A334 Tutor-Marked Assignment 03

Using TWO of the Book 2 texts write an essay of no more than 2000 words in answer to ONE of the following questions.

In this essay, you will need to show evidence of independent study by demonstrating your knowledge of at least TWO critical sources from OUTSIDE the directed teaching material.

You should also pay close attention to the language and literary techniques of the texts that you have chosen.

EITHER

a.Anita Pacheco argues that in The Country Wife there is conflict between social conventions and nature (Book 2, p.126). Discuss the relationship between social conventions and nature in any TWO texts studied in Book 2.

b.Discuss the pursuit of self-interest in any TWO texts studied in Book 2.

Information about what constitutes a set text and critical sources for the purposes of this TMA can be found in the information following the guidance notes for the two questions.

Guidance notes for Option (a)

The question mentions The Country Wife, but you have a rich choice of texts in Book 2, and any of them would be appropriate for this topic. The effective pairing of texts will be a key element in your work, so give thought to which combination of texts will give you the best opportunity to develop a rich line of argument.

You are invited to consider the relationship between social conventions and nature in your chosen works. Debates about nature were active in the period, so this question takes you into key ideas and concerns and asks you to consider the ways in which they influenced literary writing of the time. The essay is not phrased as a direct question, but note that the invitation to discuss implies that some conclusion will be reached about the relationship between social conventions and nature as it is expressed in the texts, and as it functions within the context of the period.

The independent study options for Book 2, Chapter 1 (week 11), include work on Hobbes’s Leviathan, which is an important starting point for this topic. Chapter 13 of Leviathan is recommended for reading, and there are discussions available from two experts on Hobbes, Quentin Skinner and Noel Malcolm. In addition the BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our Time’ on Hobbes is recommended. You will also find discussion of Hobbes in the context of libertinism in Chapter 1 of Book 2. One of the independent study options covers Aphra Behn, the only woman poet discussed in Chapter 1, which will be relevant if you wish to include her poetry; the Chapter 7 options on authorship and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (week 17) may also be relevant if you wish to include women authors as part of your discussion. Other relevant independent study options include work on Restoration drama (weeks 12 and 13) and Gulliver’s Travels (weeks 15 and 16), and the research into utopias and dystopias may offer particularly rich and relevant material. If you choose to approach the question through the lens of satire you will find it useful to listen again to the audio programme, ‘Satire from Swift to the present’ (in ‘Audio and video recordings for Book 2 Chapter 5’). You may also find useful ideas in Audio 2 ‘Orientalism and material culture’ and Audio 3 ‘Orientalism and literary texts’.

Guidance notes for Option (b)

You have a rich choice of texts in Book 2, and any of them would be appropriate for this topic. The effective pairing of texts will be a key element in your work, so give thought to which combination of texts will give you the best opportunity to develop a rich line of argument.

You are invited to discuss the pursuit of self-interest in your chosen works, and you will find no shortage of characters who put their own interests at the forefront of their activities. However, you should not just regard this as an opportunity to describe the actions of certain characters, but you should think about how representations of self-interest, alongside representations of its opposite, selflessness, provide insights into moral concerns of the period. The essay is not phrased as a direct question, but note that the invitation to discuss implies that an argument will be developed and some conclusion will be reached about the ways in which different types of behaviour are expressed in the texts, and function within the context of the period.

Depending upon the texts chosen and the line of argument developed, any of the independent study options may be relevant. For example, the Chapter 1 independent study option on Aphra Behn, and the chapter 7 options on authorship and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (week 17) may be relevant if you wish to include women authors as part of your discussion. Other relevant independent study options include work on Restoration drama (weeks 12 and 13) and Gulliver’s Travels (weeks 15 and 16), and the research into utopias and dystopias may offer relevant material. If you choose to approach the question through the lens of satire you will find it useful to listen again to the audio programme, ‘Satire from Swift to the present’ (in ‘Audio and video recordings for Book 2 Chapter 5’). You may also find useful ideas in Audio 2 ‘Orientalism and material culture’ and Audio 3 ‘Orientalism and literary texts’.

