Q11 W-Seminar BAK

Here, you will find useful further information such as links and suggestions for secondary literature. Please consult the site regularly since you will constantly find updates. Furthermore, if you've come across websites, books, essays etc. that you consider useful for others too, you may share them here as well.

Links

Definition Comedy (Encyclopedia Britannica)

A Vocabulary for Comedy

Filmsprache (technical terms in English)

App for free download: The Language of Film

Blackbooks, Episode I

Secondary Literature

Carroll, Noel: Humour. A very short introduction. Oxford 2014.

Chapman, Antony et. al. : Humor and Laughter. Theory, Research, and Applications. New Brunswick, NJ 1996.

Fox, Kate: Watching the English. The hidden rules of English behaviour. London 2004.

Irwin, William et. al. eds.: The Simpsons and Philosophy. The D'oh! of Homer. Peru, Ill. 2001.

Lakoff, Robin: Language and Woman's Place. New York 2004.

Raskin, Victor: The Primer of Humor Research. New York 2009.

Weems, Scott: Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why. New York 2014.

Journal: Humor. International Journal of Humor Research. (You will find essays and articles on a boundless number of special topics concerning humor in this journal!)

How to find my topic

Purpose of the project paper

You need to show that you are able to deal with primary and secondary sources so that you can answer a central question and/or give arguments for your thesis. That does NOT mean that it's enough to just use secondary literature, throw in a couple of quotes from your film or book and Bob's your uncle. You have to draw your own conclucions (albeit at a rather small scale) and prove them with the help of your primary and secondary sources.

Choosing the primary source

Remember the PPT I showed you in our first session? All the topics I mentioned can be used for your paper.

General advice: Don't choose your favourite book/film/series! It will not be your favourite after you've written the paper.

Possible advantages of fiction: quite easy to deal with, you know how to analyse fictional texts, probably fairly easy to find secondary literature as long as you choose a classic

Possible disadvantages of fiction: esp. if you choose an older or more complex work, it might be challenging to fully grasp its content, "too much" secondary literature to choose from

Possible advantages of films/series: might be easier to understand, more elements to analyse (dialogues, camera, sound, lighting etc.)

Possible disadvantages of films/series: combination of several layers of perception might make analysis more challenging, greater difficulty to find secondary literature esp. if you choose a very recent or underground or mainstream series/film

Narrowing down the topic

Let's say you've decided to write about "The Simpsons". A topic like "Humor in The Simpsons" would definitely go way beyond the scope of your paper.

Limit the range of your topic:

• You could focus on one character and how comedy is conveyed through him, e. g. Crusty the Clown or Bart.
• Narrowing it even more down, you can choose a certain type of joke and the implications this has, e. g. Bart's poking fun on others
• You can link your research on one topic/character to a literary theory (e. g. about gender) or a theory of humour, e. g. Bart Simspon and the superiority theory.
• You can also focus on stereotypes and why the audience finds them funny, e. g. the portrayal of ethnic minorities
• When you write about a TV series, you need to pick a handful of episodes to prove your thesis, don't choose more than five, better less.

What exactly am I going to write about?

Don't just sum up the content of your book/film/series. That's a) boring and b) absolutely not the purpose of your project paper. There are two possible ways of making sure that you can follow your train of thought without losing the recurrent theme ("roter Faden"):

1. Ask a central question that you're going to answer in your paper
2. State a thesis that you're going to prove in your paper

How to create an eye-catching title

Make sure your title is eye-catching! You can include a pun or a quote or pose a provoking question.

e. g. Bart - Matt Groening's Leviathan? The character of Bart Simpson and Thomas Hobbes' superiority theory. (This is a good title because it shows that you know who or what the Leviathan is and it also links Bart to this famous book by Hobbes from the year 1651. It also poses a rather provoking question to which the reader will not automatically have an answer.)

Of course, you can choose a run-of-the-mill-title like The character of Bart Simpson. As you might see for yourself, this title is not bad, it's just VERY boring...

Useful little things for writing your paper

Table of contents

This is your first page, it shows the outline of your paper and helps the reader to navigate through your text. All the bulletpoints you mention in your table of contents must appear in your paper as well! As long as you're in the process of writing, your captions needn't be fancy but when you edit your final version, try to make the captions catchy and clever so that the reader can anticipate what the chapter is about and curious to find out more. Think twice before creating a new caption/chapter, maybe you only have got three lines to write about one special aspect. Then it's better to add it to another chapter or to leave it out completely.

How trustworthy are my secondary sources?

Good question! For starters, works that are older than 1970 are not bad but likely to be dated. Sometimes, especially for classic works of literature, the first really scientific works which are still often cited, date from the first half of the 20th century. You can use them of course, but be aware of the fact that the scientific discourse has moved on and that new methods and questions have come up.
When it comes to online sources, things are not so obvious. Here you find a link which offers steps how to proceed to find out whether your online sources are reliable. This link here is also useful when it comes to examining the reliability of your source.
And, finally: Wikipedia, yes or no? For obtaining a general overview and also a first bibliography of a topic, Wikipedia is excellent. When it comes to quoting from it, you should avoid it where you can. If you can't find what you want to quote anywhere else and you still consider this information essential for your paper, you can also quote from Wikipedia - better than using the information and not giving the source at all.

Working with primary and secondary sources

Congratulations, you've found secondary sources, read and understood them and now you want to use them in your paper. Please make sure that you always mention the source right when you're using it. Don't wait until a later (never-to-come) point in the writing process when you plan to add all the secondary sources! Always mention your sources right after using them, also when you quote indirectly.