ENGLISH EXTENDED ESSAY

Three Basic Principles

Make your essay USEFUL

Make your essay VALUABLE

Make your essay PAINLESS

Useful

Choose a topic that:-would be relevant to discuss in a university interview, or to mention in your Personal Statement.-is related to the texts that you are studying or are going to study in your English course.

-makes you think about something that you haven’t studied before, or in a way that you haven’t considered before.

Valuable

Choose something that has academic value: is there a body of criticism (by academics, not just ordinary people on internet forums) ?

Try to choose a topic which advances knowledge in some way: look for a new, interesting angle on a text, or comparison of two texts which are not an obvious pair.

Make sure you consider the literary element of the text; don’t just use it as a springboard for a discussion of feminism etc.

Painless

Choose a text(s) that your supervisor knows or likes, or is willing to read.

Don’t choose contemporary texts: there is almost no criticism available.

Think carefully about translated texts – is there any criticism in English?

-Don’t choose War and Peace or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Short novels, plays or poems.

Think about access to quality criticism. Does the English Department have books? Can you obtain books easily – Amazon; family visits to the UK, Australia or the US?