Nguyen Thi Tuyet Hanh, PhD 1

A. USEFUL INFORMATION TO STUDY LITERATURE

Taking Notes
1. In preparation for writing an essay or any other piece of work, your notes might
come from a number of different sources: course materials, set texts, secondary
reading, interviews, or tutorials and lectures. You might gather information from
radio or television broadcasts, or from experiments and research projects. The
notes could also include your own ideas, generated as part of the essay
planning process.
2. The notes you gather in preparation for writing the essay will normally provide
the detailed evidence to back up your arguments. They might also include such
things as the quotations and page references you plan to use in your essay. Your
ultimate objective in planning will be to produce a one or two page outline of the
topics you intend to cover.
3. Be prepared for the fact that you might take many more notes than you
will ever use. This is perfectly normal. At the note‐taking stage you might not be
sure exactly what evidence you will need. In addition, the information‐gathering
stage should also be one of digesting and refining your ideas.
4. Don't feel disappointed if you only use a quarter or even a tenth of your
materials. The proportion you finally use might vary from one subject to another,
as well as depending on your own particular writing strategy. Just because some
material is not used, don't imagine that your efforts have been wasted.
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5. When taking notes from any source, keep in mind that you are attempting to
make a compressed and accurate record of information, other people's
opinions, and possibly your own observations on the subject in question.
6. Your objective whilst taking the notes is to distinguish the more important
from the less important points being made. Record the main issues, not the
details. You might write down a few words of the original if you think they may
be used in a quotation. Keep these extracts as short as possible unless you will be
discussing a longer passage in some detail.
7. Don't try to write down every word of a lecture ‐ or copy out long extracts from
books. One of the important features of note‐taking is that YOU ARE MAKING
A DIGEST OF THE ORIGINALS, AND TRANSLATING THE
INFORMATION INTO YOUR OWN WORDS.
8. Some students take so many note that they don't know which to use when it's
time to write the essay. They feel that they are drowning in a sea of information.
9. This problem is usually caused by two common weaknesses in note‐taking
technique:
Ø transcribing too much of the original
Ø being unselective in the choice of topics
10. There are TWO POSSIBLE SOLUTION to this problem:
Ø SELECT ONLY THOSE FEW WORDS OF THE SOURCE
MATERIAL, which will be of use. Avoid being descriptive. Think
more, and write less. Be rigorously selective.
Ø KEEP THE ESSAY QUESTION OR TOPIC MORE CLEARLY IN
MIND. Take notes only on those issues which are directly relevant to
the subject in question.
11. Even though the notes you take are only for your own use, they will be more
effective if they are recorded clearly and neatly. Good layout of the notes will help
you to recall and assess the material more readily.
How to Summarize
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1. A summary ‐ or précis ‐ is a shorter version of a longer piece of writing. The

summary captures all the most important parts of the original, but expresses them
in a [much] shorter space.
2. Summarizing exercises are usually set to test your understanding of the original,
and your ability to re‐state its main purpose.
3. Summarizing is also a useful skill when gathering information or doing
research.
4. The summary should be expressed ‐ as far as possible ‐ in your own words. It's
not enough to merely copy out parts of the original.
5. The question will usually set a maximum number of words. If not, aim for
something like one tenth of the original. [A summary, which was half the length of
the original, would not be a summary.]
6. Read the original quickly, and try to understand its main subject or purpose.
7. Then you will need to read it again to understand it in more detail.
8. Underline or make a marginal note of the main issues. Use a highlighter if this
helps.
9. Look up any words or concepts you don't know, so that you understand the
author's sentences and how they relate to each other.
10. Work through the text to identify its main sections or arguments. These might
be expressed as paragraphs or web pages.
11. Remember that the purpose [and definition] of a paragraph is that it deals with
one issue or topic.
12. Draw up a list of the topics ‐ or make a diagram. [A simple picture of boxes or
a spider diagram can often be helpful.]
13. Write a one or two‐sentence account of each section you identify. Focus your
attention on the main point. Leave out any illustrative examples.
14. Write a sentence, which states the central idea of the original text.
15. Use this as the starting point for writing a paragraph, which combines all the
points you have made.
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16. The final summary should concisely and accurately capture the central
meaning of the original.
17. Remember that it must be in your own words. By writing in this way, you help
to re‐create the meaning of the original in a way which makes sense for you.
Example of an Original text
'At a typical football match we are likely to see players committing deliberate
fouls, often behind the referee's back. They might try to take a throw‐in or a free
kick from an incorrect, but more advantageous positions in defiance of the clearly
stated rules of the game. They sometimes challenge the rulings of the referee or
linesmen in an offensive way, which often deserves exemplary punishment or
even sending off. No wonder spectators fight amongst themselves, damage
stadiums, or take the law into their own hands by invading the pitch in the hope of
affecting the outcome of the match.' [100 words]
Summary‐ Unsportsmanlike behaviour by footballers may cause hooliganism
among spectators. [9 words]
(Borges)

HOMEWORK
THE STORY OF AN HOUR
Kate Chopin
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken
to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that
revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her.
It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad
disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He
had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had
hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
Nguyen Thi Tuyet Hanh, PhD 5

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed
inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild
abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she
went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she
sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to
reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all
aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the
street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song, which
some one was singing, reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering
in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had
met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless,
except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried
itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a
certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed
away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of
reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What
was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it,
creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the
color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this
thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with
her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she
abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She
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said it over and over under hte breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the
look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and
bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch
of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear
and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew
that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death;
the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead.
But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that
would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them
in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for
herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence
with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will
upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no
less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter!
What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of
self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her
being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold,
imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will
make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of
life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and
summer days, and all sorts of days that
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would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only
yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a
feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of
Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs.
Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who
entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He
had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been
one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to
screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that
kills.
1) The delicious breath of rain was in the air... is an example of...
A an allusion.
B personification.
C a metaphor.
D a simile.
2) What did Mrs. mallard believe happened to Mr. Mallard?
A He died in a train accident.
B He left her for another woman.
C He fell off a ladder at work and died.
D He left her to get a divorce.
3) How did Mrs. Mallard respond to the news of her husband at first?
A She just stared.
B She locked herself in her room.
C She laughed.
D She cried.
Nguyen Thi Tuyet Hanh, PhD 8

4) What problem did Mrs. Mallard have?

A Blindness.
B Heart trouble.
C Stomach trouble.
D A broken bone.
5) Mr. Mallard returning home in the story is what part of the plot?
A climax
B falling action
C resolution
D rising action
6) Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of
her body is an example of
A an allusion.
B a metaphor.
C imagery.
D a simile.
7) The room with the armchair by the window is the...
A plot.
B theme.
C point of view.
D setting.
8) What point of view is this story told from?
A objective
B omniscient
C limited
D first person
9) An unexpected twist at the end of a story is called...
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A irony.
B imagery.
C theme.
D an allusion.
10) What was the best theme for this story?
A Don't live life for anyone except yourself.
B A woman thought her husband died, but he didn't. Then she died.
C Don't stay in a loveless marriage.
D Don't be happy about the death of your husband.

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