For The Truly Depraved: Writing Sexuality in Popular Culture

Franziska Röber
winter term 19/20

Faculty of Linguistics, Literature and Culture Studies Institue of English and American Studies Chair of English Literary Studies

1_INTRODUCTION AND ORGANISATION

PRESENTATIONS
• keep yourself to the 10/20/30 rule: 10 slides, no longer than 20 minutes, font size no less than 30 point
• do: introduce the topic, pose your main/lead question and answer it in the end, provide discussion points, give
your sources!
• don‘t: do not repeat what you have read, as the others are familiar with the text!

ACADEMIC WRITING

• main rule for assignments of any form: it needs to be long enough to cover what needs to be covered and short
enough to still be interesting

GENERAL STRUCTURE
1. Title page / Cover
2. Abstract (only for longer papers)
3. List of Abbreviations
4. List of contents
5. Introduction
The first paragraph should announce clearly the theme of the essay. It contains your thesis statement and
mentions the subtopics. State them clearly! You should announce all the points you wish to develop. Each of them
will get an own paragraph in the main part of your essay. Furthermore, the introduction is where the writer grabs
the reader‘s attention. A poor first impression bores the reader from the beginning.
• refer to current discussions or recent news events
• start with an interesting question, quotation or statistic
6. Main Part
The paragraphs of the main part are all similarly constructed. They form the arguments and relate each of
the subtopics to the thesis statement. The body of the essay develops your ideas logically and therefore must
reflect solid research and show a clear understanding of the subject. Place each idea cluster in its own paragraph
and expand on it by supporting facts and arguments with details and examples. Do not have too many small
paragraphs (No one- sentence paragraph!) but elaborate well on each point.
Rule of thumb: 100 words a paragraph.
7. Conclusion
Remember that these are the last thoughts that you will leave the reader with. Make them the best you can!
Summarise your points and arguments and go one step further: draw an overall conclusion out of these findings
for your theses from the beginning. Do NOT add additional arguments or information in this part any more.
Compare your initial claim with your conclusion and make sure that they cohere!
8. List of Illustrations
9. List of Works Cited/ Bibliography
10. Statement of Authorship

1
THE FORMAT
Extent 800 words (intro-main-conclusio)/ 12-15 pages for termpaper
Margins „wide enough“ usually 2,5 left, top, bottom and 3 to 3,5 on the right
Font an easily readable typeface
Size 12 pt. (text) | 10 pt. (footnotes and quotes)
Spacing 1,5 line spacing (text) | 1,0 line spacing (footnotes, quotes)
Justification full or left justification, paragraphs indented
quotes: full justification, 1 to 2cm indented
Page Numbers consecutively throughout the paper (except front page, if there is one)
Also: only printed on one side,
name on top of each sheet,
essay title on first page of text

THE STYLE
• Language should be appropriate and formal but still understandable for a wide audience (which may
• or may not have a suitable subject-specific background).
• Make sure to explain technical terms.
• Do not use I or me too often.
• Do not use “like” too extensively. (Use it, like, never. You know, like, just like that.)
• Do not translate quotes from the major european languages (e.g. French and German), should you
• wish to do so, add the translation in a footnote.
• Write appropriate to the occasion.
• Avoid colloquial abbreviations like shouldn’t, hadn’t, won’t, I’m, we’ll etc.
• Write in a clear style as well. Many students are tempted to write in an unnatural style. They mistakenly feel they
should adopt an academic air, resulting in a dull, long-winded and boring essay.
• Try to avoid an overuse of noun phrases, acronyms (WM, AIDS, Azubi, NATO,...) and abbreviations.
• Avoid abstract terms and wordy expressions but be as specific as you can! Avoid padding in your essay. Make
your writing much stronger by making every word count. Additionally, avoid weak verbs, such as “to be” or “to
get”. Use strong verbs instead. Instead of using the impersonal passive and third person viewpoint, you should
write with strong, active verbs.
• Keep your sentence length under control.

ITALICS AND FOOTNOTES

• Italics should be used for titles of books, movies or papers mentioned in the text, as well as foreign
• words used in the text. DO NOT use it to highlight words!
• Footnotes should be used for important additions and annotations to the text, which are vital for the
understanding of the text but would interrupt the flow of the text:
• further reading recommendations to support your statement (indicated by cf. also…)
• to give a reference to e.g. another chapter within the same paper
• to add a slightly longer quote
• to expand a statement
• to give voice to other (e.g. contrasting) opinions, which do not fit the text/which are not dealt with in the text
• to add the translation of a quote, if necessary
• they have to be numbered consistently, throughout the entire paper
• they are either placed at the end of the page or at the end of the entire paper (Endnoten)

THE SOURCES/ THE BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Always, always cite your sources
• not required for every type of borrowed material. Information and ideas that are common
• knowledge among your readers need not be documented. Common knowledge includes information widely
available in reference works, such as basic biographical facts about prominent
• persons and the dates and circumstances of major historical events.
• keep track of your sources! Scrambling to get them together afterwards usual proves to be a lot of work and
makes it more complicated
• Evaluate your sources: wikipedia and google are a good places to start your research but not good places to end
it.

2
THE STRUCTURE OF AN ENTRY/BIBLIOGRAPHIC ENTRIES

Examples

The author of the source you‘re

1 Author Judy Giles Jane Arthur
Tim Middleton
working with (not the editor!)

2 Publication date 1999 2009

The year the source was published
(take the year of the edition you‘re
working with)

Studying Culture: A Television and

3 Source title* Practical Introduction Sexuality: Regulation
Title of the article/book/DVD you‘re
working with. and the Politics of
Taste

4 Title of container
A work like a novel or a study is
self-contained (no title). An article/
chapter is part of a larger work (title).

