force.

Work cite 

Chakraborty, Subha  Dasgupta. Comparative Literature in India: An Overview of Its History. Jadavpur University, cwliterature.org/uploadfile/2016/0711/20160711020042997.pdf.

Words : 2800

Assignment: 207 Contemporary Literature

Name – Janvi Nakum 

Paper No - 207

Paper Name : Contemporary Literature

Roll no- 11 

Enrollment no –4069206420210020 

Email id – janvinakum360@gmail.com 

Batch- 2021-2023(M.A. Sem – 4) 

Topic :  Political and Gender issues in Arundhati Roy’s "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness"

Submitted to – S.B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University 

What does Transgender mean?

Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female or something else; gender expression refers to the way a person communicates gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice or body characteristics. “Trans” is sometimes used as shorthand for “transgender.” While transgender is generally a good term to use, not everyone whose appearance or behavior is gender-nonconforming will identify as a transgender person. The ways that transgender people are talked about in popular culture, academia and science are constantly changing, particularly as individuals’ awareness, knowledge and openness about transgender people and their experiences grow.

In India transgender issues

India is a multiracial and multicultural country where the concepts of gender, class and caste create a sense of discrimination among different categories of people. The gender identity impacts on hijras’ lives; they do not get gender recognition, employment, proper housing, and health-care services properly. They face discrimination and inequality so harsh that they feel that they are inferior. In Neither Man Nor Woman, Nanda (1999) states, “although cross-gender behavior in childhood is a prominent theme in hijra narratives, this behavior is not necessarily connected to a clear feminine gender identity” (p. 115). Hijras are in-between gender, and they face cross-gender situation. They are controversial community in Indian society and their existence disrupts essential ideas about sex or gender. Holmes (2004) writes, “recognition of third sexes and third genders is not equal to valuing the presence of those who were neither male nor female”. Though hijras as third genders adopt feminine identity and they are not like ordinary Indian women. Society cannot accept them as female; rather, people have negative attitudes towards them.

Indians face the national identity crisis in some of the places of the country. Though people are citizens and freedom are guaranteed by the Constitution, people still feel as if they reside in a foreign land. They could not align with the ethnically diverse society. Thus, they seek independence and isolation from their own country. They are in a bind because they do not know if they belong to India. This desire for recognition contributes to defiance and contempt.

Roy View

Roy gave voice to a socially outcasted community through Anjum/Aftab’s narrative and described their mental anguish with deep psychological insights. Anjum was told by Nimo Gorakhpuri, another hijra with whom she became intimate that they were created by God as an experiment. God wanted to create a living being incapable of happiness and therefore He created Hijras. 

“The beating husbands and cheating wives are all in us. The riot is inside us. The war is inside us… it will never settle down. It can’t” (p. 23).

Roy showed that India is not a utopia for hijras, rather they are always abandoned from all social rituals. India has a long-established tradition of caste which specifies boundaries of purity and pollution between communities. Society is homophobic and hijras are not treated as human beings; they attempt to be  connected with the society participating in different social celebrations as wedding, birth, and house-warming ceremonies. Roy mentioned that:

 they descended on ordinary people’s celebrations – weddings, births, housewarming ceremonies – dancing, singing in their wild, grating voices, offering their blessings and threatening to embarrass the hosts . . . and ruin the occasion with curses and a display of unthinkable obscenity unless they are paid a fee (p.24).

Roy's creations interpret spatial encounters as dynamic dialectic mechanisms, dealing with the race, class and caste consciousness of the characters. In terms of the dialectics of gender identity and space, Roy takes the reader in the streets of Delhi, Kashmir and some other places that are  special in nature. Roy does seem to comply with the statement “nowhere is the tendency to gender space as evident in colonial, postcolonial and neo-colonial spaces” . The novel also tells the stories of other people, such as R C's wife who finds space as an adhering, oppressive force. Naga gets shocked when R C told him about penalizing women by physical violence.

Political and Gender issues in Arundhati Roy’s "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness"

Indians face the national identity crisis in some of the places of the country. Though people are citizens and freedom are guaranteed by the Constitution, people still feel as if they reside in a foreign land. They could not align with the ethnically diverse society. Thus, they seek independence and isolation from their own country. They are in a bind because they do not know if they belong to India. This desire for recognition contributes to defiance and contempt.