TMA Requirements

On the file you submit you should make it clear which option you have selected. Please also fill out the full title of the question.

Set texts

If you are including poetry as one of your texts you should choose at least THREE poems found in Book 2. This would be considered one set text.
If you are including The Turkish Embassy Letters as one of your texts you should choose at least THREE letters. This would be considered one set text.
If you are including Arabian Nights’ Entertainments as one of your texts you should choose at least THREE stories. These may include the frame story. This would be considered one set text.

Remember that you should pay close attention to the language, literary techniques and genre conventions of the texts that you have chosen. Aim to give roughly equal space to each of your set texts. Although neither option explicitly asks you to ‘compare and contrast’ your selected texts, you might find it useful to do so to help you to develop an argument across them.

Critical sources

In this TMA, as in TMA 02, you must refer to at least two critical sources from outside the directed teaching material. Such critical sources include the following:

Critical material that you have encountered as part of an independent study option.
Introductory material from your set books (e.g., Tiffany Stern’s Introduction to The Country Wife).
Critical material mentioned briefly in the module book chapters. Items available on the OU library website are marked as such in the lists of references attached to the chapters.
Other critical material that you have found via the OU Library website. See Section 7 of the Assessment Guide for advice on how to find this additional material.

For this TMA critical sources cannot be module chapters, though you will no doubt want to refer to them in addition to your chosen critical sources as they provide a wealth of relevant material for the two essay options. In particular you should look back over the teaching materials in Book 2 to remind yourself of contexts from the period that might be relevant to the questions, both in terms of genre, and in relation to wider literary and philosophical ideas and developments.

Additional strategies and resources

Before you start writing, make sure that you know your selected set texts well.

You should re-familiarise yourself with any relevant audiovisual material and give careful thought to how you are going to integrate your independent study material into the assignment. You may find it useful to look again at Section 4 of the A334 Assessment Guide on how to plan and write your TMAs, and specifically at Section 4.7 on how to use critical sources. Don’t forget that there is no need for you to agree with any of the critics.

Remember that the questions require you to pay close attention to the language and literary techniques of your chosen texts. What exactly those literary techniques are will, of course, depend in large part on whether you are examining poems, plays or prose texts. You will therefore need to show sensitivity to the genres of the texts you choose. To help you with this part of the essay, it is useful to familiarise yourself again with the guidelines on close reading in Section 4.6 of the A334 Assessment Guide.

You will need to provide in-text citations and a Reference list with this essay, following the conventions provided in Section 8 of the A334 Assessment Guide.

4.4 Writing your Assignment

Make sure you clearly state the question title and the part (e.g. Part 1 or Part 2) or the option chosen (e.g. option (a) or option (b)) at the top of your submitted assignment.
Provide your essay with a clear introductory paragraph. The key function of your introduction will be to identify the main issue to be addressed, and your chosen approach to it. A well-chosen quotation can help catch the reader’s attention. Other things you might want to do in the introduction include reflecting on, or complicating the terms of the question.
As you progress through the essay, try to keep the reader aware of its overall structure and what the rationale is for each section. Each section should contribute to your overall argument; ideally, each paragraph will introduce something new.
Throughout the essay, make sure that you support the points you make by linking them to the details of the texts on which you are writing: usually, you will find that no more than brief quotations, summaries and references are necessary. Remember the word limit!
Remember too that quotations don’t explain themselves: any quotations you give from set texts or criticism must be to support your argument. For details on how to use quotations and reference your work, see Section 8 on ‘How to quote and reference’.
Write clearly and simply, avoiding elaborate sentences with lots of different clauses. Remember that your aim is to convey your argument as effectively as possible to your reader, not to overwhelm them with long words. Although there is no need to avoid using the first person (‘I’, ‘me’), in most of the TMAs and in the EMA, you should try not to be too chatty or informal. The exception is the first part of TMA 04, which asks you for personal reflection.
If you are writing an assignment on two or more texts, make sure that you allocate roughly equal amounts of space to each of the texts.
Make sure that you don’t lose sight of the question. Answering the question is the key task of any assignment.
It is a good idea to end the essay with a concluding paragraph that summarises the key features of your answer or points forward to new areas opened up by your answer.

