Page 32 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

2 Researching an answer

Before you begin to think about the overall shape of your essay,
you must gather information and ideas.

Read the whole of each set text

The absolute priority is to investigate any work which the essay
title specifies as your subject. You must read every word of it.
However long it is and however tedious some passages seem at
first glance, there can be no skip-reading. If you find that you
have been day-dreaming for a few pages, or even a few lines, go
back and read them properly.
On some rare and regrettable occasions, other
commitments or sheer incompetence in organizing your time
may interfere. You may still not have read all the set texts
thoroughly when you need to begin your essay if you are to
meet the deadline. In such an event, do not start writing. Go
to your tutor. Explain or confess. Plead for more time. You
may not be popular; but you will cause far greater resentment
by producing an essay on texts which you have not fully
explored. To do so is a crass waste not only of your own
efforts but also of your reader’s.

READ AGAIN
Whenever possible, read a work more than once. If your entire
essay is to be devoted to a single poem of less than a hundred