The naturalized binary gender classification is critiqued in the novel through the life story of Anjum born as Aftab. Aftab was born as the son of Jahanara Begum and Mulaqat Ali in Khwabgah. The sexual identity of the child terrifies the mother and she does not unravel it even to her husband for some time. Both expected a baby boy but quite contrary to their conventional expectations it was neither a boy nor a girl. Jahanara Begum thought, “In Urdu, the only language she knew, all things–carpets, clothes, books, pens, and musical instruments –had a gender. Everything was either masculine or feminine, man or woman. Everything except her baby”. She considered this as quite contradictory to live separate with language or conventional notions of life. Fausto Sterling expresses a similar idea when she states “European and American culture is deeply devoted to the idea that there are only two sexes. Even our language refuses other possibilities; . . . whether one falls into the category of man or woman matters in concrete ways”. His father Mulaqat Ali attempts to help the child become “normal” desperately, but he finds that his child is unable to fit comfortably into one sex. Aftab, a Hijra or Kinnar was ridiculed by other children and they pointed out to his ambiguous identity both as male and a female, “a he and a she”. Aftab finds himself physically and psychologically bothered because others expect him to fit into the conventional system. Aftab had a body which blurred the conventional borders of male and female. The story of Aftab divulges the problems of living in a society which is characterized by essentialist explanation of gender. The understanding of self in children begins with sex related categorization of the self as male or female. It is also found that certain types of behaviour are related to a sex and it is assumed to be stable. Such a distinction based on sex reinforces sexual inequalities according to feminist theorists. Gender variation according to the biologist Fausto Sterling is normal. Her study based on the infants whose abstruse genitalia were surgically changed shows impossibility of confirming always to a binary gender structure. Biologists like Fausto believe that there are actually five sexes – male, female, Hermes (that is a hermaphrodite or persons with both an ovary and testes), Mermes (That is male hermaphrodites which are raised with testes and with certain features of women's genitals) and Ferms (this is the female hermaphrodite with ovaries in tandem with certain features of male genitals).

Aftab, a female trapped in a male body, embraces the identity of a woman and hopes to realize his/her true self. In Judith Butler’s opinion we need not consider gender to be passively determined but “it is a process of constructing ourselves”. Body is considered as a locus of dialectical process and in this process, what has been imprinted on the flesh gets a new set of historical interpretation. Aftab’s transformation to Anjum is explicated as a passage into another world. She lives with other people, a heterogeneous community of hermaphrodites, which incorporates men who don’t believe in surgery, Hindus, and Muslims. The dichotomy of the ordinary world, Duniya and the world of Hijra’s is presented in a subtle manner. Anjum learns that the Hijra’s were a chosen set of people who were endowed with the power to curse and bless. But the irony is that the very same chosen people bestowed with this power are confined to a peripheral existence. For Aftab initially, the transformation into Anjum is a mode of self-transcendence. But Anjum often reflects about the despicable condition of the Hijra’s, and Kwabgah was the abode of such people like her. It is a place which liberated their souls from their bodies. Anjum’s friend Kulsoom Bi recounts the history of Kwabgah and Hijra’s and underlines the significant role played by the Hijra community in the great Hindu mythology and the Royal palace. They enjoyed a position and were respected and loved for their services to society too. Kulsoom remarks “To be present in history, even as nothing more than a chuckle, was a universe away from being written out of it altogether” (Roy 2017, 51). They have a tradition of being an integral part of and outside of the culture. 

Kwabgah, the house of dreams, provides shelter and hope to many people like Anjum whom the rational world hasostracized. Anjum sought to escape from the borderland of the gender conflict within the self. It is not only Anjum in the novel, but characters as well have a border within the self and in the external world. She satisfies her urge as a half-woman when she takes up the role of a mother figure by raising Zainab, an abandoned kid from the street. Zainab grows with a lot of mothers like Anjum in an uncustomary way. Anjum through her transformations - from a boy, to neither being boy or girl physiologically, to a woman psychologically – tries to redefine her life. The duality of being neither a man nor a woman or being both a man and a woman lead Anjum into different territories of the world. Kwabgah is one such place where the Hijra’s hope to liberate their “Holy Soul” trapped in their wrong bodies. Kwabgah is unlike the ordinary world and it is defined as “another world”. Anjum refers to this world as Duniya, a world which for her is oblivious of the predicament of the Hijra’s. Kwabgah is a world in itself; it is considered to be abode of “special people”, or “blessed people” who “came with their dreams that could not be realized in the Duniya” (Roy 2017, 53).

