50 in English, available for queries :)

[Valyria]

Hey Lauren,

Do you know any supplementary that involves an individual who doesn't want to change/immerse themselves into their past through escapism from the present day? I'm trying to find supplementary that is complementary with Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman but all I have right now is Gatsby.

Thanks

[brenden]

In your opinion, what makes a text response essay impressive?

If the whole thing is clear, concise, and interesting, there's not an assessor on Earth who wouldn't be impressed with you.

[literally lauren]

What academic articles on your text should you use? Would you recommend the State Library of Victoria? How do you amalgamate the historical context of a text and stylistic features in a text response to comment on the views and values of the author?

The State Library is a good database, but Google Scholar is probably your best bet for proper academia. You might have to wade through a bit, and certain texts will have more resources than others, obviously.
A regular google search can return some helpful results too. eg. for anyone studying a more recent novel, some reviews will often look at things from a more sophisticated perspective. Again, some wading is necessary.
How you incorporate historical evidence/ V&V will depend on your text, but in general: try to do it at the end of your paragraphs as a neat way of wrapping up, and ensure you don't get too far away from the text at any point. My advice is to ensure every sentence is linked to the text. It doesn't have to be all character/quote analyses, but if you find yourself spending two or three lines on an author's back story or something, cut it down because chances are you won't get credit for it.

thank you
just another quick question:
whats a better way of phrasing this?
'.society will pay for the consequences'
'society will suffer the consequences' 
or
all hell break loose

Not entirely sure what you're asking, but "society will pay" sounds a bit menacing. Like, Scooby Doo villain "You'll pay for this! And you're little dog too!" type menacing. "Society will suffer the consequences" is much more formal and essay-appropriate. Then again, if this is a slightly creative or hybrid piece then you might be angling for a more persuasive tone of voice, so it's up to you.
'All hell breaks loose' is a pretty widely accepted phrase. Unless it's an issue with repetition I wouldn't be too concerned with changing it.
If it is a repetition problem then you might want to rephrase some of your arguments to avoid redundancy.
With most of these phraseology/vocab questions, I'm happy to help (and I understand the frustration) but it's probably best to try and work through them yourself. You won't have access to the forums in the exam room; you'll have to trust your own intuition and learned abilities. The more you practice working through this sort of stuff, the easier it will be

In your opinion, what makes a text response essay impressive?

I'm desperately trying to avoid saying 'one that fulfills all the criteria,' but as I've said previously, ticking all the boxes is actually quite an achievement. (See earlier posts if you need help identifying/ clarifying these.)
On a personal level, I'm always impressed whenever I read something I've never thought about before, and I'd imagine this would be doubly true for an assessor who spends a whole term teaching a text, knows it inside out, then is assigned a pile of 200 essays on one of two topics; often there's not a very wide margin for individuality, but it's always nice to see someone using more sophisticated evidence to illustrate an idea in an interesting way.
There is a spectrum for this sort of thing, of course. I might write a wonderful essay about how the tensions in 12 Angry Men perfectly mirror the culture of groupthink observed in certain giraffe collectives. And I guarantee the assessor will have never read that before, but seeing as it's an irrelevant waste of ink, I'm more likely to piss them off than impress them.
Relevance is an always has been the primary criterion, but don't neglect your ideas and writing style either.

Hey Lauren,

Do you know any supplementary that involves an individual who doesn't want to change/immerse themselves into their past through escapism from the present day? I'm trying to find supplementary that is complementary with Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman but all I have right now is Gatsby.

Thanks

Zezima's example of Abbott sounds pretty solid, and contemporary media stories always make good links for a context piece. Be careful with the political angle though. For your SAC you'll be safe so long as your teacher isn't overly partisan (or if (s)he is, you're writing something that caters to this bias) but in the exam you have no idea who you're going to get. There are some fairly safe assumptions you can make, eg. (S)he is against genocide, so I can safely condemn such actions. Party politics is a little trickier, and I usually advice steering well clear of any definitive judgments, even in a persuasive piece.
Some other examples you might consider:
-metathesiophobia: a genuine medical condition, an irrational fear of change. Some documented cases might be of some use.
-regression: (in psychological terms) is a defense mechanism, eg. me running away from all my commitments and 'regressing' to my 5 year old self --> refusing to do chores, "running away" from home, and going back to calling myself 'Auren.' 
-The United States of Tara: was on the ABC a few years ago and featured a woman with DID (=Multiple Personality Disorder) One of her 'alters' or alternate personalities was her teenage self (swore a lot, drank to excess, dressed like an uncouth woman etc.) Not that I'm encouraging binge-watching instead of studying, and some general research/ wikipedia-ing should suffice, but it certainly got me interested in the phenomenon.


Apologies to everyone for my delays recently. I'm going through some stuff that's taking most of my time and energy, but I should be back to normal soon. The aforementioned swot-vac guide and an updated/ properly formatted directory version of this thread are on my to-do list. I know most of you are entering into a busy SAC period so I'll endeavour to help as much as I can.
Best of luck!

[allstar]

thank you lauren,

the thing is.. im writing this in a formal piece of writing... and to write all hell broke loose seems very informal to be writing in a an academic essay.:
'It only has to fail once and ..... (all hell breaks loose?)'

[literally lauren]

How about 'dire consequences may ensue.' Or 'there may be serious ramifications?'
Some more specific links to your example might help. Otherwise you can always use slightly colloquial language in Context (and then justify it in a Written Explanation for your SAC; say it helps your target audience grasp the concepts or w/e)

[scandin9]

Hi Lauren,
Is it possible for a text response to have four paragraphs and have only one paragraph supporting the prompt with the other three arguing against the prompt. What is your opinion on defining words in the introduction of a text response? Is analysing hendiadys, enjambment and euphemisms/ dysphemisms  to deep for an english text response?
Thanks in advance!

