Making Points: Connotations and Quotations

When you are making your points there are a number of things that you should remember to do in order to get a good grade:

· Refer clearly back to the question

· Use a linking phrase or connective, some examples are below

· Use embedded quotations to support your point where possible

· Use more than one quotation to support the points that you are making

· Try to use quotations or references which are as short and precise as possible

· Analyse the quotations by picking out the key words and discussing their connotations (or whatever the key feature is) and how this affects the audience

· Do not just list the connotations or meanings of something, try and say what impression it creates of the Victorian Education system

Linking phrases and referring back to the question:

Here are some examples of linking phrases. Often these will come at the start of a paragraph or sentence to show how this paragraph or sentence links to or contrasts with what has gone before. There are also some examples of these linking phrases in use within sentences:

Joining Phrases	Contrasting Phrases	Concluding Phrases
In addition, Additionally,	In contrast, Contrastingly	Thus
Moreover,	On the other hand,	Therefore
Furthermore,	However,
This is emphasised / reinforced	Conversely,

Additionally, the image of the ‘white light to guide me’ is used to …

Achebe, moreover, uses words with connotations of malnutrition and disease, such as …

Furthermore, the adult world is portrayed as …

Okara also makes use of … to effectively insinuate that the adult world is an emotionally cold place lacking in any genuine human connection

The use of … is another method that Scanell uses to emphasise the excitement and energy of the game ‘Hide and Seek’.

However, Fanthorpe’s most effective method of depicting the naivety and innocence of children is …

Embedded quotations:

Below is an example of a paragraph that uses embedded quotations.

The naivety of the compound phrases ‘gettinguptime’ and ‘timeformykisstime’ help to create a sense of innocence in the child as the impression is that he is unable to properly break up the phrases that he has heard from adults into their constituent parts and thus treats them as whole ideas. This sense of naivety is reinforced by the capitalisation of the word ‘She’ to refer to the teacher which bespeaks the awe and reverence the child feels towards this figure of superiority an idea further accentuated by the hyperbolical fear the child seems to have at having done ‘Something Very Wrong’ and his equally exaggerated conviction that he has escaped ‘into ever’ as a result of not being able to tell the time.

Below is an example of a paragraph that does not do this, both make good points but notice how the first one flows much more smoothly than the second.

In ‘Half Past Two’ Fanthorpe uses the phrases ‘gettinguptime’ and ‘timeformykisstime’ to create the impression that the child is naïve and has not properly understood the way that adults talk to him. The connotations of ‘She’, which is capitalised, suggest the teacher is viewed as a figure of authority and is given an almost God-like status. Equally the ambiguity of the phrase ‘Something Very Wrong’ suggests that the child is unaware of exactly what crime has been committed and that he believes it is bad because he has been told so. The capitalisation seems to emphasise the sternness with which we can imagine these words were spoken to him and an image is created of a child frightened by an authority and bewildered by an arbitrary seeming set of rules that it does not fully understand.