The narrative unwinds the drifting life story of Tilotama in a world of war violence. In contrast to Anjum’s tale which unfolds the internal conflicts of a transgender, Tilo’s life exposes a world of external conflict. The tragic life of people in Kashmir is intricately expressed through the life of Tilo. Her quest for Musa, a Kashmiri activist, leads her into trouble. She witnesses the inhuman punishment meted out to people by the military officials. She herself becomes a victim of it and in the name of interrogation they shave her head. It is a comment on the way the state deploys and justifies its approach to gender. She tries to retaliate it by deciding never to grow her hair long anymore. Her unconventional and adventurous life breaks the barrier between her public and private sphere. Her presence in the fictional world questions such assumptions regarding the role of men and women in both the public and private world. Man is considered responsible for the productive public sphere and a woman to the reproductive private sphere. Tilotama breaks the narrowly defined assumptions of sexuality and childbearing when she decides to terminate her pregnancy medically because she believed that she would not be a good mother. Her escape from the bonds of family life, the private to the public sphere as an activist mark the emergence of her social and political identity. According to Linda Alcoff, women’s subjectivity and identity constitute their position. The act of conceiving, giving birth, and breast feeding related to the body differentiates men and women. In Alcoff’s (2005) opinion on biological reproduction is

“the basis of a variety of social segregations, it can engender differential forms of embodiment experienced throughout life, it can generate a wide variety of effective responses, from pride, delight, shame, guilt, regret or great relief from having successfully avoided reproduction.” (Alcoff 172)

The perspective of oppressed gender identities as third-space experiences depicts their challenges, revolutionary actions and their continuing stories of rebellion. Their constant struggles territorialise and re-territorialize, hence restructuring the assemblages which shape human survival in societies. While woman is considered as the Other—a conventional identity, the marginalised other which helps to build up the binary seems to coexist with the hegemonic class that continuously undermining and struggling hegemonic settlements and social relations—Other gender identities are struggling in the wider range to preserve their identity. They detach and develop their own social networks and social structures which establish heterotopias and struggle to survive the normative frameworks of the societies. Literary narratives, if they are to consider the interrelationship of space and class, appear like Arundhati Roy's book, as an important cultural trope of every specific historical period.

Work cited 

Suleman, Danish, Abdul Halim Mohamed, and Md Ahmmed. "Political and Gender issues in Arundhati Roy’s' The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'." Suleman, D., Mohamed, AH, & Ahmmed, MF (2020). Political and Gender issues in Arundhati Roy’s" The Ministry of Utmost Happiness". Indonesian Journal of Cultural and Community Development 5 (2020): 10-21070.

Suleman, Danish, and Dr Ab Rahman. "Transgender issues in Indian society from the viewpoint of Arundhati Roy’s novel, the ministry of utmost happiness." Suleman, D., & binti Ab Rahman, F.(2020). Transgender Issues in Indian Society from the Viewpoint of Arundhati Roy’s Novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. South Asian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 1.3 (2020): 159-172.

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Assignment: 206 African Literature

 Name – Janvi Nakum 

Paper No - 206 

Paper Name : African Literature 

Roll no- 11 

Enrollment no –4069206420210020 

Email id – janvinakum360@gmail.com 

Batch- 2021-2023(M.A. Sem – 4) 

Topic : A Feminist Perspective in Ngugi Wa Thiong’s Novel  “Petal of Blood” 

Submitted to – S.B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja  Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar 

University 

Impact of British Colonization on Woman in Kenya 

The African people became slaves of the imperialistic Western world. They influenced  patriarchal ideologies into the educational system and encourage boys more to join school than girls. They also supported men to oppress women, Male domination made the African women powerless and disabled, socially, politically, and economically, and caused gender conflict which undermined the stability of Kenyan society. It becomes an obstacle for the development of the country. There are historical evidences that African women during precolonial era had economic independence. They had actively participated in social, cultural, religious and political activities and functions. The rule was expected to improve the condition of women in African societies by raising their living and educational standards and free them from farm labour, but colonialism didn’t liberate them, In fact, it diminished the rights, the woman had enjoyed during pre-colonial era. Eleanor Burke (1922-1987), an American anthropologist in her book Woman and Colonization asserts that the relation between men and women were equal in many fields of basic life, but due to colonialism women were ignored and oppressed. 