4.5 Checking your work

When you have finished writing, and before you submit an assignment, make sure that you read it through carefully and check it for errors. It is surprising how many students do not check their work at this stage and so lose marks unnecessarily.

If possible, try to leave some time between the completion of your assignment and the checking of it: you will then be able to see it more objectively. You will almost certainly find that things that were clear to you at the time of writing are now no longer so clear, and need to be reworded. You may also find that your brain has been unconsciously working away at the issues raised, and that you now see a better way of arguing your case.

Here are some things to think about while you reread your work:

Does your argument make sense and is it clear to the reader? You may find that you will need to shorten and simplify some of what you say to help make your points come through more clearly. Have you phrased some things in an unnecessarily elaborate way? Part of your argument may be in the wrong place — or perhaps part of it needs expansion. Alternatively, you may find that you need to reduce a section in length or remove it because it is not relevant to the question.
Have you focused on making an argument of your own, based in your own genuine responses to the text? If you have referred to critics, is their work subservient to your argument? (See Section 4.7for tips about this.) Do you deal in sufficient detail with the set text or texts?
Have you made any spelling or grammar mistakes? If you are uncertain about the spelling of any of the words you’ve used, don’t hesitate to look them up in a dictionary!
Have you included in-text citations and a list of references to acknowledge which sources have informed your argument and specifically where you have used other people’s words and ideas? Check that your references use the correct conventions and are consistent. This can seem a tedious process, but it will only take a few minutes and you will almost certainly notice some things that need correction. Checking your references is also a good way of getting used to the referencing conventions and will make adding references to your next assignment less troublesome: practice makes perfect. See Section 8: ‘How to quote and reference’.

4.7 Using the critics

Throughout your work on this module – in the directed teaching materials, in every TMA except the first, in your work on independent study options and in the EMA – you will encounter the work of critics. Much of the module, indeed, requires you to seek out criticism that is relevant to the A334 topics that you are studying. (For guidance on how to find this material, see Section 7 of this Assessment Guide.) You will find that there is a great variety of criticism and a great variety of critical approaches. Some of it you will find useful, some less so. This section provides you with some handy tips on how to deal with the critical sources you use. The central point is that you should think of yourself as using the critics (including the authors of the directed teaching material), not as relying on them, or automatically feeling that you need to repeat their arguments.

