The Freshman Essay Writer – A Funny Blast from the Past – Plus Useful Tips on How to Write a College Essay

As I was recently cleaning out some of my bookshelves and drawers to get ready for the next writing project now that my latest novel has finally been published, (you can learn more about that by clicking here), I came across a reference sheet handed out to us in our Freshman year in college typed up by Dr. Michael Murphy who taught the Romantic Era Music course in the department. 

If you are wondering what my major was, I studied music / musicology at UCC, Ireland.

Amazing I still had this leaflet after all this years, but then again, right now I still have all my college notes - never throw out a useful piece of information is my motto!

The sheet includes basic but some helpful advice on how to write college essays – and I couldn't help but have a good laugh over it. The good Professor had a sense of humour when it came to whipping the inexperienced writers into shape with his handouts.

It's worth sharing for its practical information, and, to show what greenhorns we were when it came to writing on an academic level. Hey, we were fresh out of high school after all, and in Ireland what they called an 'essay' in English class is what I would call creative writing and short story lessons, we hardly received a lesson on how to produce a real hard-core essay arguing a point, not like I remember when I was in grade school in the States. (Yeah, my Fifth and Sixth Grade teachers believed in starting early when it came to college preparation!)

However, the English classes in Ireland were different.  As a result, the professors had a mess on their hands when we Freshmen all arrived.   I was certainly rusty even after the 'creative writing classes'. They must have had a good snicker or two over the first wonky 'scholarly' scribbles we handed in as 'essays'. Prof. Murphy kindly gave us the following to sort us out.

Of course, the old sheet I discovered is geared to music students, but you can still learn a lot from this if you're new to essay writing, and, you might get a good chuckle to make your day. Here it is, an example essay title and how to begin along with Professor Murphy's comments. (My comments / explanations will be in red if and when needed):

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STUDIES IN REPERTORY MUS 115

ESSSAY TITLE (with advice)

'Outline and discuss the main issues of Romantic programme music.'

There are two tasks involved (i) outline or identify and (ii) discuss the main (most important, seminal) issues (topics, themes, concepts as you perceive them) of Romantic programme music. You should identify the origins of programme music, the main genres which were dedicated to prog mus, the composers who championed it, the philosophy of prog mus (e.g. the nineteenth-century idea that instrumental music has the power to speak and be 'poetic', that music didn't need words to be complete, that music was more suggestive and expressive and insightful of the imagination than words could be because words are too specific whereas music has access to the imaginative world and can bypass consciousness without hindrance from specific categories.) There is also the issue of prog mus, symphonic poem and nationalism. Throughout your essay you must refer to specific works which were dealt with in class and with which you have become familiar from your own study. You may photocopy extracts from works to illustrate your points or you may refer to specific bar numbers. If you wish to quote an author or lecturer you must acknowledge the source in a footnote. (I have given advice on this below). It is immediately obvious if you copy something directly out of a book because the prose style suddenly changes (not always for the better) even if you scrape around for synonyms and alternate words and alternate grammar structures. There is nothing wrong with quoting other people. In fact you are supposed to do it, but you should (i) acknowledge your source and (ii) make an intelligent comment about the quote (e.g. state why you are quoting this author (because you can't think of anything of your own to write is not a good reason), do you agree with his / her point, do you wish to modify it, contradict it, do you think it clarifies some issues etc). Your first point of reference should be the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. There are two copies of it in the library (if you don't know where it is- I mean the dictionary of course) then ask a librarian or another music student. You should consult the article on Romanticism, Programme music, Symphonic poem / tone poem, and the article on relevant composers, and genres.

 

Please don't start your essay with a long definition from the Grove of what prog mus means. I know what the Grove and most other books have to say about the issue, I am more interested in what you have to say. Also don't write biographies of the composers. You should set out your main points in the first introductory paragraph.

Some points about writing an essay.