Feminist Interpretation of Naugi Wa Thiong’s Novels 

Naugi views that colonialism obviously and postcolonialism are responsible for oppressing African woman. He clearly shows the problem of patriarchy and its impact on women in precolonialism, colonialism and post colonialism Kenyan society through his novel. Naugi believes that the British colonial administration was responsible for destroying the social, political and economic structure of the African society. The Kikuyu life style was deteriorated by the emergence of colonialism. The land was confiscated and given to the white people. The economic life was destroyed and Kikuyu people were forced to work as labours on their own land and asked to pay taxes. Naugi asserts that all Kenyan workers and farmers have the same national aim which was to ask the white men to leave the land. Naugi points that the culture of colonisation is the culture of domination and exploitation. As a result, the Mau Mau revaluation in Kenya occurred to make the country independent. It was the climax of conflicts between Kikuyu and the British colonialists. Josiah Mwanagi, a Kenyan socialist politician in his book “ Mau Mau” explains that the British came with missionaries and traders to colonize Kenya.

 Kenyan people knew that the British had come with knowledge, education, medicine, farming, and industry which were welcomed by the people of Kenya. Josiah shows the grievances of Kenya people towards Europeans. He also states that Europeans used Kenya as their slaves. Most of Naugi’s novels show that woman struggle to get rid of male domination in many different areas, such as social, economy and politics. They also aim to present the real image of Africa. He also tries to Reform the image of the African woman in literature because some African male writers present the woman in negative way and wrote about woman from Eurocentric point of view. Some feminist writers such as Ousmane , Nuagai and Nurudian present through their novel the positive and negative aspects of the African woman while some others like Cyprian and Amadi present the negative aspects only, they consider woman as lustful and seductive. Ngugi portrays patriarchy as a prevalent phenomenon that exists under the skin of society. He shows out how woman been used in sexual, physical and mental way. Rape, verbal and physical violence of woman and low payment had caused the oppression of woman in the African society. The role of colonialism is also responsible to deprive women from their rights. Roopali Sircar (1995) asserts: Several anthropologists like Leacock and Gough have concluded that in societies where men and women are engaged in the production of the same kind of socially necessary goods and where widespread private property and class structure has not developed, woman’s participation in production gives them access to and control of the products of their labour. It also gives the woman considerable freedom and independence. But where the colonizers introduced cash crop cultivation, women were displaced by men. Women were also deprived of technology with men alone given access to machinery. This reduced woman’s contribution, relegating them to the domestic sector. Naugi perceives woman from feminist perspective. Most of his novel focuses on woman’s issues and Kikuyu culture to reveal woman’s major contribution in liberating the society from male domination in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras. He also attempt to show woman characters and their significant roles in the patriarchal system as well as the impact of colonialism on the roles of female character. 

Petal of Blood 

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's novel "Petal of Blood" and its emphasis on the exploitation of African  women based on race, class, and gender. Ngugi portrays female characters such as Mariam and Nyakinyua, who face exploitation at home and in the larger society. Mariam rebels against her husband's exploitation and seeks cultivation rights from Munira's father, who tries to exploit her sexually. Nyakinyua, on the other hand, is an influential female character in the community, narrating the history of Ilmorog and inspiring the villagers to work towards a bright future. Wanja, Nyakinyua's granddaughter, starts as an active woman who forms a group to cultivate and weed the land, but later becomes a barmaid and ultimately a prostitute due to neocolonial and imperialistic conditions. Ngugi portrays her as an example of Kenyan women's exploitation by capitalist structures. Despite both positive and negative aspects of female characters in the novel, Ngugi shows how society drives women to helplessness and tragedy. 