Don’t use critics to make basic, obvious points about authors or texts. There are more interesting things that you can do with them!
Think of the work of a critic as a springboard or prompt for your own thoughts. One way of making sure you do this could be to make a rule for yourself always to begin a paragraph with a thought of your own, not a quotation or paraphrase from a critic. Try to ensure that you accompany any mention of a critic with a response of your own.
Don’t take a critic’s arguments as gospel. The fact that a critic says something does not automatically make it true. The lifeblood of literary criticism is debate and disagreement. You are certain to have your own responses to the texts you have read on the module. Think hard about these and only then look to see how you can bring in the work of the critics.
Compare the views of more than one critic and think about what your own opinion is. You will often find that you have a subtly different view.
Use your learning journal to think through your relationship(s) with the work of particular pieces of criticism that you find interesting. Remember that you are not looking for criticism that you agree with: just for criticism that you can use as a part of your own original argument.
Follow up the references in a critical source (or a chapter from the directed teaching material) to find other critical sources that look interesting. Some of these might mention further sources you want to track down, and so on (the process can seem like the intellectual equivalent of a treasure hunt). Try to read a number of critical sources to get a sense of the critical debate around a particular text or topic. What do you think about the points at issue? Is the debate relevant to the TMA or EMA question you are answering? If so, how?
When dealing with critical sources, don’t forget about the details of the set texts that you are writing on.
Skim through critical sources when you first come across them to see if they will be useful. Some will look off-topic, too complicated or too concerned with texts you are not studying to be useful.
Read the criticism you do decide to use with care and attention. Identify the main argument or arguments the critic is making and then see if you can distinguish those key arguments from (a) examples provided as evidence or illustration and (b) supporting arguments. Think about how well the argument hangs together. Are you convinced by it? What things is the critic good at explaining? What topics or texts or parts of texts has she or he not mentioned?
Different critics use different approaches. You will find an introduction to some of the more important of these in Chapter 6 of Book 1.
When you first refer to a particular critic in a TMA or EMA, use both their first name and their surname. Later references to the same critic can then be by surname only.
Avoid redundancy in your use of critics. If you have already summarised a critic’s views about a particular topic and have credited it to them, there is no need for you also to include a direct quotation from them saying the same thing. Just put the relevant page number in your in-text citation.
Be careful always to use the proper referencing conventions if you are quoting the exact words used by a critic (see Section 8.4 below for the conventions). Remember that you can always quote short phrases or clauses within a sentence of your own. For example: According to Tiffany Stern, The Country Wife is ‘a play about moments, not about consequences’ (Stern, 2014). The OU uses plagiarism detection software to check student TMAs and EMAs for uncredited quotation, so making a mistake here could get you into trouble.
Most critics will throughout their work refer to the work of other critics. Have a look at the ways in which critics use each other’s work.

To end with, here is a short list of some of the things you should think of doing with material from the critics:

Use part of it to support or illustrate a part of your own argument
Disagree with it (providing well-evidenced reasons why!)
Extend or develop one part of it, or all of it
Apply it to something else – a different text, perhaps, or a different part of a text (so, something a critic says about Pride and Prejudice may have interesting implications when applied to Persuasion).

4.7 Using the Critics

Don’t use critics to make basic, obvious points about authors or texts. There are more interesting things that you can do with them!
Think of the work of a critic as a springboard or prompt for your own thoughts. One way of making sure you do this could be to make a rule for yourself always to begin a paragraph with a thought of your own, not a quotation or paraphrase from a critic. Try to ensure that you accompany any mention of a critic with a response of your own.
Don’t take a critic’s arguments as gospel. The fact that a critic says something does not automatically make it true. The lifeblood of literary criticism is debate and disagreement. You are certain to have your own responses to the texts you have read on the module. Think hard about these and only then look to see how you can bring in the work of the critics.
Compare the views of more than one critic and think about what your own opinion is. You will often find that you have a subtly different view.
Use your learning journal to think through your relationship(s) with the work of particular pieces of criticism that you find interesting. Remember that you are not looking for criticism that you agree with: just for criticism that you can use as a part of your own original argument.
Follow up the references in a critical source (or a chapter from the directed teaching material) to find other critical sources that look interesting. Some of these might mention further sources you want to track down, and so on (the process can seem like the intellectual equivalent of a treasure hunt). Try to read a number of critical sources to get a sense of the critical debate around a particular text or topic. What do you think about the points at issue? Is the debate relevant to the TMA or EMA question you are answering? If so, how?
When dealing with critical sources, don’t forget about the details of the set texts that you are writing on.
Skim through critical sources when you first come across them to see if they will be useful. Some will look off-topic, too complicated or too concerned with texts you are not studying to be useful.
Read the criticism you do decide to use with care and attention. Identify the main argument or arguments the critic is making and then see if you can distinguish those key arguments from (a) examples provided as evidence or illustration and (b) supporting arguments. Think about how well the argument hangs together. Are you convinced by it? What things is the critic good at explaining? What topics or texts or parts of texts has she or he not mentioned?
Different critics use different approaches. You will find an introduction to some of the more important of these in Chapter 6 of Book 1.
When you first refer to a particular critic in a TMA or EMA, use both their first name and their surname. Later references to the same critic can then be by surname only.
Avoid redundancy in your use of critics. If you have already summarised a critic’s views about a particular topic and have credited it to them, there is no need for you also to include a direct quotation from them saying the same thing. Just put the relevant page number in your in-text citation.
Be careful always to use the proper referencing conventions if you are quoting the exact words used by a critic (see Section 8.4 below for the conventions). Remember that you can always quote short phrases or clauses within a sentence of your own. For example: According to Tiffany Stern, The Country Wife is ‘a play about moments, not about consequences’ (Stern, 2014). The OU uses plagiarism detection software to check student TMAs and EMAs for uncredited quotation, so making a mistake here could get you into trouble.
Most critics will throughout their work refer to the work of other critics. Have a look at the ways in which critics use each other’s work.

