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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