Fallen Wanja in Petals of Blood 

Petals of Blood also sheds light on the treatment of the African women in the corrupt patriarchal society of neocolonial Kenya, it shows how these women are either muted or prostituted in this period. Women were colonized by their men before the colonizers colonize them. They were passive, ignorant, treated only as sex gratifying objects. They were completely possessed by men as any other object they own. According to Marxist feminists, women should be treated equal to men (Delaney 206). Ngugi compares the African woman to the land which is a very critical issue in his novels in the political and social domain. Land which was once owned by the African man before it has been robbed by the colonizer before independence and by the neo-colonizer in post-independence era. It is for the sake of land the natives offer their heavy sacrifices to redeem this land. The importance of land comes in parallel with the importance of African women. The real situation in neo-colonial Africa is illustrated clearly in Karega’s statement: 

We are all prostitutes, for in a world of grab and take, in a world built on a structure of  inequality and justice, in a world where some can eat while others can only toil, some can  send their children to schools and others cannot…in such a world we are all prostituted (Thiong'o 286). 

Ngugi’s fiction shows how the land emerges a docile female figure. The possession of a land is like the possession of a woman, so as figuratively the land was once raped by the settlers, the woman is also raped, prostituted and possessed. In his novels, Ngugi shows how African women are made commodities for the colonizers and the tourists. Wanja is a very good instance for such a trade in which she as a prostitute participated when she opens a whorehouse and hired young girls to work in. in this way Wanja plays the role of the victimizer over the victimized and an oppressor and an exploiter. Ngugi intends his women protagonists to profess in prostitution not to condemn them and judge them publically rather to condemn the corrupt situation which forced these women into prostitution. A woman is a human being she was granted a voice by God, but in the patriarchal and corrupt society she is not allowed to speak. She is mute just like the land. She is oppressed, exploited and harassed. Gayatri Spivak in her essay Can the Subaltern Speak ?explains why the subaltern woman’s speech is not heard. It is due to the factor of noise or most probably their speech does not make any difference in changing their situation. It is power that makes any speech heard as long as the women are submissive to the men their voice will not be heard. In Can the Subaltern speak? Spivak says: 

“As object of colonialist historiography and as subject of insurgency, the ideological construction of gender keeps the male dominant. If, in the context of colonial production, the subaltern has no history and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in shadow”(287). 

The woman is owned by a man as the land is owned by the same man. But in Ngugi’s fiction the female is given a voice to speak, to revolt, to assert herself just like Wanja who was once a victim in neo-colonial Kenya, searching for a job like any other African woman, but due to the corruption and specifically the moral one that devastates Kenya it is impossible for a woman to find a job without being asked to offer her body to the boss. This is exactly what happened to Wanja during the journey to the city to meet their representative where Kimeria asked Wanja to share him his bed in order to help her and her friends. This evil is widespread in Africa and Ngugi sheds light on it in almost all his novels, he feels that it is his duty to speak about the evils that pervade his country and to commit his art to the plight of his people and moreover to find solutions to these evils. To study Wanja from the subaltern perspective is to sympathize with her and with every woman like her not to condemn her for what she has committed. As a subaltern woman, Wanja tries to retaliate against the black hegemony for the suffering she has undergone. She acts very natural in an unnatural situation where women are being treated as commodities and sex tools for the fellow black and the white tourists. Wanja accepts the job as a barmaid in Abdulla’s shop not because she is so interested in such kind of a job rather she is unable to find any other suitable job. When the neo-colonial agents destroyed the traditional and the social fabric of Ilmorog and nothing is left for Wanja, she was forced to play the role of the victimizer and she turns from innocence into depravity by using young African girls as prostitutes and opening a whorehouse. This act marks Wanja’s fall from innocence into depravity, from being a victim of the system into being a victimizer where she employs the motto of “eat or be eaten”. (345). Wanja at the end understands the power of education as she tries to compensate her failure in her life by taking care of Joseph and insisting that he should learn because learning is the best way to assert one’s self. The act of burning that Ngugi employs and which Wanja was exposed to, acts as a penance for Wanja’s adulterous deeds and it purifies her soul from the sins which she has committed. Ngugi’s aim behind this scene is to assert that his female protagonist though is a fallen woman, yet she bears the core of goodness inside her and that is why Wanja is associated with fire for three times in the novel. This fire is her earthly salvation and punishment. Ngugi moreover, justifies Wanja’s adultery with Karega as free from sins and it was free “from the burden of guilt”. (346). 

