Resources

In order to improve the effectiveness of our tutorials, it may be helpful to spell out the arrangements I have adopted. Please let me know if anything is unclear or to request a change in this procedure.

A useful guide to reading, note-taking and essay writing is Thomas Dixon's How to Get a First (Routledge 2004), which has a useful linked website here.

Tutorials are held in pairs or singly, usually in consecutive weeks for full papers and alternating weeks for papers spread over two terms. Please contact me by email as soon as possible to make arrangements. Should you wish to change partners, it is important to indicate this as soon as possible, and certainly by the end of Week 2. Tutorials are held at Keble College, Room WL2 (directions here). N.B. I am not available for undergraduate tutorials outside Weeks 0-8; any left-over essays will need to be rescheduled for the following term.

Once times have been mutually agreed, they can be rescheduled only in exceptional circumstances. If you are prevented by illness or another pressing reason from attending, you should notify me as soon as possible. Failure to advise me of a missed appointment before 9 a.m. on the day of the tutorial will normally result in a charge to your college. Tutorials, like lectures, will aim to finish at 5 minutes before the hour to allow time to get to your next appointment.

In paired or small group tutorials, one student will give an oral presentation on a given subject, while the other(s) will submit a written essay at least 36 hours before. (Please note that written work submitted after this deadline will rarely be read and marked.) The presenter need not submit a full written essay; but if so it must also be submitted 36 hours in advance. Some students  prefer to read out the whole essay, but a well-structured 15-minute summary will be sufficient to introduce our discussion. I then invite the tutorial partner(s) to offer a critique and response, before launching into further comment and discussion. It is vital that you prepare well and participate actively in discussion: only in this way can the tutorial system do its job.

In all cases, it can help make our time together more valuable if at the end of your essay or presentation you highlight a few key questions or points you would like to see discussed.

I usually provide a few written comments on each essay, and oral ones on each presentation. I do notnormally give individual marks for each essay as this can be needlessly misleading or demoralizing or both, given that students often  encounter a steep learning curve in a new paper.  A classed assessment of the term's work will usually (though not always) be noted on the online end-of-term report filed on OxCort; and the following term's in-house Collections will also give a good indication of how you are getting on.

In preparing an essay, remember that even if a given topic were to surface in the exam, you are not likely to encounter it in exactly the same form. You are therefore advised to explore widely around and beyond the reading lists provided, in order to get an idea of the subject area and accumulate a useful set of revision notes. If there are books in high demand that ought to be in the Keble College Library, please let me know so that we can have them ordered as soon as possible.

At the same time, every essay should be constructed around a clear argument, engaging above all with the primary texts and with the merits of different scholarly interpretations, critical and textual evidence for and against, and leading up to a conclusion in which you state your own reasoned opinion. Although most essay topics are deliberately framed somewhat more broadly than exam questions, I do attempt to formulate them so as to invite you to identify a key critical debate behind the question, and to adjudicate between different interpretations in light of the evidence. Feel free to use structured headings if it helps you to streamline the argument. There is no prescribed length, but you should normally aim to write between 2,000 and 2,500 words for each essay.

Please get in touch if you have further questions either about these notes or about particular assignments.

Allowing for appropriate adjustments, the following hints may prove useful for tutorials, assessed essays and exams.

• Read the rubric. It is usually unchanged from the previous year, but check: a small change can matter a great deal.
• Think before you write. Map the terrain, then narrow the question to something manageable and unambiguous. Decide what position you want to argue and how you will get there: agree with a claim, disagree with it, or qualify it.
• Answer the question. Do not simply set out everything you know about the topic.
• Recognize and present the debate. Give a fair hearing to both sides, and marshal evidence to argue your own case; cite a range of views, not only those you happen to agree with.
• Move beyond description to analysis. How you use what you know, in building a critical argument, matters far more than how much of it you can display. Write with a sense of the chorus of critics looking over your shoulder ("you think what?!").
• Give your argument a clear shape: state your thesis, weigh the evidence for and against the main positions, then conclude. Tell the reader what you are going to argue and how, then do it, then sum up.
• Presentation matters. Clear prose, sensible paragraphing and headings all help persuade the reader.
• Bibliography and referencing. List only works actually cited, in a consistent standard format such as the SBL Handbook of Style (2nd edn). For tutorial and assessed work, an author-date system such as Chicago often makes for lighter footnotes and is easier to keep within a word count.
• Avoid unnecessary overlap between essays; cross-refer where useful instead of repeating yourself.
• Divide your time sensibly between questions: a long answer, however good, seldom makes up for one left short or unfinished.
• Finish with time to check your work, and submit on time.

