Introducing: texts.crossref-it.info

Welcome back from the summer break! The Crossref-it.info blog is back and posting again, and we aim to bring you the latest and the greatest - English literature musings, essay and exam tips, and, as always, new product features.

While the blog has been on a break, we have been working on a number of new features to the site, the first of which we would like to proudly introduce today:




Texts is an effort which enables you to read, search and learn about some of the books we cover on Crossref-it.info more effectively. We have uploaded the entire text of four books to start with (there are plenty more in the works).

This means you can easily:

Read the book: for instance, for convenient study, try having the text guide open in one browser tab while keeping the the book open in the other...

Search the book: Students might want to keep this feature from their teachers / teachers might want to keep this feature from their students...

Understand the book: Yes, some of the older books might not necessarily shy away from strange words. So when a difficult word appears, you may find that you are able to simply and conveniently hover over it for an explanation, just like in the text guides on Crossref-it.info.

We are working on features and more texts. Meanwhile, enjoy reading

• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
• Charles Dickens' Great Expectations
• Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
• Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Why is Hamlet so popular?

You may or may not find the play personally appealing, but the rest of the world and the acting fraternity certainly do! Of all the plays written by Shakespeare it is the one that generates the most performances with high profile actors (and consequent media coverage).

The most recent actor to generate column inches is Jude Law, who is proving to his critics that he can handle the huge range and complexity of the Danish Prince after the froth of chick flick offerings such as The Holiday. The production is currently running at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre until 22nd August (www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk), so try and get there if you can, even if you are not studying it. Watching any Shakespeare on stage is illuminating.

Last year everyone was raving about David Tennant’s interpretation of the role, full of angst and quicksilver wit. Even if you have seen a production before, it is fascinating to watch a new production and see how varying casts and directors can bring out so many different facets.

Haven’t yet come across the play? It always helps to get familiar with the plot and characters before you get to the theatre, so a quick trawl through the scene synopses at Crossref-it.info will fill you in. After watching a performance you can investigate the site further and see what the director chose to leave out as much as include (Hamlet runs at about five hours uncut!).

If you have been lucky enough to see a production of the play recently, why not let us know what you thought, so others can benefit from your insights?

Poetry - making sense of life

The power of words

After a year’s study of English Lit. I hope you have got switched on to the power of words. Words shape our culture, they define how we think – and when they have been carefully crafted by a poet, they have an amazing power to crystallise an emotion or situation.

The BBC has been running a significant range of programmes in its recent poetry season. One strand is ‘My life in verse’

• Last week Cerys Matthews (Catatonia) talked about the influence of the poetry and lyrics she heard around her as she grew up, and how that led to her own self expression
• The week before, Robert Mitchell (Peep Show, Mitchell and Webb) revealed how TS Eliot’s Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock connected with his sense of alienation after the death of his mother

Open up your mind

Now the revision season is over you might want to release the pent up concentration and give space to new thoughts.

Why not check out some poems that are not on your course and let the words and images sink into your psyche.

There are loads on the web to browse through and if you get stuck on any images, you can see if the handy explanations at www.crossref-it.info help make sense of it all.

Let the dynamite of poetry blow you away!

We've got survey results and a winner!

First of all, thank you to everyone who went to the trouble to fill in our recent survey. Here at Crossref-it.info we really want the resource to help you, so your feedback is very important to us!

One thing that becomes apparent from the survey is how varied the users of the site are. Many of you are students and many of you are teachers, but we also have people who are in higher education, retirees, people from different backgrounds and different parts of the world. In fact, the site has now been accessed from approximately 180 countries!

We were encouraged by some of the things people appreciate about Crossref-it.info:

• Many students appreciate the frequent revision tips and exam help. The site is being widely used to revise, for coursework, for help with essays and other homework.
  
• Many teachers appreciate the 'depth of information', the 'quality of analysis', the 'ease of use' and the 'regularity of updates'. We can't argue with that...

While we are encouraged by all this positive feedback, we did this survey mainly to find out how you think we should improve the site. We got lots of helpful feedback, the most common being that people want to see more material, more text guides.

We are certainly taking that to heart and will keep you posted on the progress we make. We are currently working on various guides, including ones on the poetry of Blake and Rossetti, Chaucer, Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Also, we will be announcing a major new feature to the site in the coming months, so watch this space!

