Lecture 8: Guidelines: Writing

the Term Paper

16th December 2016

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Last week, we had two student volunteers
performing teaching simulations. Today, we
will repeat the exercise. Other topics we will
cover today are:
o the term paper
o group activity in relation to the term paper
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• The term paper should be 2500 words long for those
intending to teach in primary school, and 4500 words long for
everyone else. The term paper is due on 10th March. You
should e-mail the term paper to me (not a hard copy), so that
I can give you written feedback online, if you wish (apart from
the final grade).
• At the top right-hand corner of the term paper, please insert your personal details as
follows (single-spaced):

Your name
Comics and Graphic Novels in South Asia
Winter semester 2016-17
Lecturer: Malini Roy
• The text of the term paper should be written in Times New Roman 12, and double-spaced.
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 Before you write your term paper, please
• Fill in your time slot on the Doodle link sent
• Before meeting me individually, please e-mail me an abstract (of around 100
words) of your term paper, and also bring in a paper copy to the meeting. Your
abstract should define and explain the area you will be working on, and give an
idea of the research questions you will be asking of your material. It may help to
think of your abstract as well as your term paper through the following categories.
Context Why are you doing this? What is the gap in the existing literature that needs
to be addressed?
Objectives What is your paper trying to say (that hasn’t been said before)?
Method How are you trying to say it?
Significance What are the implications of your study? What and how does it add to
the existing conversation?

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 Research/using sources for your term paper
• For a 2500-word paper you should have consulted at least 5 secondary sources. There is
no upper limit, of course.

• Make sure your secondary sources are reliable, i.e. peer-reviewed. In case you use
primary sources such as personal interviews, do cite them properly.

• Your term paper should contain a short literature review in order to ground the context
of your study.

• Within your paper, if you cite from works in another language—say German—please cite
the source accurately. If you use quotations from another language, please insert English
translations in the body of your term paper, and insert the original in
footnotes/endnotes. Use the quotations from a standard published translation if
available, otherwise insert your own translations, and mention in a note at the end of
the essay that the translations are your own.
(Contd.)
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(Contd.)
• All quotations should be (ideally) from original sources. For e.g. “Lecture slides”
as a source was alright for the response paper, but would not be acceptable for
the term paper.

• Make sure that the way you engage with your secondary sources is active rather
than passive, i.e. please don’t take your secondary sources as self-evident
pearls of wisdom. You may accept their arguments, or reject them, or accept
them with qualifications. Do show the relevance of the secondary source to
your work, and position citations/quotations from the source within the
scholar’s broad argument.

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 The presentation of the term paper
• Your term paper should contain an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion.
Keep in mind Aristotle’s maxim: “Tell them what you will tell them. Tell them. Tell
them what you just told them.”

• Your introductory section should contain a thesis statement that summarises the
argument of your term paper.

• Your term paper should have a logical structure. Each paragraph should contain a
topic sentence and consist of 4-5 sentences. Each succeeding paragraph should
develop the ideas expressed in the previous paragraph. The entire term paper
should add up to a coherent whole. Do “signpost” regularly to let your reader
know what to expect next.
(Contd.)

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(Contd.)
• If your topic relates to pedagogy, make sure you give some examples of practical
applications in the classroom. If your topic focuses on the critical appreciation of a
text/texts, make sure you provide appropriate examples and analyse (not just
summarise) them.

• You need to define any terms you use that may not be “common knowledge” with the
help of reliable sources.

• All citations should be in MLA format: see MLA Handbook for Writers of Research
Papers, 8th ed. (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2016).

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Before submitting your term paper, please
• make sure you’ve taken feedback from your response paper into account, as well as the
guidelines on grading policy (Lecture 6).

• keep in mind that a 10% relaxation of word limit (either way) will be acceptable. Term
papers that go 10% over the word limit will not be read after the 10% has been crossed,
and term papers under the 10% limit will be penalised. Your word limit should include all
text, including the essay, list of Works Cited, footnotes/endnotes, appendices, headings
etc.

• proofread the term paper thoroughly, checking spelling and grammar. Term papers
which are difficult to read or understand because of language problems will be
automatically downgraded regardless of quality of content.

• attach a statement that confirms that the term paper is your own work, with no
plagiarism involved.

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 Group activity
• Let each group form a “workstation”. Discuss and make a list of possible topics
with possible approaches for your term paper. Here’s a hypothetical example:
the topic of hands-on learning in The Swiss Family Robinson, which you can
approach through the fantasy of the island in terms of setting/Socratic
dialogue/the theme of the imperative of survival.

• Those who are writing term papers on roughly similar topics may join forces to
form study groups, in order to bounce ideas off one another and share
resources.

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These were the results of the group activity.
work ethic
pedagogic goals
feminism/gender
models of citizenship
ecocriticism
comics vs. books in school—literacy skills (reading competence)

picture books in the primary classroom

robinsonade

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 Resources on academic writing
Please refer to the booklet uploaded on Learnweb: “How to improve your academic
writing”. You may also check out these websites:
http://www.https://owl.English.purdue.edu/
http://writingguide.geneseo.edu
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/skills/self-evaluation/
https://www.essex.ac.uk/students/study-resources/tdc/documents/academic-
writing.pdf

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For our next session on 13th January, please
read The Vanished Path by Bharath Murthy
(Noida, India: HarperCollins, 2015). Have a
good holiday break!

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