Petals of Blood: Feminism in Post-Colonial Kenya 

The story takes place in Kenya just after it’s liberation from British rule. It’s set mostly in a small village, and the four main characters are not natives of it. They’ve found themselves there, each looking for an escape from their pasts. In class, we had to write an essay about each book we read and I can’t remember what the original topic of this was supposed to be, but I ended up writing about the feminist aspects of the book. 

Wanju is the female lead; the other three are all men. She’s from the city and has, until her arrival in the village, been selling her body in order to make a living. Her grandmother, Nyakinyua, is one of the oldest residents in the village when Wanju comes to live with and care for her. Both of these women are strong, independent people who realize that they have to be able to care for themselves, as no one else will. Wanju learned that lesson early on. Abused by a neighbor and harassed by a teacher, she ends up pregnant and forced to leave the school she was excelling in. It’s after she loses the baby that she turns to prostitution, making her living until her escape to the village. She realizes at a young age that she does not have control over much in her life, but she has it over her body and her sexuality. I’m not making the case for prostitution here, but Wanju sees this as some way of having control over her life. Her sexuality is a weapon that, even after arriving in the village, she is able to use to advance her position within society. She takes over the bar run by Abdullah, another character, turning it from a tiny storefront into a booming nightclub. Her grandmother’s recipe for Thang’eta, an alcoholic beverage, also helps. It’s really their work that turns the sleepy little village into a booming town, and also sets the stage for the central story: the murder of three men. 

conclusion 

The novel is framed around their murder, opening with the four characters being questioned about their potential role in this. At this point, Wanju is running her own brothel, the richest woman in the town. As the book goes back and you see how she ended up there, I can’t help but admire her. To be in a time and place where being a woman was almost a danger, she’s managed to survive, to thrive, and do it on her terms. It’s not an easy life she lives but she manages to make the best of what she can and do it on her own. 

Work cite 

Alazzawi, Ahmad Jasim Mohammad. "A Feminist PerspecƟve in Ngugi Wa Thiong’s Novel “Petal of 

Blood”." InternaƟonal Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences 3.5 (2018). 

Al-Harbi, Aisha Obaid. "An Eco feminist Reading of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood." Gezira 

Journal of EducaƟonal Sciences and HumaniƟes 12.1 (2018).

Sbeih, Mais. “[PDF] the Picture of the Fallen Woman in Ngugi's Novels Petals of Blood and 

Matigari: Semantic Scholar.” [PDF] THE PICTURE OF THE FALLEN WOMAN IN 

NGUGI'S NOVELS PETALS OF BLOOD AND MATIGARI | Semantic Scholar, 1 Jan. 

1970, www.semanticscholar.org/paper/THE-PICTURE-OF-THE-FALLEN-WOMAN-INNGUGI%E2%80%99S-NOVELS-Sbeih/5cacc2cdc24fe345df5d30cab860f727ebe08263.

Words : 2500

Assignment: 209 Research Methodology

 Name – Janvi Nakum 

Paper No - 209

Paper Name : Research Methodology 

Roll no- 11 

Enrollment no –4069206420210020 

Email id – janvinakum360@gmail.com 

Batch- 2021-2023(M.A. Sem – 4) 

Topic : Methods of Note- Taking and Outlining

Submitted to – S.B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja  Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

1.7.1. Methods of Note-Taking

Although everyone agrees that note-taking is essential to research, probably no two researchers use exactly the same methods. Some pre- fer to take notes by hand on index cards or sheets of paper. Using a computer might save you time and should improve the accuracy with which you transcribe material, including quotations, from your notes into the text of your paper. However you take notes, set down first the author's full name and the complete title of the source-enough information to enable you to locate the source easily in your working bibliography. If the source is not yet in the working bibliography, record all the publication information you will need for research and for your works-cited list (see 1.5.3-4), and add the source to the working bibliography.

1.7.2. Types of Note-Taking

There are, generally speaking, three types of note-taking

•  Summary: Summarize if you want to record only the general idea of large amounts of material.
•  Paraphrase: If you require detailed notes on specific sentences and passages but do not need the exact wording, you may wish to para- phrase-that is, to restate the material in your own words.
•  Quotation: When you believe that some sentence or passage in its original wording might make an effective addition to your paper. transcribe that material exactly as it appears, word for word, coming for comma. Whenever you quote verbatim from a work, be sure to use quotation marks scrupulously in your notes to distinguish the quotation from summary and paraphrase. Using electronic mate- rials calls for special vigilance. If you download a text and integrate quotations from it into your paper, check to see that you have. placed quotation marks around words taken from the source.