To end with, here is a short list of some of the things you should think of doing with material from the critics:

Use part of it to support or illustrate a part of your own argument
Disagree with it (providing well-evidenced reasons why!)
Extend or develop one part of it, or all of it
Apply it to something else – a different text, perhaps, or a different part of a text (so, something a critic says about Pride and Prejudice may have interesting implications when applied to Persuasion).

8.6 The Reference list

The Reference list provides full details of all the items with in-text citations. It should be presented in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames, with a gap between each item, in a single list with no subdivisions.

On other OU modules, you may have added a ‘Bibliography’ at the end of each assignment rather than a ‘Reference list’, and you may have included in this Bibliography all the works you consulted while preparing the assignment, whether or not you refer to them in the assignment. A334 requires you to limit your Reference list to items that you actually refer to in your assignment.

Examples of the most common types of item appear below. For guidance on how to reference other things, such as newspaper articles, websites and films, see the Cite Them Right version of Harvard.

Some things to notice about the examples:

Author Names

Authors’ initials rather than their first names are used in Cite Them Right version of Harvard. Even if the title of the book or article uses the author’s first name or names you should use initials only in your Reference list. When you refer to a critic in the text of your essay, however, do feel free to use their first names. For example:

According to Cynthia Marshall, however, ‘the requirement of a melancholy Jaques’ is ‘crucial to the play’s emotional equilibrium’ (Marshall, 1998, p. 375).

If an item has more than three or more authors or editors, list all the authors in the entry in the Reference list, but for in-text citations, mention only the first author followed by ‘et al.’ (short for the Latin phrase ‘et alii’ (and the others)), e.g. (Jones et al., 1992).

Abbreviations and Punctuation

Abbreviations you can use include ‘ed.’ (‘edited by’ or ‘editor’), ‘eds.’ (‘editors’) and ‘trans.’ (‘translated by’). See the examples below for how to use these abbreviations.

Use single inverted commas, but for quotations or titles within something else in single inverted commas, use double inverted commas, e.g. ‘“In Paris? Mass, and well remembered!”: Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy and the English reaction to the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre’.

Capital letters in titles

Important words begin with capital letters in book titles, poem titles and journal titles. In article and chapter titles, however, only names of people and places begin with capital letters.

Places of publication

You will usually find the place of publication and the publication date of a book on the reverse side of the book’s title page (or its online equivalent). This is also the place where you will find out if the version of the book you are using has an edition number (‘second edition’, etc.). An example of how to register edition numbers is given in the Palfrey example below. There is no need to specify that a book is a first edition; only later editions are relevant.

In this module, you only need mention the first place of publication mentioned in books which have more than one place of publication.

When you use an ebook, make sure that you take the details (author and title) from the ebook itself – the details on the supporting webpage can take a different format.