And, finally, the winner is: Emma from Nottingham! Congratulations! We are contacting you by email and will arrange delivery for your iPod Shuffle soon.

What does it mean to revise: An author’s methods of presentation?

How on earth do you prepare for an A Level Eng. Lit exam?
Welcome to the third in a short series about how to revise English successfully.

It is very likely that at least one of the questions you will face in the exam will focus on how an author presents his/her intentions within or across texts. How can you prepare for that?

The key aim of questions like these is to get you to focus not on ‘what happens’ but how the author has crafted the text in order to elicit a particular response in the reader.

There are basic areas to cover, regardless of the text. For each of the following:

• Try and make condensed notes / a mind map / list headwords
• Learn a quotation or specific example to illustrate.

Plot

1) With whom is a reader to identify – a 1st or 3rd person narrator, a particular character?

• How has the author achieved that sense of identification?
• How does it shape the reader’s perspective on the plot?
  

2) If there is a sub-plot

• What is its relevance to the main one?
• How are the main and sub-plots interwoven?
  

3) What is the impact of presenting events chronologically / non-chronologically?

• What is the impact of any time frame on the presentation of the plot?

Narrative perspective

1) Who is telling the story and how close is the reader to him/her?
2) At what pace do events unfold – how has the author created that effect?
3) Is there direct authorial comment and/or does tone / irony / mood guide a reader’s response?

Patterning

1) What themes brought to the fore? (See previous blog in series)
2) How are imagery and / or symbolism used?
3) Are there repetitions / echoes of:

• Events
• Locations
• Family structures?
  

Description

1) How would you characterise the author’s descriptive techniques?
2) What kind of language is employed when – to what effect?
3) How do these techniques create:

• Character (see previous blog in series)
• Location and atmosphere
• Drama, tension / suspense?
  

As you cover these ideas you always need to keep in mind the intentions of the author.

What on earth is del.icio.us?

Perhaps you have been using Crossref-it.info for a while now and have been finding it useful for your exams, essays and home work. And perhaps you have been bookmarking some of the pages for future reference.

But the annoying thing is: whenever you access the site from a different computer, the bookmarks aren't there and you have to try and find where you left off last time.

Well, if that is you, then there is good news! There are a number of ways which will really make things easier for you! Here are a few methods you could try:

1. Before you start your session, sign in. Signing in is free and quick. And it means that, the next time you access the site and sign in, it will tell you which pages you viewed in your previous session.

2. You could use del.icio.us: What on earth is del.icio.us, you ask? Basically, just click on the "del.icio.us" link at the bottom of almost every page on the website and it will let you "bookmark" the page on http://del.icio.us . You can bookmark any website on del.icio.us, which means that you have always have access to your bookmarks (wherever there is an internet connection, that is).

3. Along with del.icio.us, we support a number of similar services. Just take a quick look at the bottom of most pages on Crossref-it.info - we've tried to make this as straight forward as possible for you!

4. And, finally - if you really like a page, or think a page is particularly useful, then we would love it if you shared your enthusiasm with others by digging it. Spreading the word, so to speak. Again, the Digg button can be found at the very bottom of most pages on the site.

What does it mean to revise: Themes?

How on earth do you prepare for an A Level Eng. Lit exam?
Welcome to the second in a short series about how to revise English successfully.

It is very likely that at least one of the questions you will face in the exam will focus on how an author presents one or more themes within or across texts. How can you prepare for that?

There are basic areas to cover, regardless of the text. For each of the following:

• Try and make condensed notes / a mind map / list headwords
• Learn a quotation or specific example to illustrate.
  

Selected theme:

Within a text

1) Identify the theme’s emergence – instances of its recurrence
2) What imagery is associated with the theme? Does this create a particular mood?
3) How is the theme worked out through the plot / narrative arc?
4) In prose, do any relationships between characters illustrate this theme?

Across texts

How is the theme dealt with differently in comparative texts?

• Look at 1 – 3 above

Author:

How does the author ‘use’ this theme – what ‘meaning’ does it represent?

• How is the theme outworked to support this (include imagery and mood)?
• Are there direct authorial comments that guide the reader’s interpretation of the theme?
  

Reader:

1) Do you have a personal response to this theme – has it made you reflect on aspects of contemporary life?
2) Are you satisfied with how the author has ‘used’ the theme?

Always keep in mind that themes are highlighted by an author to serve the purposes of the text.