Mod B Help Please!

[sophia_02]

Hi there!

So I am doing Great Expectations for Module B, and I was wondering whether I should just memorise a generic essay for it? But I am scared if I do that, the question may be hard to mold to my prepared essay :/  and I am not exactly the best at thinking on spot when it comes to English...

Also if I should memorise an essay, what ideas/themes should I focus on? For example, my current body paragraphs are on the injustice of the legal system, social criticism, and redemption - is that good enough for a generic essay or should I use different ideas/themes?

Thanks in advance!

[angewina_naguen]

Hi there!

So I am doing Great Expectations for Module B, and I was wondering whether I should just memorise a generic essay for it? But I am scared if I do that, the question may be hard to mold to my prepared essay :/  and I am not exactly the best at thinking on spot when it comes to English...

Also if I should memorise an essay, what ideas/themes should I focus on? For example, my current body paragraphs are on the injustice of the legal system, social criticism, and redemption - is that good enough for a generic essay or should I use different ideas/themes?

Thanks in advance!

Hey, sophia_02!

Welcome to the forums! I would usually advise against memorising a generic essay but if it provides security for you to do so, go for it! What I would do is memorise the prepared material for your essay generally (so doesn't have to be perfectly word for word). This way, you've got your general points and analysis that you can confidently go in with. I would then memorise a bunch of miscellaneous quotes under other themes such as gender roles, family or the divisions of social class so you can have content on standby to use if, worst case scenario, you have to adapt on the spot.

As for the main themes, I think those work fantastically for Great Expectations! As long as you continually reference textual integrity in your response, you should be set to go Hope this helps and let me know if you have any further questions 

Angelina 

[dani01]

Hey Angelina I noticed in the above reply you said to continuously refer to textual integrity. I think I have done it 1 in a prepared essay but what exactly does it mean? To be honest I just chucked in a fancy sentence my teacher said in class and it seemed to work perfectly. 

Even better would you be able to explain it in regards to King Henry IV? Thankyou !

[sophia_02]

Thank you so much! That has cleared things up a lot for me ( and made me a little less stressed haha). Like dani01 asked, what do you mean exactly by referring to textual integrity? Like would you reference the phrase "textual integrity" directly in your essay or would you indirectly comment on the integrity of the text? Also how often should I do that in one body paragraph?

Thanks again! 

[owidjaja]

Hey Angelina I noticed in the above reply you said to continuously refer to textual integrity. I think I have done it 1 in a prepared essay but what exactly does it mean? To be honest I just chucked in a fancy sentence my teacher said in class and it seemed to work perfectly. 

Even better would you be able to explain it in regards to King Henry IV? Thankyou !

Thank you so much! That has cleared things up a lot for me ( and made me a little less stressed haha). Like dani01 asked, what do you mean exactly by referring to textual integrity? Like would you reference the phrase "textual integrity" directly in your essay or would you indirectly comment on the integrity of the text? Also how often should I do that in one body paragraph?

Thanks again! 

Hey there,

Clearly I'm not Angelina, but to answer your question on textual integrity, it's essentially the sole purpose of texts, which is to have a message. All parts of the text should add meaning to the composer's message and helps the text be more cohesive - if this isn't the case, then they have failed as a composer. There's a reason why texts in general have a lot of overlapping themes! Textual integrity is something you guys include in your essays without realising it. Whenever you're analysing a quote, you're linking it back to how it supports the author's message - that's textual integrity! The only difference with your other essays and Mod B is that the markers want you to be even more explicit with textual integrity.

Usually, I would add it in before my linking sentence at the end of the paragraph or maybe even in the final sentence, so kinda like: "By exploring the theme of social mobility, Dickens is able to emphasise the trivial nature of social class. The universal nature of this idea therefore demonstrates that "Great Expectations" has a high degree of textual integrity."

Hope this helps!

[dani01]

Hey! yeah that helps heaps. so how many times do you think i should explicitly state "textual integrity" maybe once in each paragraph?

Hey there,

Clearly I'm not Angelina, but to answer your question on textual integrity, it's essentially the sole purpose of texts, which is to have a message. All parts of the text should add meaning to the composer's message and helps the text be more cohesive - if this isn't the case, then they have failed as a composer. There's a reason why texts in general have a lot of overlapping themes! Textual integrity is something you guys include in your essays without realising it. Whenever you're analysing a quote, you're linking it back to how it supports the author's message - that's textual integrity! The only difference with your other essays and Mod B is that the markers want you to be even more explicit with textual integrity.

Usually, I would add it in before my linking sentence at the end of the paragraph or maybe even in the final sentence, so kinda like: "By exploring the theme of social mobility, Dickens is able to emphasise the trivial nature of social class. The universal nature of this idea therefore demonstrates that "Great Expectations" has a high degree of textual integrity."

Hope this helps!

[owidjaja]

Hey! yeah that helps heaps. so how many times do you think i should explicitly state "textual integrity" maybe once in each paragraph?

Hey there,

Honestly, there isn't a magic number on how many times you should explicitly say it. In some essays, I only mentioned it once and in other essays I mentioned it once in each paragraph - it all depends on how much time I have left in the exam (i.e. am I spending too much time in one section).

I think as long as you mention it explicitly at least once, you should be fine!

Hope this helps

[sophia_02]

Yup, thank you! That has helped a lot!