Three Basic Principles  Make your essay USEFUL  Make your essay VALUABLE  Make your essay PAINLESS

Useful  Choose a topic that: -would be relevant to discuss in a university interview, or to mention in your Personal Statement. -is related to the texts that you are studying or are going to study in your English course.  -makes you think about something that you haven’t studied before, or in a way that you haven’t considered before.

Valuable  Choose something that has academic value: is there a body of criticism (by academics, not just ordinary people on internet forums) ?  Try to choose a topic which advances knowledge in some way: look for a new, interesting angle on a text, or comparison of two texts which are not an obvious pair.  Make sure you consider the literary element of the text; don’t just use it as a springboard for a discussion of feminism etc.

Painless  Choose a text(s) that your supervisor knows or likes, or is willing to read.  Don’t choose contemporary texts: there is almost no criticism available.  Think carefully about translated texts – is there any criticism in English?  -Don’t choose War and Peace or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Short novels, plays or poems.  Think about access to quality criticism. Does the English Department have books? Can you obtain books easily – Amazon; family visits to the UK, Australia or the US?