For tutorial and assessed essays specifically: careful editing and proofreading make a real difference (a few tips are available here), and it is well worth asking a critical friend to read a complete draft before you submit. A useful guide to reading, note-taking and essay writing is Thomas Dixon's How to Get a First (Routledge, 2004).

The Basic Idea

Passages for gobbets are primary-source extracts chosen for translation and/or critical exposition because they hold something of particular interest. Ask yourself why an examiner might have picked this one. If nothing comes to mind on a given passage, move on and come back to it later if time allows. There is no single right answer: a strong gobbet can be argued from any number of critical angles, in continuous prose or in note form.

An Approach: Context, Content, Contribution

Context (around 15%). Place the passage briefly within the author's argument, and within the sequence of gobbets if that matters. Explain any unclear pronouns or time references. In the Gospels, note synoptic parallels, or their absence, where relevant; source-critical questions may also be worth a mention.

Content (around 70%). This is the heart of the answer. Expound the passage, rather than paraphrase it, with attention to the words and phrases that carry the most weight. Draw in historical, critical or theological observations, relating them where useful to the author's views elsewhere, to other passages, or to the wider background. A good habit is to underline the critically salient terms in the passage and make sure your answer accounts for each of them.

Contribution (around 15%). This is the "so what" section. An essay hands you a question and asks you to find the relevant evidence; a gobbet hands you the raw data and asks you to find the question. What does this passage contribute to our understanding of the book or its author? Which larger exegetical, historical or theological debates does it touch? A sentence or two of comment is usually enough: you do not need to settle the whole issue.

These headings are a guide, not a template to follow mechanically; some texts will yield more under one than another, but a strong answer says something under each.

More tips

• Be concise and watch the clock. Time spent generously on one gobbet is time taken from another, and each carries the same limited number of marks. Allow around fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the paper, with a couple of minutes at the end for checking.
• Where you can, avoid choosing a gobbet on the same passage or topic as one of your essays. If some overlap is unavoidable, cross-refer instead of repeating yourself.

Long-Term Revision

Revision for Finals or other examinations is a long game, not a fortnight's sprint. Early on, work out for each paper which topics you will definitely answer on, which you will definitely avoid, and which to keep in reserve. As a rule of thumb, if a paper requires three essays, aim to know four topics thoroughly and have two more you could answer competently. Choose topics likely to recur: check past papers on SOLO for the patterns particular subjects follow (some repeat questions almost verbatim year on year; others vary considerably), and avoid anything that surfaces only rarely. Beyond that it is a matter of taste, since you will revise more effectively, and write better under pressure, on material that actually interests you.

Once your topics are chosen, resist the temptation to revise everything else just in case. A good answer depends on depth as much as breadth, and time spent skimming material you will not use is time better spent elsewhere.

Plan your time from the end of term to your first paper, giving each paper roughly equal attention (Finals marks are usually averaged across papers), and build in a day off each week. Divide the period roughly in two: use the first half to gather material, read round your topics, and improve your notes; use the second to consolidate what you have found, while staying open to anything useful you come across along the way. Alternate between papers you enjoy and papers you find harder going, so as not to get stuck in a rut, and remember that revision is cumulative: what serves you well in the exam is rarely what you crammed the night before.

Make full use of examiners' reports, usually posted on faculty websites: they show where recent candidates went wrong and help you judge which approach to a topic is likely to succeed. Practise by planning answers to past questions rather than writing them out in full (a plan sent to a tutor is a better use of everyone's time than a full essay), and above all, answer the question actually set: pick it up and shake it. The best candidates are also the boldest, since examiners notice, and reward, an argument that takes a position and defends it.

On the Day

Check the Examination Schools' published timetable in good time, confirm the venue and dress code, and know your candidate number. Note how the paper is structured, since gobbets followed by a choice of essays is common, and divide your time according to the marks on offer: an outstanding answer to one question cannot make up for another left unfinished. Read the rubric carefully even if you expect it to be familiar; small changes from previous years do occur. Where a paper offers both gobbets and essays, avoid answering on the same passage or topic twice; a little cross-reference is better than repetition, and each answer will read as sharper for it. Finish with time to check your work, and submit on time.