REL 1300 Highlights and Lowlights Fall 2009

Paper 1

A general note: over all, this was a good set of papers. In trying to point out how they could be improved, I'm sometimes a little sarcastic, but not because I want to make anyone feel bad. I just want to help you see these papers from the point of view of a reader. Also, I should note that just because I make a negative comment here about part of the paper it doesn't mean the whole paper was bad.

Relevance:

Think about what you really need to include in your paper. Consider the following opening paragraph:

I realized it is difficult to understand subjects like these. It was even more difficult for me to embrace the idea that a question of such magnitude can be answered in a couple of pages. In my opinion, it is impossible. Since it is a requirement for the class I have enrolled in, here goes.


This could be the opening for so many papers you will have to write in college, on so many topics. Yes, it is a difficult topic - what do you expect, an essay about what you did for your vacation? Yes, it is hard to answer this question in 1200 words, and I'm glad that you appreciate this - but if 1200 words is already not enough, why waste any of those words on a paragraph that says nothing about Hindu goddesses?

Here's a similar example:


The word Mother grabbed my attention and then I thought "Why should I write about Kali, Durga, Parvati or Lakshmi when I could write about the Mother Goddess?" Then I just knew this was the perfect focus of interest for my paper. After answering this question, I seemed to come across my first difficulty while writing this paper: "Where should I start writing?" It took me a few days to decipher this problem.


When you spend ten years writing a book, it's usual to include in the Preface the story of how you came to write it, what problems you encountered, and how you overcame them. But in a paper of this length, you don't need to include within the paper the story of how that paper came to be written. You are required to write this paper. I know that, because I set the requirements. It is a difficult task, at least I hope it is: that's how you learn. Don't tell me how difficult it was and how hard you worked, just present the results of your efforts! If it's a good paper, I will be able to tell that you put in a lot of work.

It is different if you have something to say about how you acquired personal knowledge of Hinduism: that is relevant to the paper.
 

Describing is not explaining:


This was my most frequent comment as I graded these papers. For example:


Among the reasons I have listed as essential elements of the importance of devotion to goddesses in Hinduism there is a clear range of concepts that include reverence, sanctity of marriage, seeking balance through love and peace and the impact and importance of the worshipping of the female side in religion.


This is actually quite hard to understand. I asked for reasons for the importance of devotion to goddesses. This sentence offers me elements of the importance. Elements are the parts from which the whole is constructed. A cylinder, a crank-shaft and a clutch are all elements in a car engine. But just listing those parts doesn't give the reason why the engine makes the wheels turn. I can see that worship has elements - dancing, offering food and chanting are all elements of worship. How the importance can have elements I don't quite see. So anyway, I have a list of things that were mentioned in the essay, and look at the last item on the list.: "importance of the worshipping of the female side in religion." So I ask for reasons for the importance of the worship of goddesses, and I'm given a list of things that include - the importance of the worship of goddesses. That is just a circular statement. Of course, throwing in words like "a clear range of concepts that include" makes the sentence longer than it needs to be - so that perhaps by the time we get to "importance of worshipping of the female side in religion" it has been forgotten that this was the very thing to be explained.


Another example:


Goddesses' popularity is in part due to the sympathy that they show towards their followers.


But one of the things you need to explain is why people believe that goddesses show sympathy towards their followers. Franklin Roosevelt was popular because he showed sympathy towards the public. One way he did this was by his famous fireside chats on the radio. Everyone listened to him on the radio and heard him say that he sympathized. But goddesses don't just make radio broadcasts. If people have the idea that goddesses are sympathetic, where do they get it from - a scripture perhaps, or someone who is possessed by a goddess. And why do they believe that scripture? It isn't just like switching on the radio. To say that Hindus believe goddesses show them sympathy is an accurate description of Hindu beliefs, but it is then part of what has to be explained about Hindus - why do they believe this - not part of the explanation. Compare this:


We can determine that most of the people who are devotees of Devi, which are also called Shaktas, are from humble areas, surrounding the Himalayas. 85% of Devi's devotees are women from poor and humble areas, where the Goddess is the only thing they have. But the key question is: Why do these women worship Devi?


Here, we have steps towards an explanation. A particular geographical area and, within that, a particular social group are selected. (A reference was given in the previous paragraph). On that basis, an explanation can be advanced: poor Hindu women cling to Devi because of desperation. A theory emerges. Of course, this isn't a complete explanation, it's only the start - as the final question at the end of the paragraph acknowledges. The rest of the essay goes some way towards answering that question. By contrast, some students told me all kinds of interesting stories about churning the milky ocean, or battles of Devi and Kali, without ever explaining where and when these stories were first told, and why they became popular.

Here's another example of how to do it well:

It is true, as Kinsley says, that "Although many goddesses are mentioned in the Rg-veda, none is central to the Rg-vedic vision of reality as [the gods] Agni, Soma or Indra" (qtd. in Coburn, 15). However, other authors such as Tracy Pintchman have correctly noted that in the Vedas, many links are established between the heavenly process of creation and maintenance of the universe and the goddesses (19). Obviously, they are not as directly associated with these processes as the Gods. After all, much of the content in the Vedas came from the early Aryan settlers of the Indus Valley, who mostly had a patriarchal religion (Molloy 79). But without these early associations, which are very subtle, the subsequent elaboration of the central role of Goddesses in religions life that are seen in the Puranas wouldn't have been possible...

Here we have reference to three secondary sources, the text book by Molloy, and the books by Kinsley and Pintchman that I recommended to you. Many of you, I'm sure, read these sources. But notice here how information from all these sources is woven together perfectly. The writer isn't merely selecting random chunks, but is fitting the different bits of information together to say something. To be able to do that, you need to know the sources thoroughly.
The opening words of each sentence indicate where it fits into the whole - we get a series of contrasts, with one sentence qualifying another. "It is true...However..." "Obviously...After all...But." Many students try to impress the reader with long words, often used inappropriately, or throwing around the right words in the wrong way. Well, by all means stretch your vocabulary, but the above paragraph is impressive not because of any one word chosen only in order to sound precocious, but because the sentences are fitted in a manner that is practically perfect.

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