Refrain from using conversational idioms and informal phrases. Such as ' Ya know the way that Chopin begins the Ballade is a sort of like an introductory bit.' Don't ask questions in the essay for example, 'Why does Liszt give titles for his symphonic poems?'. Don't write long meandering sentences which never get anywhere, and which, through the inclusion of many, and sometimes superfluous clauses, tend to elongate the sentence to monstrous proportions which have the effect (and an undesired one at that) of boring the reader to distraction. Keep the sentences short and to the point. Don't use abbreviations when writing long words. You may type your essay. Use a dictionary (or spell checker) to clarify any spelling you are not sure of. All of these instructions are designed to get you writing in a professional manner. To be a good writer you have to be a good reader which means reading with a dictionary and with a critical attitude. Just because something is written in a book doesn't mean it is true. It could be an opinion, and opinions can be wrong or misinformed. You are in a university to form your own informed opinions. There is little merit in stating something without being able to support it with evidence and thought.

CORRECT             INCORRECT (even if I do it in handouts)

do not                             don't

cannot                           can't

does not                        doesn't

separate                       seperate

programme music      prog mus

Please note the difference between nineteenth-century and nineteenth century. The first one is as follows: 'Chopin is a nineteenth-century composer, and the Ballade is a 

nineteenth century programmatic genre.' In this case nineteenth-century is descriptive as an adjective. The other one is simply 'In the nineteenth century blah blah blah'.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE FOLLOWING SPELLINGS.

Rythmn, genre, dialogue, legato, dissonant, virtuoso, interrupt, domineering, definite, equal, arabesque, metre, centre, programme (not 'program' which is the American style. Use the Anglo version of words.) competent. Not the difference between 'to compliment' and 'to complement' – I'm not going to tell you. Consult a dictionary.

(Note: Since the classes were very small, about 20 to 30 Freshman students if I recall, I think the rat-a-tat-tat about American spelling was added for my benefit. In Ireland the Anglo spelling of words is used. Hence, they did a good job of knocking the American spelling out of me! So, if you wonder about the British style is in my works with switched 'r' and 'e's, extra 'u's, not to mention 's' instead of 'z', things like that, now you know.   Also, as a music student we have to understand musical terms and titles in other other languages, which explains the next part. German terms and titles can be confusing!)

ALSO NOTE THE FOLLOWING GERMAN WORDS

'lied' = German song

'lieder' = plural of 'lied'

Ein Heldenleben

Dichterliebe ('liebe' means love)

Liederkreis

THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER DO IN WRITING AN ESSAY. THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES ARE TAKEN FROM YOUR LISTENING TEST ANSWERS.

(In 'listening exams', we had to recognise a piece played over the sound system, the composer, and if we didn't know the piece, that is if it was a surprise sound clip or we couldn't remember the piece, we had to explain who we thought it was and why, explain the style etc. Our listening test answers were also just as wonky!)

IF YOU SEE ONE OF YOUR MISTAKES IN THE LIST BELOW DON'T PANIC. I DIDN'T TAKE ANY MARKS OFF FOR THEM AND I WON'T REVEAL YOUR IDENTITY TO ANYONE UNLESS THE PRICE IS RIGHT. (Yes, the Professor typed that!)

Don't use words you don't fully understand, and don't use words in the wrong context e.g. 'befuddling' is not an apt choice in reference to piano technique.

Don't write 'Chopin wrote a lot of piano music in his day.'

Don't write 'This music is difficult to play live.'

Please don't write 'Strauss takes the mickey out of his critics in Ein Heldenleben.' Try to be more professional 'Strauss satirises his critics' would be more appropriate.

Don't write 'This music is definitely danceable to.'

Don't write 'In this piece there is a question and answer type of thing'.

Some of you are a bit confused as to which century you are in. Chopin was very dead in 1935 but he was composing in 1835.

(Chopin is not impressed.  Sorry, I couldn't help myself.)

Please don't repeat the same thing over and over and over and over and over again and again and again and again and again etc etc etc etc because it tends to make the reader very very bored and somewhat tired indeed when he / she realises that the writer has little to say but insists on saying it many times just to fill out the page with ink. State your point once and leave it at that. If you want to refer to a point you made earlier then do it, but don't repeat the same thing ad nausem.