5 Other Contributers
Indicates the name of the editor
(Ed./ed.), the editors (Eds./eds.), the
translator (Trans.)

6 Version 2nd edition

Indicates the edition of the book/
other

7 Number
Volume number, if a works has been
published in multiple volumes.

8 Location Malden Milton Keynes

Name of the place/location of the
publisher (e.g. Oxford: Oxford UP)

9 Publisher Blackwell Publishing Open University Press

Name of the publisher

If you are using a specific part of a

10 Pages
book or an article published in an
anthology the pages need to be
schematic version Author (edition Year). Title: Subtitle. Location:
indicated.
Publisher. PageA-PageB.

examples Giles, Judy and Tim Middleton (1999). Studying

Culture: A Practical Introduction. Malden:
If you are not sure please use one of the following methods:
Blackwell Publishing.
look it up:
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (82016).
Arthur, Jane (22009). Television and Sexuality:
Have it done for you: Regulation and the Politics of Taste. Milton
www.easybib.com // www.bibme.org // or:use Zotero/Endnote/Mendeley
Keynes: Open UP.

*Source Title
• if it‘s a book, a collection of essays, stories or poems (by one or various authors) the title of the source is always
set in italics
Author (Year). Title: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.
• if it‘s an essay, a story, or a poem in a collection, as a part of a larger whole, is placed in quotationmarks
Author (year). „Title of the essay.“. Title of the larger work. Ed. Editor. Location: Publisher, pages.
3
 • the title of a periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) is set in italics while the title of an article in the periodical
goes in quotation marks
Author (Year).“Title of the essay.“Name of the periodical Vol.Iss: pages.
• the same is true across media forms: television series, website, album in italics, an individual episode, article, song
in quotation marks
• if the source is untitled: give either a brief description (neither in quotation marks nor in italics), the subject (if
email) or the entire message (if a tweet)
Author. Comment on “whatever article”. Website, date, time, www.linktothesource.com.
or: Author. Comment on „whatever article“. Website. [Accessed date] at: www.linktothesource.com.
@username. “Entire message as a title including all mistakes.” Twitter, date, time,
www.linktotweet.com/.
or: @username. „Entire message as a title including all mistakes.“ Twitter. [Accessed date] at:
www.linktotweet.com/.

Special cases
• multiple works of the same year by the same author
Author (Year a). Title: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.
Author (Year b). Title: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.
• unpublished material
Author (forthcoming). Title: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.

In-Text Citation
• while citing your primary source, it‘s convenient to give the abbreviation in parentheses after the first full use of
the title
Throughout the events of The Half-Blood Prince (Prince) and the beginning of Deathly Hallows (Hallows) Scrimgeour is
compared to a lion and a bird of prey (cf. Hallows: 124), literally and figuratively stalking those he seeks to control and
who are valuable to him, pouncing on them when he has a chance to do so.
• the author’s last name and a page have to be given in parentheses:
(O’Driscoll 2009: 99)
• place the reference as near as possible to the thought(s) being documented, usually at the end of the sentence (or
paragraph)
• if you have already included the author’s name in the sentence, it is unnecessary to repeat it again in the citation
Some argue that “a dream is the fulfilment of a wish” (Freud 1920: 154)
Freud states that “a dream is the fulfilment of a wish” (1920: 154)
• if you quote more than one work of one author in your paper, reference the shortened version of the title (or the
year) of the work cited
• you can also use footnotes for the references (decide on one possibility and apply it continuously within the paper)
• the parenthetical reference should precede the punctuation mark of the sentence, clause or phrase
• quotations constituting fewer than three lines are marked in quotation marks
• changes within the quotation have to be marked with [ ]; if you leave out a word or passage within a quotation, this
has to be marked with [...]
In this organised, interpretative community of readers, also called a fandom, “[r]eaders [...] use cyberspace to
construct websites, role-playing games, blogs, and fanfictions” (Cantrell 2011: 30), which uses symbols, gestures,
mannerisms, and other reminding objects that are stable and situation transcendent in order to construct a cohesive
group with its own identities.
• quotations in a language other than that of the paper are either given after a colon or need to be incorporated in
the grammatical structure of the text
Jene Vorurteile und Darstellungen, laut Charles: „appea[r] in the literature in subtle ways and [are] often not an
intentional message [a]s literature is one medium that reflects attitudes, values, and ideals of a culture“ (1993: 238).
• for quotations constituting three and more lines: start new line, indent left and right, no inverted commas, single
spaced, font size 11 (or one fontsize smaller than the one you‘re using)
The St. Oswald’s Home for Old Witches and Wizards is very much different from the notion of retirement homes “as
a tragedy of enforced idleness and ‘roleless’ existence” (Gilleard & Higgs 201: 137), as it is chaos. [It] is magic. [I]t is as
wonderful as you might hope. Walker frames are conjured into life, knitting wool is enchanted into chaos, and male
nurses are made to dance tango. ese are people relieved of the burden of having to do magic for a reason — instead
these witches and wizards do magic for fun. And what fun they have (Child 66).
• indirect quotes (when an author quotes someone else and you want to use this quote) have to be indicated by ‘qtd.
in’
• if you allude to other material (e.g. in order to hint at further reading) use ‘cf.’