1.7.3. Recording Page or Reference Numbers

In summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting, keep an accurate record of the pages or other numbered sections (e.g., numbered paragraphs in an electronic text) that you use. When a quotation continues to an- other page or section, carefully note where the page or section break occurs, since only a small portion of what you transcribe may ultimately find its way into your paper.

1.7.4. Using a Computer for Note-Taking

Using a word processor to store notes is handy, but while you are doing research, you may find yourself in a situation-for example, working in the library-where you do not have access to a computer. Then you will need to write your notes by hand and transfer them into a computer later. Strategies of storing and retrieving notes vary (see 1.9 for using note files during writing). A few common strategies follow

💥For a short paper for which you have taken few notes, you may place all notes in a single file and draw material from it whenever you want.

  💥For a longer paper that makes use of numerous sources, you may create a row file for each source.

  💥Another strategy is to write out summaries and paraphrases of the source by hand and to enter into computer files only quotations, which you can electronically copy into your text as you write. At the least, this strategy will eliminate the time and effort and, more important, the possibility of error involved in transcribing quoted words more than once.

 By downloading quotations from a database to your computer, you of course do not need to transcribe them at all.

When you use a computer for note-taking, be certain to save all note files and to keep copies of them on paper and in a backup location.

1.7.5. Amount and Accuracy of Note-Taking

In taking notes, seek to steer a middle course between recording too much and recording too little. In other words, try to be both thorough and concise. Above all, strive for accuracy, not only in copying words for direct quotation but also in summarizing and paraphrasing authors' ideas.

1.8. OUTLINING

1.8.1. Working Outline

A Useful Intermediate Activity

Some withers like to work from an outline: others do not. For research papers, nutlining can be a particularly useful intermediate activity be- tween research and writing In fact, some instructors require student to hand in an outline with the final draft. Others require a draft outline earlier, asking the student to submit not only a topic for the paper but also a tentative list of subtopics for research. They then suggest that this working outline be continually revised-items dropped, added, modified-as the research progresses. Instructors who require submission of a research project portfolio (see 1.9.4) sometimes ask that at least one version of the working outline be included in the portfolio in addition to the final outline (see 1.8.3).

An Overall View of the Paper

You may find a series of outlines helpful, whether or not your instructor for requires them, especially if you are a beginning writer of research papers An outline will help you to get an overall view of your paper and, perhaps more important, to figure out how each section of the paper relates to the others. Thus, developing an outline can help you to see the logical progression of your argument. A working outline will also make it easier to keep track of all important aspects of your subject and to focus your research on relevant topics. Continual revision of the working outline, moreover, will encourage you to change your thinking and your approach as new information modifies your understanding of the subject.

Creating a Computer File for Each Version

Word-processing programs commonly have an outlining feature that offers several formats with automatic numbering and lettering. It is probably best to create a different computer file for each version of an outline. For example, when you save the first version, give it a name like "outline 1." When you are ready to revise the outline, open the Best version, choose Save As to save a copy of the file, and give the copy a new name (e.g., "outline 2"). The open file is now the copy. which you can revise. The first version remains unchanged. If you become dissatisfied with the way the second draft or a subsequent one is progressing, you can discard it. return to an earlier draft, which is stored untouched on the disk, and begin revising in another direction. Printing out each new version will let you compare it more easily with other versions.

1.8.2. Thesis Statement

An Answer to a Question or Problem

As you get closer to writing, you can begin to shape the information you have at hand into a unified, coherent whole by framing a thesis statement for your paper: a single sentence that formulates both your topic and your point of view. In a sense, the thesis statement is your answer to the central question or problem you have raised. Writing this statement will enable you to see where you are heading and to remain on a productive path as you plan and write. Try out different possibilities until you find a statement that seems right for your pur- pose. Moreover, since the experience of writing may well alter your original plans, do not hesitate to revise the thesis statement as you write the paper.

Purpose and Audience

Two factors are important to the shaping of a thesis statement-your purpose and your audience: 

• What purpose will you try to achieve in the paper? Do you want to describe something, explain something, argue for a certain point of view, or persuade your reader to think or do something? 

