 Assalamu alaikum. Welcome to virtual university and welcome to your English class. Students are asked to write S's on all the subjects they study. It is part of their academic work. You write S's for English, for statistics, for psychology, for economics, etc. etc. So do not think that S's are written for English only. You will be required to write S's for other subjects besides English. And in today's lesson, we are going to talk about three things. First, we shall deal with choosing the essay topic. Second, with analyzing essay titles and third, with taking notes for essay writing. Students are usually handed a list of essay topics to write by their teachers. And since a lot of energy and interest goes into essay writing, it is important to choose your topic carefully. When you first look at the essay topics, you initially separate those which immediately attract you from those which do not. This is what all of us do. If we see a number of topics, we quickly in our minds analyze these S's and say, oh well, this one I can write on, this one I can write on, this one I won't. Now, this initial sorting out, it is mainly on the basis of the content of the questions. Now, if you were a student of literature and your teacher has set a question on the course that has been prescribed, you will ask yourself, do I want to write on the play or the novel or poem or the poems that I am studying. If it is a subject of economics, you will ask yourself, do I want to work on taxation or the gold standard or the licensing system, whatever it is. Now, this is only part of the task that is facing you. Your S's are mainly concerned with the content of what you are going to write and the content of your essay is governed by the special purpose and emphasis of the essay topic. Now, if you are a student of literature and you are being asked about your knowledge of the novel, let us say the old man in the sea, Hemingway's novel, the old man in the sea and you are asked to explore the nature of the tragedy, the tragedy that occurs in that novel or the effectiveness of the minor characters and the fish and the role of the fish in that in developing the plot and character or the role of the minor characters and the role of the fish in the creation of dramatic tension. You will first of all look at the questions and go for the one about which you are sure that you can write something, that you have enough content. Now, when your teachers give you essays to write, they word those essays with great care. The wording is very carefully done. Your teachers know what ideas and what content they want you to cover in your writing, in your reading and in your thinking about the topic. Your teachers may even guide you and help you in the way in which they expect you to develop your material. Now, this does not mean that you should think that there is only one right way of answering the question. The word essay has its origin in the French word which means to attempt, to try out and when you are writing an essay you are trying out your ideas. Now, what I want you to remember is that there are limits, there are limits on the ways you can handle the essay topic. Therefore, you should from the very beginning analyze what is it that the topic demands. Now, this can save you from working hard over an essay and at the end your teacher criticizes it and says irrelevant. You get one remark which says irrelevant. In today's lesson, you will learn to develop an approach that will enable you to read and to make better notes for writing an essay. In this way, you will learn to refine your thoughts as you learn more about the subject you are writing on. Now, there are certain characteristics of academic essays. There are four characteristics of academic essays. Most essays in the social sciences they share certain general characteristics and these are four. First, number one, you are seldom asked merely to explain or describe a process or event. The task is pretty complex as you are nearly always asked to combine description with analysis. For example, look at this history topic. If you got this as a question to write on, listen to the question. Choose any one day's working session of the report on the first round table conference. Identify the speaker and discuss the issues and attitudes revealed in that speaker's speech. Now, this is for a student of Indo Park history. You know the first round table conference that took place, right? And you have a report of that in front of you. What different people said? What was the agenda? What was decided? And you have been asked in this question to choose any one day's working session of the report on the first round table conference and then you are asked to identify the speaker and to discuss the issues and the attitudes revealed in that speaker's speech. Now, how would you handle such a question? Would a summary satisfy all the demands that are made in the topic? No. You are being asked to look at any one day's session. You can choose any one speaker, identify him and discuss the issues and the attitudes that are being revealed in the speaker's speech. You will have a number of speeches before you. Look at the number of things that are being asked. That is number one. Number two, you will find that your essays require you to relate general concepts, general concepts, general ideas and theories to particular materials, particular events, particular texts or you may be required to move from specific events, events and instances to a more general interpretation of their significance. For example, take the following essay topics and this is from literature. Laughter can range from good humid banter to cruel mockery. How would you describe the nature of the comedy in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V? Now, notice in that question you are asked to look at laughter. When is it considered good humid and when is it considered cruel mockery and you are asked to look at specific texts and those texts are Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V. Right? Now, here is another question and this is from anthropology. Can the life of the tall dingers of the southern Sudan living with their cattle be described as a case of symbiosis between man and animal? Now, you will notice it is the relationship between the general and the particular which you are being asked, which you are being directed to explore. You have to look at your questions. We are talking about academic essays and you are asked, if you remember, if you look at the literature question and the history question, you are being asked to move from the general to the particular and sometimes it is from the particular to the general. The third characteristic of most college essays is that they