Online texts

Most of the online sources that you use on A334 will be digital versions of a book or a journal article (an ebook or an electronic version of a journal). When you refer to such an item, you should say so by adding ‘[Online]’ to the reference. If you know the name of the database through which you have accessed it, you should add this too; you also need to put in brackets the date you accessed the resource online, e.g. ‘(Accessed: 22 October 2015)’. If you can’t work out what the name of the database is, simply put ‘Open University Library website’. If you access the resource more than once, use the latest date. You do not need to copy the full internet address or URL, which typically begins ‘www’ or ‘http’. For the precise format, see the examples below.

Journal articles

For an introduction to journal articles, see Section 7.4 of this Guide.

Author surname, Author initials. (Year of publication) ‘Title of article’, Title of Journal, [Online (if accessed online)] volume, number e.g. (14(2), page number(s) [abbreviated to p. or pp.]. Available at Name of Database (Accessed date) [if consulted online].

Millgate, J. (2002) ‘Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel: the history of a book’, European Romantic Review [Online], 13(3), pp. 225–38. Available at Taylor & Francis Online (Accessed 1 December 2015).

In-text citation: (Millgate, 2002, p. 226).

Wilson, R. (1992) ‘“Like the old Robin Hood”: As You Like It and the enclosure riots’, Shakespeare Quarterly [Online], 43(1), pp. 1–19. Available at JSTOR (Accessed 12 January 2016).

In-text citation: (Wilson, 1992, p. 15).

Books

Author surname, Author initials. (Year of publication) Title of Book, Place of publication: Publisher. Available at Name of Database (Accessed date).

Brown, R. D. and Lethbridge, J. B. (2013) A Concordance to the Rhymes of The Faerie Queene with Two Studies of Spenser’s Rhymes, Manchester, Manchester University Press.

In-text citation: (Brown and Lethbridge, 2013, p. 70).

Hadfield, A. (2005) Shakespeare and Republicanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Available at Cambridge Books Online (Accessed 7 November 2015).

In-text citation: (Hadfield, 2005, p. 84).

Halsey, K. (2012) Jane Austen and her Readers, 1786–1945, London: Anthem. Available at ProQuest ebrary (Accessed 7 November 2015).

In-text citation: (Halsey, 2012, pp. 20–1).

Palfrey, S. (2011) Doing Shakespeare, 2nd edn, London, Arden Shakespeare.

In-text citation: (Palfrey, 2011, p. 20).

Petrarch, F. (2008) Selections from the Canzoniere and Other Works (trans. M. Musa), Oxford World’s Classics series, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

In-text citation: (Petrarch, 2008, p. 53).

(In this example, note that the date given in both the reference and the in-text citation is the date of the modern edition that’s being used, not the date of the original composition of the work.)

Brown, S. A. and Taylor, A., eds. (2013). Ovid in English, 1480-16125. Part 1: Metamorphoses, London: Modern Humanities Research Association.

In-text citation: (Brown and Taylor, p. 22).

In this last example, note that this book is edited by two people.

Chapters in books

This section refers to books consisting of a series of essays by different writers. When citing books by a single writer, do not cite individual chapters, but just use page numbers (see section above).

Chapter author surname, chapter author initials. (Year of publication) ‘Title of chapter’, in Book editor surname, book editor first name (ed.) [if one editor] (eds.) [if two editors]) Title of Book, Place of publication: Publisher, page extent. Available at Name of Database (Accessed date) [if consulted online].

Hunter, J. P. (2003) ‘Gulliver’s Travels and the later writings’, in Fox, L. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 216–40. Available at Cambridge Companions Online (Accessed 18 March 2016).

In-text citation: (Hunter, 2003, p. 237).

Knoppers, L. L. (2007) ‘Cavalier poetry and civil war’, in Cheney, P., Hadfield, A. and Sullivan Jr., G. A. (eds.) Early Modern English Poetry: A Critical Companion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 289–301.

In-text citation: (Knoppers, 2007, p. 292).

Hadfield, A. (2013) ‘Introduction: does Shakespeare’s life matter?’, in Hadfield, A. (ed.) Were Early Modern Lives Different?: Writing the Self in the Renaissance, London: Routledge, pp. 1–19.

