[LIT EE] Planning EE Timeline + How to approach writing?

[Guest]

Hi all,

My school just started the EE process a month or so ago, and I'm doing a Lit Category 1 EE. I have done a proposal and finalised a working RQ and text which has been approved by my supervisor, but am slightly at a loss as to how to timeline my EE process so I don't end up doing everything last minute (that's NOT the way to an A lol)

For context, my final EE DRAFT (not final EE) submission to my school is roughly in end Jan 2018. After discussions with my supervisor, I have to get a working DETAILED outline out by the end of the June holidays (not a US student so we have a June & Nov/Dec holiday system here), and I'm aiming for a first draft to be finished sometime around mid Aug 2017.

I generally consider myself a decently planned/organised student but I'm somewhat at a loss on how to plan this project since it's literally the longest thing I've ever written. So far I only have a mindmap of ideas but it's far from detailed and nowhere close to a conclusively flowing argument I'm also not exactly sure how to go about exhuming the text (Ursula Le Guin's 'The Left Hand of Darkness' - I'm examining gender) during the coming 1-month period. Should I try and formulate 3-5 claims and use that to focus my analysis? Should I do a character-based approach for the two main characters and an additional map for the societies Le Guin presents (which are also a way she explores gender); and use that to formulate claims? How does one even self-analyse an entire book (even if it's a decently short one)? All the book-based literary analysis I've done so far has been guided and I'm honestly not quite sure how to go about this.

So my two questions are as follows: (1) How do I go about planning a detailed timeline for this? (2) How can I approach analysis so I can plan my outline?

Thank you in advance for any advice + sorry for the long read!

[Ingridhar]

Hey! 

My school at least has a pretty strict timeline for EE's - we had outlines due sometime in April and then we had our rough draft due about a week ago. Since your school works based on a different schedule when it comes to vacations I think you're actually in quite good shape and your EE is due quite early. Anyway, to the actual questions. Honestly I think the EE is a little bit blown out of proportion in terms of time, it's honestly an essay that you could write very well over the course of a week or two (depending on your subject, obviously sciences would be harder to do that in since they need experiments etc.) but doing it as fast as possible and then rather looking back on it and making edits is a good way to go about it, given that senior year will not have mercy, especially if you haven't done most of your IA's yet. So, what I would do is make deadlines based on your main points (eg, I'll finish point 1 on date x and point 2 on date y - watch that word count though! It goes much faster than you expect)

Though I've never read the book you're writing about having main points about your IA is an essential thing to make a detailed outline - honestly I found the outline to be the hardest part. Firstly your outline should have your RQ as well as your main thesis. I found it worked well to formulate claims as well as a few sub-points to bring up (since you're doing a literary analysis you might also want to just go ahead an put some main quotes you want to use as well). I also brought up a few counter claims and argued against them, though I don't think this is a required thing to do - it just happened to fit well into my topic. Then just outline your conclusion. Also, "How do you analyze an entire book" honestly it's not particularly difficult - as long as you know the book quite well and you're interested in it as well as your RQ you should be able to remember certain scenes that are relevant for your topic. Also, this is a little bit off topic, but I found that looking through your book for quotes regarding it can be quite difficult - online PDF's with a search function are your friends!

Edited May 22, 2017 by Ingridhar