Text Response Tips
1. Make sure you understand the topic and address all parts of it.
2. Plan your essay carefully and in detail.
3. Use correct spelling, punctuation and sentence structure.
4. Formal language only - NO SLANG - eg. Write ‘mother’ not ‘mum’.
5. Always write the title of the novel in italics (or underline it, if you are writing by hand).
6. Your essay must have an introduction, body and conclusion.
7. Every claim you make must be backed up by evidence from the text - a quotation or an
example.
8. Alway write about events which occur in the text in the present tense (eg. ‘When Vincent
first meets Eugene there is some resentment’.)
9. Refer to the author/filmmaker by his/her surname (Gaines, Winton, Gaita, Niccol).
10. Refer to fictional characters (Rachael, Irene, Jefferson) by their first names unless in the text
they are referred to by their surnames.
A note on incorporating quotations…
Many students find this difficult. Quotations must be part of your sentence. For example:

By the end of the film, Schindler’s transformation is complete. ‘One more
person, a person, Stern’, he says and it is clear with the emphasis on
‘person’ that Schindler has learnt that a person, although he or she might
have been traded for a gold pin and saved, is infinitely beyond any
material value.

By the end of the film, Schindler’s transformation is complete. ‘One more
person, a person, Stern’. It is clear with the emphasis on ‘person’ that
Schindler has learnt that a person, although he or she might have been
traded for a gold pin and saved, is infinitely beyond any material value
Mowbray College VCE 2005 - KLM