In-text citation: (Hadfield, 2013, p. 17).

In this last example, note that Andrew Hadfield’s name needs to appear twice, as author and as editor.

If chapters in these multi-contributor books are numbered, you should omit the number (i.e. don’t start a title in a Reference list item with ‘Chapter 4’).

More than one chapter from the same book, by different authors

For successive references to individual chapters in a multi-authored or co-edited book, cite the item by chapter author and title as shown below.

Kesson, A. and Smith, E., eds. (2013) The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England, Farnham: Ashgate.

Rhodes, N. (2013) ‘Shakespeare’s popularity and the origins of the canon’, in Kesson, A. and Smith, E, (eds.) The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England, Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 101–22.

Richardson, C. (2013) ‘Household manuals’, in Kesson, A. and Smith. E., (eds.) The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England, Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 169–78.

Chapters in the A334 module books

Author name, author initials (2015) ‘Title of chapter’, in Book editor surname, book editor initials (ed.) Book Title, Milton Keynes: The Open University, page extent.

King, E. G. C. (2015) ‘Julius Caesar and the shape of Shakespearean tragedy’, in Gibson, J. (ed.) A334 Book 1: Shakespeare and his Contemporaries, Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 143–76.

In-text citation: (King, 2015, p. 148).

Readings in the A334 module books

Lewis, C. S. (2015) ‘Reading 7.1 “Diseased sexuality in the Bower of Bliss”’, in Gibson, J. (ed.) A334 Book 1: Shakespeare and his Contemporaries, Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 283–5.

In-text citation: (Lewis, 2015, p. 285).

Use similar conventions if you want to refer to material from another OU module.

Items from the A334 Authorship reader

Use the full reference (as given on the relevant Authorship reader webpage) followed by a full stop and ‘In A334 Authorship Reader’.

Other A334 materials

If you need to refer to other, online A334 materials, use the week number on the Study Planner as a reference point, as in the examples below. Some online materials have a named author; for ones that don’t, use ‘The Open University’ in place of the author name. Use the earliest year in the module presentation (e.g. if you are studying A334 in the 2016-7 academic year, use ‘2016’).

Author name, author initials [or The Open University] (date) ‘Title of resource’, Planner Week [Type of resource].

The Open University (2016) ‘The playhouse’, A334 Week 1 Study Planner [Online video].

Gibson, J. (2016) ‘Introducing renaissance rhetoric’, A334 Week 1 Study Planner, The Open University [Online text].

Use similar conventions if you want to refer to material from another OU module.

Authors with more than one publication in the Reference list

List publications in the Reference list by the same author in date order. If you have included two or more publications by the same author belonging to the same year, distinguish them by using letters (a, b, c, etc.). Type out the author’s name each time.

Scott-Warren, J. (2010a) ‘Books in the bedchamber: religion, accounting and the library of Richard Stonley’, in King, J. N. (ed.) Tudor Books and Readers: Materiality and the Construction of Meaning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Scott-Warren, J. (2010b) ‘Reading graffiti in the early modern book’, Huntington Library Quarterly, pp. 363-81.

Other items

Live performance of a play:

Author surname, author initials (year of performance) Play Title, directed by Director initials, Director surname, Name of Theatre Company [if available], Name of Theatre, Location of Theatre, full date of performance.

Shakespeare, W. (2016) Cymbeline, directed by M. Still, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 28 July 2016.

For the conventions to use when referring to other less usual items, including such things as films, TV programmes, radio programmes, podcasts and personal letters, use the index of the Cite Them Right database to find the relevant guidance.

Early printed books

If you refer to early printed books that you have consulted using EEBO or ECCO, you can simplify and abbreviate the title pages, and you should restrict the publication information you provide to the place and date of publication.

