Many students struggle when they are asked to provide a sustained and personal perspective on a text. Providing a perspective is understanding the purpose, why and how the text resonates with you and the rest of society.
- Your personal take on the text
The first step in providing a perspective in your essays is to ask yourself what you believe the text is essentially about. What concepts, values, ideas and concerns does the text explore, or what is the author’s purpose in writing the text? You might need to think about whether you agree or disagree with the question, whether you want to criticise or commend the text or whether you believe one value is explored in principle over another.
- Building your argument
Your thesis and topic sentences will be where you clearly state your principle perspective on the text through a cause and effect structure.
Let’s take the Module B text Hamlet for example;
Perspective: Hamlet is about how there are limits to human knowledge in life.
Introduce a cause and effect mechanism.
Argument: Hamlet explores how the inherent perpetuation of uncertainty in the world results in the loss of truth and objectivity.
Note: Many questions will also ask you to make an evaluative “extent” judgment. (“To what extent….”). In these cases, your personal view needs to develop through whether you believe the author explores a certain value to a significant, moderate, fair or poor extent.