require you to gather ideas and information from printed sources. Now, if you remember some weeks ago, I told you that you get ideas from reading books, magazines, journals, reports. It is from printed sources that you will get ideas and finally, number 4, the fourth characteristic that is shared by academic essays is that you will find that essay topics will involve materials that can be interpreted in more than one way. There may be a problem or a controversy that you are asked to analyze and make an attempt to resolve. For example, if you get an essay topic like, who is freer, the master or the slave, the master or the servant? Now, this is, you can make it philosophical. It is obvious that you are not being asked to explain in a conclusive way the nature of freedom. The teacher does not expect you to write a conclusive argument. You can argue both ways. You can give examples, right? But here you are being asked to consider various aspects of a problem. You select the approach which seems appropriate to you and to develop it according to a well thought out plan. So, what would be your immediate concern? What would be your immediate concern when you are choosing an essay topic? Ask yourself, what is the essay about? And you will find that in all respects, you will be considering the content. That is what has to be put into the essay. Now, there are a number of different aspects that you will have to consider. You will have to consider the content, the concepts, the judgment and the knowledge. First, you need to check the general area of content which is defined by the keywords in the topic. For example, you get a question like say, to what extent does environmental pollution affect global warming? Here, you have to look at the keywords. In any question that you get, any question for writing an essay, academic or if it is just for your English teacher, look at the question, the question will hold or the statement or the topic. There are key terms in it. Now, in this question, to what extent does environmental pollution affect global warming? The topic is about global warming, environmental pollution and it is not about the Indus Dolphin or the Hubara Bustard or any other near extinction species. It makes it very clear to what extent. So, you will have to deal with that aspect, the extent to which environmental pollution is affecting global warming. Second, you should identify the specific concepts on which the topic is focused. Example, take this question, to what extent does environment and lifestyle of the Hunza people affect their longevity, which means their long life? Now, here the essay is about the relationship between the relationship that exists between three concepts. One is the concept of environment, the second is social organization, which is their lifestyle and the third is health and you have to explore to what extent. Now, the third thing that you are asked in most essays is you are asked for judgment. Now, in the light of your reading and your knowledge, you are asked to say something about the topic, either pass some judgment or state your own opinion. The term to what extent? It implies that there may be some truth in the relationship suggested. You have terms like why, how far you think this is true. Now, all such terms they allow room for you to deny the whole basis of the question asked. You feel like if you have enough knowledge, if you have enough facts, you can refute this and say well, you can deny the whole basis. It is clear that in academic essay writing, there is considerable room for difference in judgment, difference of opinion. Now, this is the good side about writing academic essays. You may agree, you may disagree, that option is there for you. And number four, I am sure you are aware of this, that essays are usually about different bodies of knowledge, that is different disciplines. There are some topics that are very broad. We have just looked at the topic of travel. And over there, you noticed that you limited it and your guiding purpose was why I would like to travel. In the same way, you have topics like photography, inflation, happiness, travel, discipline, broad topics left entirely up to the writer, up to the student, how he or she wants to handle it. Now, one of the major difficulty that occurs that happens when you are defining or limiting is your wording. Now, you should not expect that you will be able to settle on a precise topic at once. The trouble is that you need to read extensively. You need to read extensively and to talk with your friends, with your colleagues and with your tutor, your teacher before you can narrow down the subject or the topic to a specifically manageable focus. As I said earlier, for instance, if you are writing an essay on photography for your English teacher, now photography is a vast area. It is up to you, you know, how to handle it. You can talk about photography as an art. You can talk about photography as a hobby, right? So, it is up to you how to limit it. Now, the first step is that you must analyze your essay topic. Now, this is when you have longer questions, not in topics like photography and inflation and smuggling. By analyze, I mean analyze the ways in which you are being directed. That is, look first for the keywords which direct how the content is to be handled. Example, what are the key directional words in the topic? Look at a few topics and you will notice that there are words over there that give you the direction in which you should write. Take this topic. In the past 20 years, in the past 20 years, development in the field of electronics have revolutionized the computer industry. Discuss a very common type of question. Now, over there, in that question, you have the words developments and you have the word revolutionized. Revolutionized. They are giving you the directions in which you have to approach your essay and then the word discuss. So, it is up to you. You can give the prose and the cons both sides and develop an argument. Take another example. Discuss the causes of inflation. Now, in that topic, you have got the word causes. That is the key term. So, you focus, your essay must focus on the causes of inflation. Number three, discuss important religious and national holidays in Pakistan. The key words are religious and national holidays. But again, do not forget the word Pakistan. So, you discuss national and religious holidays, not in Dubai, but in Pakistan. For instance, for your English, you got this topic. The important milestones in my life. The key word over there is milestones. Take another topic. The hazards of driving small cars. Now, in that topic, there are two key words and those words are hazards and small cars. Not big cars. It is made quite