• What audience are you writing for? Is your reader a specialist on the subject? someone likely to agree or disagree with you? someone likely to be interested or uninterested in the subject?

The answers to these questions should to a large extent give your research the appropriate slant or point of view not just in your thesis statement but also in the final outline and the paper itself.

Requirements and Assistance of the Instructor

Many instructors require student to submit thesis statements for approval some two or three weeks before the paper is due. The statement is often included in a research project portfolio (soe 1.9.4). If you have difficulty writing a thesis statement, talk with your instructor about the research you have done and about what you want to say: given this information, your instructor can probably help you frame an ap- propriate thesis statement

1.8.3. Final Outline

From Working Outline to Final Outline

After you have a satisfactory thesis statement, you can begin trans- forming your working outline into a final one. This step will help you organize your ideas and the accumulated research into a logical. fluent, and effective paper. Again, many instructors request that final outlines be submitted with papers or included in a research project portfolio (see 1.9.4).

Deleting Irrelevant Material

Start by carefully reviewing all your notes to see how strongly they will support the various points in the working outline. Next, read over your working cutline critically and delete everything that is ir- relevant to the thesis statement or that might weaken your argument. Eliminating material is often painful since you might have an understandable desire to use everything you have collected and to im- press your readers (especially teachers) with all the work you have done and with all you now know on the subject. But you should resist these temptations, for the inclusion of irrelevant or repetitive material will lessen the effectiveness of your paper. Keep your thesis statement and your audience in mind. Include only the ideas and in- formation that will help you accomplish what you have set out to do and that will lead your readers to care about your investigation, your presentation, and your conclusions.

Shaping a Structure for the Paper

As you continue to read, reread, and think about the ideas and information you have decided to use, you will begin to see new connections between items, and patterns of organization will suggest themselves. Bring related material together under general headings, and arrange these sections so that one logically connects with another Then order the subjects under each heading so that they, too, proceed logically. Finally, plan an effective introduction and a conclusion appropriate to the sequence you have worked out.

Organizing Principles

  💫Common organizing principles include 

  💫chronology useful for historical discussions-eg, how the Mexi We developed) 

  💫cause and effect (eg, the consequences a scientific discovery will have)

  💫process (eg. How a politician got elected) 

  💫deductive logic, which moves from the general to the specific (e.g.. from the                          problem of violence in the United States to violence in-volving handguns)

  💫inductive logic, which moves from the specific to the general (e.g.. from violence                involving handguns to the problem of violence in the United States)

Methods of Development

As you choose an organizational plan, keep in mind the method or methods you will use in developing your paper. For example, which of the following do you plan to accomplish? 

  💢to define, classify, or analyses something 

  💢to use descriptive details or give examples 

  💢to compare or contrast one thing with another

  💢to argue for a certain point of view

The procedures you intend to adopt will influence the way you arrange your material, and they should be evident in your outline.

Integrating Quotations and Sources is also a good idea to indicate in the outline, specifically and precisely, the quotations and sources you will use. All this planning will take a good deal of time and thought, and you may well make several preliminary outlines before arriving at the one you will follow. But the time and thought will be well spent. The more planning you do. the easier and more efficient the writing will be.

Types of Outlines

If the final outline is only for your use, its form will have little importance. If it is to be submitted, your instructor will probably discuss the various forms of outline and tell you which to use. Whatever the form, maintain it consistently. The two most common forms are the topic outline (which uses only short phrases throughout) the sentence outline (which uses complete sentences throughout)

Labeling Parts of an Outline

The descending parts of an outline are normally labeled in the following order:

1.

    A.

         1.

              a.

                  (1)

                        (a)

                         (b)

                    (2)

                2.

       B

II.

Logic requires that there be a II to complement a 1. a B to complement an A. and so forth.

Creating Computer Files for Major Topics

If you have stored your notes in your computer, a helpful intermediate activity between outlining and writing is to incorporate your notes into your outline. Using this strategy, you should create a separate file for each major topic of your outline and shift relevant material, in ap- propriate order, from note files into the various topic files. Then, as you write, you can call up the topic files one by one and blend mate- rial from them into the text of the paper. Be sure to save and to back up your outline files.

Work Cited

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Accessed 30 March 2023.

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