Class the nineteenth: What an essay is

Simply put, an essay is an effort (Fr. essayer) at establishing an argument about a particular something. It locates the argument within a larger tradition (informing influences) and in relation to similar arguments (parallel examples); it offers new evidence (in folklore, we are assuming a new study with primary data based on fieldwork, but in other disciplines we refer either to (a) primary data based on some other discipline-related means of data collection or (b) a confluence of perspectives which in concert offer a new perspective); it connects the new evidence to the larger tradition, allowing for either reaffirmation or challenge to what the tradition tells us; and it allows for a personal voice to speak both from and to that larger tradition, occasioned by the privileged perspective of being an 'expert' on the subject, even if the subject about which one is expert is a fairly narrow slice of the universe.

Because you are the producer of primary data, you are the (or 'an') expert on whichever topic you have studied: someone has likely done a study on something similar before, but as you look at a distinct occurrence of that phenomenon, you have a particular contribution to make. A gajillion people have studied Halloween traditions before you, but they have not looked at Halloween, 2006, Glace Bay (for example).

Today we tried to make this general argument. Because so far you have

1. looked around for an aspect of 'tradition' from your life/environment;
2. read up on similar situations;
3. read up on local context;
4. framed a question;
5. plotted a course of research;
6. thought through the ethical implications of said research;
7. did the original research; and
8. have begun the process of mining and organising said research,

you are now in the position to write up your findings. A week to do an essay might not seem like much time, but all your little ducks are in a row: you have been thinking about this for two months now, so it's practically just typing.

Then we spent a while talking about citations: I refer you to any style guide for reference.

Some more very basic rules to doing an essay (very basic, nothing of insight, but pure 'this is sound advice which you might not like much but which every prof you will ever have will appreciate someone having told you and telling you early'):

• double space;
• type;
• 12 point font;
• clear font (Arial, Times (New Roman), Helvetica, Courier, etc.); and
• black ink.
• Take advantage of your word processor's spell check option, and do it slowly (don't simply accept the first option that comes along without thinking it through. See Jon Stewart's appendix to Naked Pictures of Famous People for a list of what Microsoft Word offers as possible corrections.
• Avoid exclamation points, italics or bold or colour or uppercase for emphasis, etc. This rule may be slightly disregarded: on occasion, an exclamation point or italics (only) can be used as a rhetorical device, but I caution you to do so judiciously.
• Be informed about your readership, even if it is a 'pretend' readership. You should be aiming to communicate your findings to a first-year university, North American, Canadian, Cape Breton-familiar but not -centric audience, so you should expect a certain level of 'common sense'. Provide context and definitions (your own are fine: this isn't an 'according to Webster's' thing) for terms that you can reasonably expect people not to know, and skip definitions for terms that you can reasonably expect people to know. (It is not unreasonable to assume that your reader knows what cheerleading is, but it would be unreasonable to assume that your reader has an understanding of Sydney-area high school rivalries.)

More tomorrow:

P.S. DaVinci Code sucks major (insert offensive body part here) for reasons too numerous to even begin the process of conceiving of a way to record them. However:

Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, except at Columbia Pictures, where the power lunches won’t even be half-started. The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from this film. It is not just tripe. It is self-evident, spirit-lowering tripe that could not conceivably cause a single member of the flock to turn aside from the faith. Meanwhile, art historians can sleep easy once more, while fans of the book, which has finally been exposed for the pompous fraud that it is, will be shaken from their trance. In fact, the sole beneficiaries of the entire fiasco will be members of Opus Dei, some of whom practice mortification of the flesh. From now on, such penance will be simple—no lashings, no spiked cuff around the thigh. Just the price of a movie ticket, and two and a half hours of pain. [Anthony Lane, The New Yorker 29 May, 2006]