plain that it is small cars. For instance, you got this topic. The quality of education in Pakistan high schools has declined. The key words over there are quality and declined. Now, the task in most college essays is to describe and analyze and the task of describing may be identified by directional words such as explain, review, outline, enumerate, list, summarize, state. These are words which direct you to analyze your material. It also includes words like assess, compare, contrast, criticize, analyze, discuss. Now, that was the first part of today's lesson where we talked about how to limit your essay topic and what are the things that you have to keep note of, the things that you have to keep in mind when you are looking at essay topics. Now, we look at note making for essay writing. Now, note making is a skill and I feel that it is a very personal affair. You will find plenty of advice from people on how to make notes, how to take notes, how to make notes. I wonder if you know the difference. Some people make a distinction between note taking and note making. Some people say that to take notes suggests a passive procedure. It is a procedure where you just record words verbatim as they occur. When you take notes, it means that you take down words as they come, word for word, exactly as spoken or written just like a secretary does when taking dictation from the boss. That is one way of looking at taking notes. Now, the other is to make notes and people say that to make notes demands your full attention. I would say that even the other one when you are taking notes, even that demands full attention. It requires you to be alert to the pattern of thought, its direction and development. You also have to distinguish between what is important and what is essential and what is not important. So, when you are making notes from your textbook or whatever reading source, you have to distinguish what is worth taking down, what is worth making a note of and what is not. And it is active involvement on your part and this is what makes note making difficult and this is what makes note making valuable. So, note making is a valuable skill, it is a skill that you must develop. Now, as I said earlier right at the beginning note making is a personal affair. How often have you found your fellow students who have borrowed your notes and they complain that they cannot follow them and they could not make head or tail of what you have written. And the same happens with you. When you borrow your friends notes and you find you look at them and you turn the pages and you say well it does not make sense. And that is why I said that note making is a very personal affair. We all like to do things in our own way. Now, this is because why is it so? It is because you record you recorded information and ideas which you decided suited your purpose. Therefore, what you select and how you record it is a matter of personal choice. You may pick up a few useful tips from looking at other peoples methods. But ultimately you must develop your own system and your system must be flexible enough to meet many different purposes. Now, the question is why do you make notes? Why should you make notes? Why do we make notes? Now, think for a moment of the role note making plays in the process of writing your essay. Why spend time recording material which is already available in printed form? Why must you do it? Now, there are practical and intellectual reasons for this. We make notes for certain reasons and the most important is number one that notes are aids to memory. You have read a book, you have come across a lot of good points and you shut the book and you say all right I will remember I know. But remember sometime you will forget and you will have problems recalling what you read because you have to use this material for your essay. You need to take notes, you need to make notes. So number one, notes are aids to memory. If you are reading for writing a long essay then you must have some system of sorting out and recalling information you will need when you finally come to writing the essay. And it is only if you have written down some notes. If you made some notes you have noted down some points that will make your writing of the essay easier. Number two, your notes, the notes that you make are raw material, are raw material on which you will work. Remember, facts, figures, statistics, direct quotations you cannot keep them in your mind. You need to record them and if you have recorded them in writing they will be there for you for ready reference. They will be quickly available for you available to you to make use of. So number one there is a purpose for making notes. Number one the purpose is that it is an aids to memory. Number two that your notes are your raw material that you are going to use that you will work with when you are writing your essay. And the third point is that the process of making notes while you are making notes you are doing a number of things. One of them is that you are summarizing ideas and arguments. Number two that you select points which you think are relevant to your purpose. And number three this process forces you to understand and interpret the original source. And number four you are continually clarifying and adjusting your perception of your essay topic in the light of your increasing understanding of the material. That is that while you are making notes you are going over the material. You are summarizing. You get a better perception of the question the topic that you are writing on. So note making is an important stage in your understanding of your essay topic. So that is why we encourage students to go to the library take out the books or reading material and make notes because in the long run they help you in writing your essay. It is notes that you make. It is the notes that you make that will provide the basis for your thinking and the materials for your essay. Now the next thing is why do you make notes and how much the content and volume of your notes are governed by three things. The first thing is that it is the writer's intention. When you are making notes you have to keep in mind the writer's intention. The writer had his own purpose when he was writing. You are using his material for your purpose. So you are required to sift. Do you understand the meaning of sift? It is when you separate things you sift the grain from the chaff. You sift the information and the ideas that are being presented by the writer to meet your own specific intentions. Remember the writer presented his ideas according to his interests and according to his needs and according to the purpose of his writing. You are reading his ideas getting his information to suit your purpose. So