[allstar]

what is another way of saying:
'dumbing' the population

i need to write it in an academic manner becasue i plan to use this in a formal essay

[literally lauren]

Hi Lauren,
Is it possible for a text response to have four paragraphs and have only one paragraph supporting the prompt with the other three arguing against the prompt. What is your opinion on defining words in the introduction of a text response? Is analysing hendiadys, enjambment and euphemisms/ dysphemisms  to deep for an english text response?
Thanks in advance!

Yes you can definitely disagree with the prompt, in fact that's usually a safer bet than blindly agreeing. Most prompts require challenging to some extent, though there are exceptions.
Definitions in intros = 'I have nothing better to say.' Try not to do this; certainly not in a very overt way like 'Courage, which for the purposes of this essay I will define as...' That said, I once got stuck with a prompt about the 'ethics and metaphysics of Henry IV Part 1,' so from memory I did put a little qualifier there like 'Shakespearean metaphysics, that is, the abstract concepts of identity and belief...'
{Another lesson in why dictionaries are important in exam scenarios!}
Those devices are fine to comment on, but ensure you're doing it for a purpose and not just to show off vocab. Also, it's no substitute for actual analysis, as English tends to require more focus on characters, themes, and overall message.

what is another way of saying:
'dumbing' the population

i need to write it in an academic manner becasue i plan to use this in a formal essay

Try a thesaurus. Otherwise see if you can rephrase the sentence yourself. If alternate words aren't coming to you then you should be expanding your vocab now, but you also need to practice working through these concerns yourself so you don't hit a mental roadblock in the exam.

[JackSonSmith]

In language analysis, if the author (of an article) gives dignity to a person or group, what effect does this have on the reader? (Perception of person/group perhaps?)

[hwilome]

Hello Lauren, just wonder in a Text Response,
what's the percentage of time I should allocate on planning the essay?
How detailed should the planning be in order to write the essay fluently?


Wish you all the best in your university life.

[magneto]

how do i write this:

for so long people thought they deserved it, without stopping to think were they in the right first.

is that correct english: they were in the right? (that part of the statement)

[JackSonSmith]

how do i write this:

for so long people thought they deserved it, without stopping to think were they in the right first.

is that correct english: they were in the right? (that part of the statement)

For a long time, people thought that they deserved it without stopping to think that they were in the right first.

[DJA]

For a long time, people thought that they deserved it without stopping to think that they were in the right first.

For a long time, people thought that they deserved it without first stopping to think that they were in the right.

  Slightly different - but how I would do it. I don't think there is a right answer.

[literally lauren]

In language analysis, if the author (of an article) gives dignity to a person or group, what effect does this have on the reader? (Perception of person/group perhaps?)

I don't know if there is a specific technique for this, but depending on the type of language used, it might be aggrandizement, an exaltation, or perhaps a show of deference? None of these are technically 'techniques,' and often with L.A. you don't have to attribute something to an umbrella term. Sometimes discussing the general positioning or appeals can be more effective than letting the terminology do the talking for you.

Hello Lauren, just wonder in a Text Response,
what's the percentage of time I should allocate on planning the essay?
How detailed should the planning be in order to write the essay fluently?

The 'planning' I did for my T.R. piece in the exam consisted of three scribbled words: 'tree-fruit' a character's name, and the word 'olives' for some reason... I still don't remember why. On the other hand, i had friends who wrote out an extensive plan for 10 minutes, then could churn out an essay in 40-45. It really is dependent on your preferred style, so if timing is a concern for you then try to work on cutting down your planning now. I've mentioned this a couple of times, but your plan won't be assessed (in fact, it won't even be looked at now that the papers are all digitally scanned; there'll be a page in the booklet for rough working that won't be sent off for consideration/correction) Hence, your plan only has to make sense to you; rather than writing out entire sentences or fleshed out ideas, try to develop a shorthand, especially for T.R. where single letters/symbols can function as character names, themes, V&V etc.
As a rough estimate, I'd say anything beyond 5 minutes is probably excessive, but if you're someone who relies heavily on plans or the prompt is something conceptually difficult, then I can understand this number rising to around 10 mins. The quality of your plan, however, is entirely up to you.

how do i write this:

for so long people thought they deserved it, without stopping to think were they in the right first.

is that correct english: they were in the right? (that part of the statement)

If this is a sentence on its own, then:
'For so long, people thought they deserved it, without first stopping to think about whether or not they were in the right.'

^This would be my preferred structure, but I tend to fall on the side of caution and include extra information for the sake of grammatical clarity. In terms of getting the point across, the two examples above are also sufficient. As is often the case with English, there's not really a definitive rule or answer.

[yang_dong]

Hey lauren,

have you read the text ransom before?

What do these incidents reveal about Priam's character?
- the appearance of goddess Iris: his dependence of gods and his absolute trust in them?
- Hecuba's response to his plan: Hecuba's response is that she rejects the idea, much like many others, but how does that reveal about Priam's character? He has a role to play in society?
- the objections of his sons and advisers: very similiar to the Hecuba one. Strange how they separated the two???
- arrival of the first mode of transport choosen: determined? i have no idea about this one?
- the appearance of somax and his wagon: we learn about his duality.

can you please help me with these scenarios? thank you