So, for example, you do not need to reproduce complete a title such as the following, which belongs to a 1575 publication by George Gascoigne: ‘The glasse of gouernement A tragicall comedie so entituled, bycause therein are handled aswell the rewardes for vertues, as also the punishment for vices.’ Instead, you can simplify it to The Glasse of Gouernement …

The complete entry in the Reference list would read:

Gascoigne, G. (1575) The Glasse of Gouernement … London. Available at Early English Books Online (accessed 20 January 2017).

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A334 TMA Marking Criteria

In marking work on A334, tutors are asked to look out for:

good knowledge of texts leading to an argument based on sound evidence;
good presentation and scholarly methodology, making it possible for others easily to follow and engage with the argument and evidence;
good argument and response to the assignment question, demonstrating developing skills in written argument as well as clear understanding of A334;
clear engagement with the issues raised in A334, demonstrating that you have carefully and thoroughly studied the module and engaged, when required, in independent study.

What the mark means

The following paragraphs, which describe the kind of work that will earn marks within each range, will help you to understand more about how your tutor assesses your work. Four categories are listed: ‘knowledge of texts’; ‘presentation and scholarly methods’; ‘argument and response to question’ and ‘understanding of the issues’. In reading the descriptions, remember that the quality of work in an essay might well not be even across the four categories. Your final mark might then reflect, for example, that you have done very well so far as argument and response to the assignment are concerned but not so well in presentation and scholarly methods (or vice versa). You will always need to read the Assessment Summary (PT3) form carefully to understand the mark for an individual assignment. If in doubt, please ask your tutor for further information.

85–100 (Pass 1, ‘A’ range)

Knowledge of texts: You made an excellent choice of texts and in discussion foregrounded their ‘literary’ qualities. You demonstrated a detailed knowledge of your chosen texts and the critical debates relevant to them.

Presentation and scholarly methods: Argument and evidence were well woven together and you made consistent use of literary terms. You quoted accurately and provided good references to printed and online material.

Argument and response to assignment: Your argument was well controlled and organised and addressed all parts of the topic. Perhaps you used your own insights to extend the argument beyond the terms of the set topic.

Understanding of the issues: You clearly understood the issues raised by the assignment and the relevant study material, including seeing why these are important in terms of literary study. When required to do so, you showed solid evidence of independent study and an impressive grasp of the independent study materials you read outside of the directed teaching provided to you.

70–84 (Pass 2, ‘B’ range)

Knowledge of texts: You made a good choice of texts for discussion, and demonstrated knowledge of them in terms of content and their literary qualities through apt citation and quotation.

Presentation and scholarly methods: Your essay was made up of fluent sentences well organised into paragraphs. You probably made some use of literary terms and provided clear references to printed and online material.

Argument and response to assignment: The essay addressed the issues raised in the assignment thoroughly in a way that showed you were clearly thinking for yourself. Your argument showed evidence of your having reflected on the topic.

Understanding of issues: You showed understanding of the issues raised by the teaching material, particularly in the way you were able to put things in your own words. When required to do so, you showed evidence of having engaged in independent study and a good grasp of the independent study materials you have read.

55–69 (Pass 3, ‘C’ range)

Knowledge of texts: You made an acceptable choice of texts or examples for discussion and provided evidence of knowledge of the texts and the ability to analyse them in literary terms. You mostly used quotations in a way that showed you understand how they can be used as evidence in an argument.

Presentation and scholarly methods: The essay was written in sentences and paragraphs that communicated your ideas but perhaps there was scope for improvement in your style. You did give serviceable references to printed and online material but maybe they were not all in a fully scholarly style.

Argument and response to assignment: The argument in the essay had a clear beginning, middle and end and you did address the main issues of the assignment. But maybe there were ways in which you could have carried the argument further to draw out more of the implications of the assignment.

Understanding of issues: Your essay showed signs of your having studied the material and you tried to make some use of key words and concepts, but perhaps there were occasions when it looked as if you were not entirely sure about a meaning or possibly there were more things that could have been said to elaborate your points. When required to do so, you were able to show evidence of your engagement in independent study.

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