that is the first thing. Number two is the discipline the subject in which you are working. If you are working on a literary or a historical topic you may need to include direct quotations and quotations must be copied with great accuracy. Take down the quotation as it is word for word. If it is a historical topic take down if you are quoting from somebody's speech take it down correctly as that person said those words. And the third thing is your own purpose. Your own purpose in relation to your essay topic. Do not take down everything that is just not possible. You would be wasting your time. Your notes will be more useful if they are shaped right from the beginning to suit the demands of your essay topic. Do not forget that. If you are making notes right from the beginning keep in mind what are the demands of your essay topic. Now the next step is how do you take notes? How do you make notes? Your notes will develop the format depending on your purpose and on the nature of the sources. There are four general principles which apply to all methods of note making. Number one clear identification. When you are taking down notes you should record the author, the title, the place of publication, the publisher, the edition of the book and even the year of publication. Whether it is a book or a journal or a magazine or a newspaper whatever the source if you think you will remember it no you won't because you are a student you are studying a lot of other subjects. It is best that you write it down in your notebook the source of your material. And next to each point each key point or direct quotation you must note the exact page reference. Who is speaking and on what page? You must write this down otherwise you will forget and your essay will lose its authenticity. You use all this material to make your contents your argument authentic. The second point is that you must develop a flexible system record your notes in such a way that it is easy to rearrange them for the purposes of your essay. Excuse me. If you use loose paper then remember to number the pages. This is very common. You are using loose paper to make notes and you forget to number the pages. Now the third point that you must keep in mind is that when you are making notes leave wide margins on the side leave a margin because they are useful for writing your own comments or for adding cross references. When you are writing notes make them make when you are making notes you always want to say something. So add whatever you are saying in the margin. And the fourth thing is that you should develop an abbreviation system. Use common symbols such as EG for example, RE for reference or concerning. I have my own personal system of making abbreviations and you can also work out one for yourself. Now use abbreviations for common words. Example if you have got the word agriculture coming up again and again. You need not write agriculture every time. You can just use AGR full stop. That will tell you that this is an abbreviation for government GOVT for science SCI. Then you have terms like 16th century, 17th century, 18th century. You do not have to write the whole thing. Just write a capital C and the number of the century. You make abbreviations of names that recur again and again frequently that come up. For example, Kaidi-Azam. You do not have to write Kaidi-Azam. Just write big Q for Kaidi-Azam. Shakespeare. Write S-H-A-K. But be careful. Please remember not to create so many symbols and abbreviations that you confuse yourself. The technique of outlining and note making are related. You must have noticed that there is a relationship between note making and outlining for your essay. Now whatever method you choose for keeping notes, their form should clearly show the relative importance of ideas and their relationship. Did you get my point? What I am trying to say is that when you are making notes, remember that the way you make those notes, the form should clearly show the relationship of ideas. The importance of the ideas and their relationship. An outline with its indentation and numbering system helps you to visualize, to visualize, to see at a glance the way each idea is related to the others. Now we shall have a quick practice session. You read the following passage and then read the sets of notes that are given there. Compare the notes and see which type is better. Look at the first paragraph. This is the paragraph. In this discussion of art history, we give special emphasis to three basic factors. First, the background, the religious, social and economic conditions that make art possible in any period. Second, the foreground, the work of art itself, its style and its variation form from other styles. Third, the contribution of the individual artist, revealing his inspirations and the extent of his gift. There are two wrong ideas we must guard against. First, art history is not a development from primitive beginnings. You look at this paragraph, read it. Now look at the notes that have been made on this paragraph. Look at the notes that have been made on this paragraph. Now look at the, there are two example, example A. Look at example A. Look at the way these notes have been made and they are in sentence form. The author says there are three basic factors. The first is religious. Then there is the style of art but there are two wrong ideas. Now look at example B. Look at it. This is just what I said earlier. It is the, the outline form is easy to visualize. Notice example B is much better than example A. Three basic factors in art history A, B, C. That is point number one. Point number two is you must guard against two wrong ideas. A, art history is not development through time. B, you cannot compare works of different periods. Now you notice that note making, if you do it in the outline form, it is much, much better. Now let us look at another example. Another practice session. You are given a paragraph on the left hand side and you make notes on that passage by writing an outline on the lines given at the end. Look at them. The same paragraph has been taken down in note form and it is the outline form that is visible. Number one, Greek Olympic Games, five days including four athletic contests. Number two, Stadeon which is the stadium for trace. And B is Pentathlon. Five events and the five events are listed. Foot races, jumping, wrestling, throwing discurs, throwing javelin. C is boxing and the two categories are given. D is horse racing and that has two points. Chariots and riding bareback. Now in today's lesson, you looked at essay topics, how to choose essay topics and then you analyzed essay titles and then the last part you had practice in making notes for essay writing. Allah Hafiz, see you next time.