GUIDELINES FOR (I) FOOTNOTES (II) BIBLIOGRAPHY

KEEP THIS PAGE FOR REFERENCE IN FUTURE YEARS

Footnotes:

The function of footnotes is to allow you to give the source of a book from which you quoted something in your main text. You can also use a footnote to add some opinion of your own to a statement in the text or to give some extra information which would interrupt the flow of your text (see example x, number 3 below).

Footnote can be located in two place (i) at the bottom of the page (ii) at the end of the essay. The choice is yours. Footnotes must be numbered (i.e. not with letters). There is a format as to how you present the information in the footnote. See example x

example x

1 Carl Dalhaus, Esthetics of Music, tr. William Austin, Cambridge University Press, Sydney, 1982, p. 122. (Henceforth Esthetics)

2 Ibid., p. 123.

3 Schumann also wrote songs to poetry by Heine.

4 Esthetics. p. 124.

In this example note the following:

(I) After the footnote number you give the Author's name <Carl Dahlhaus,>

2. After the comma you give the name of the book which should be underlined in Italics <Esthetics of Music,> (if a word is underlined it means it is in italics. If you are using a word processor you should give book titles in italics).
   (III) if the book is translated into English you give the translator's name (in this case <tr. William Austin,> if the book is not translated then ignore this section

4. then you give the publisher <Cambridge University Press>
5. Then you give the place of publication <Sydney>. Sometimes there are a few places given: give the first one mentioned.
6. Then give the year of the most recent edition / publication (sometimes it give the date of earlier editions)
7. Then you give the page number from which you have quoted.

In example x I have written in brackets (Henceforth Esthetics). This simply means that if I refer to this book again I don't have to write out al the details as before but I can just write the word Esthetics and then the page number, e.g. Esthetics, p. 124 as I have shown in number 4. However, if I refer to the same book twice in a row you can just write Ibid., followed by the page number as I have shown in number 2. Ibid. simply means 'same as the previous title'.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The layout of the bib is a tad different from the footnote layout. The bib comes at the very end of the essay and is arrange in alphabetical order. The examples below start at letter S. Please read through them very carefully. I chose these examples because they show you how to deal with a number of situations which arise when making out a bib.

Samson, J., The Music of Szymanowski, Kahn & Avril, London and New York, 1980.

Samson, J., (ed.), Chopin Studies, CUP, 1988.

Samson, J., (ed.) The Late Romantic Era: Man & Music vol. 7, Macmillan Press, London, 1991.

Samson, J., Chopin: The Four Ballades, CUP, 1992

Schoenberg, A., Structural Functions in Music, ed. Leonard Stein, London, 1969.

Schoenberg, A., Style and Idea, ed. Leonard Stein, University of California Press, 1984.

Stein, J., Richard Wagner and the Synthesis of the Arts, Wayne State University Press, 1960.

There are a number of things you should notice from the above examples.

1. Although they are arranged in alphabetical order, in the case where an author is quoted a number of times you arrange the books in chronological order (i.e. by year, see the Samson and Schoenberg examples)
2. CUP is an abbreviation for Cambridge University Press and OUP is an abbreviation Oxford University Press. Only use such abbreviations when you quote the same publisher numerous times.
3. There are finicky things like getting the commas in the right place. For example Arnold Schoenberg is given with the surname first and then the initial of the christian name followed by a full stop and then a comma.
4. Above you see Samson as an author and as an editor, hence you have (ed.) after his name to show he edited the book which is a collection of essays by different authors.

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This is where the Professor's handout ends. Of course, if you are currently in college and your professors have a different layout they would prefer you to use in your essays, do follow that. If you haven't been given a guide, well, now you have!

If you're curious about how my own essays progressed check out my book “A Compendium of Essays: Purcell, Hogarth and Handel, Beethoven, Liszt, Debussy, and Andrew Lloyd Webber”, click here.

For fun, see if you can guess which one of the essays WASN'T written while I was still in college.

You can also see the rest of my book titles, click here.

Also, if you want some more in-depth help when writing for the University, or even creative writing / fiction, etc, this is an excellent book, click on the title to read my review:  

The Oxford Guide to Writing: A Rhetoric and Handbook for College Students ~Book Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS - See past blog posts of “Books, Babble and Blarney”.