Writing: Academic Style

A friend of mine told me a very short while ago that I was much better at 'academic BS' than she is. I can only assume that the 'BS' stands for 'British Studies', since that's what we're both students of *cough*.

Well, here's the thing: academic style isn't that hard to do. I'm not talking about MLA style or other such, which there are standards for (I recommend easybib.com to all you who are struggling with the format of bibliographies), but about how to sound like a pro.

Here we go!

Exemplifying on my own essay that I'm working on at the moment: dislocation in Margaret Atwood's "The Penelopiad". The book is basically about Penelope waiting for Odysseus to come back – you know her, the woman who kept making and unmaking a shroud in order to stall for time because of suitors making a nuisance of themselves.


0. The general theme. I assume this has already been given to you. Unless you're doing this of your own volition, it generally is.

E.g. I have to write about 'dislocation in the works of an author from a part of the world that used to be in the British Empire'. (aka, about exiles of some sort)


1. You choose something to do the essay on. Preferably, something connected to the theme, right?

E.g. Margaret Atwood's "The Penelopiad". (she's Canadian and I can work with the theme of exiles in that book)


2. Drawing lines between what you're working on and what you're working with. Look at the two things, see the common points and discover whether those common points contain similarities or differences. Luckily, the Miracle of Knowledge is that everything in the world can be connected to anything else in the world, so even something as crazy as Disneyland and Supernovas can be combined in an essay.

Look at what you're supposed to talk about. Discover the obvious points, then look at the matter sideways and stretch the meanings of concepts. The first will make you safe. The second will make you look really smart, if you're doing it right.

Note: Always have proof! That means, always have a claim supported by something.

E.g. In my case, the obvious would be that Penelope is an exile in her own home, because she's surrounded by many enemies, in the shape of the suitors. She's an 'exile' in the Odyssey, since she's barely mentioned.

The stretched meaning of 'exile', well... The book is a bit crazy and, aside from the story in itself, it contains a lot of shorts of all sorts concerning 12 of her maids, who were hanged in the Odyssey for no real reason. In the Penelopiad, they sue Odysseus for his murder, in a contemporary setting. And then Athena and the Furies appear in their Ancient Greek shapes and mess everything up. I can say that these characters are 'exiles' in that they're taken from their original setting and shoved into a contemporary one, not fitting at all. But this ties in with post-modern tendencies to parody and do all sorts of pastiche – so maybe post-modern art in itself is an art of exiled arts?

If I think a bit, perhaps I can say it's some sort of metaphor. Hmm.


3. Believe. Pretend that your suppositions and the lines that you're drawn are, like, totally there.

E.g. To me, "The Penelopiad" is now about exiles. I believe that Penelope is an exile. I believe that the 12 maids are exiles. I believe that Odysseus is an exile. I shall never doubt the fact that what I say is true. It is as I say, because I can find proof for it.

Note: You can drop this belief once the essay is over, don't worry.


4. Out of a metaphorical drawer pick out special words that sound very clever.

E.g. 'therefore', 'due to this', 'however', 'best understood', 'can be said to', 'on the other hand', 'can be seen', 'can be interpreted', 'play the role of' and whatever else suits your fancy. In time, these will become natural and you'll even start having preferred academic-sounding vocabulary. (I, for one, am a great fan of 'however' and all the things that look like 'can be […] to')


5. Replace the words you'd normally use with the new vocabulary. Also, use linkers to make sentences flow nicely.

Special note: as much as possible, eliminate the word 'I' from your essay. If 'you think' or 'you believe', make it 'it can be said that' or 'it can be interpreted as' or other such. It sounds fancy and you know for sure that it can be said or interpreted that way, since you're doing it.

E.g. "Margaret Atwood says in the Introduction to the Penelopiad that there's two very fishy things in Homer's Odyssey: what Penelope was doing while Odysseus was away and why the twelve maids were hanged at the end (xiv). I think the Penelopiad is a sort of reply to the Odyssey from that point of view. Also, Penelope is a woman in Ancient Greece, so she can never see nor do anything relevant. And she's pretty much ignored in the Odyssey."

Becomes:

(note: our professor has this obsession with the word 'hysterical' with the obscure definition of 'demanding interpretation, so that's what it refers to here)

"Margaret Atwood states in the Introduction to the Penelopiad that she found two things profoundly 'hysterical' in their strong demand for analysis and interpretation in Homer's Odyssey: Penelope's own life during Odysseus's absence and the hanging of the twelve maids in the original text (xiv). The Penelopiad can therefore be seen as a reply to the Odyssey, centering around a character who, as a woman in Ancient Greece, was by definition banned from any relevant events, and as a female character is exiled to the margin of an epic."


6. Do the written equivalent of being Irish, climbing up on top of the house, drunk, in a rage, trying to kick the bloody English out of your country and singing "rooster of the fighting stock, would you let a Saxon cock crow out upon an Irish rock, fly up and teach him manners". That's a fragment of an Irish song, "Follow me up to Carlow".

What that's about? Well, not about any country whatsoever. I'm a student of British Cultural Studies, I like everybody in that area and I hate politics. No, this part is about being in a fighting mood, having a bit of liquid courage in your veins and being assertive. Also, about being more coherent than a drunkard of any nation on top of the house may be. "Follow me up to Carlow" simply happens to be the song that puts me in that sort of mood. You can find your own.

This is where you hurtle your suppositions at the audience. Blow them away. Throw them as canon balls backed by the explosion of proof. Toss them elegantly, with all the nice words in your special drawer. Believe. Be brave. Show those unbelievers how absolutely correct you are and how they've never thought about what you're saying.

E.g.  ...well. Example not granted. I can't show you the mood. Just blow them away. Irish songs are usually good for fighting spirit. Metal can be good, too. "We Will Rock You". The soundtrack for Epic Bloody Movies. Crowning Music of Awesome in general.


7. Don't forget that editing what you've written is highly recommended. Sharing an essay with a colleague can be a good idea. Also, these points are only aiding points – they don't ensure that what you say is valid and they don't ensure that what you say will have as much of an impact as point 6 might lead you to believe. But they can give you some idea of how to approach the matter, how to talk and how to get over blocks. They don't tell you how to do your research, how to organize your ideas, how to see which ideas are good or bad, or any of that. Just a bit of style. Because I've been told I'm good with academic BS.