Periodical Essay Definition and Examples

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A periodical essay is an essay (that is, a short work of nonfiction) published in a magazine or journal--in particular, an essay that appears as part of a series.

The 18th century is considered the great age of the periodical essay in English. Notable periodical essayists of the 18th century include Joseph Addison, Richard Steele , Samuel Johnson , and Oliver Goldsmith .

Observations on the Periodical Essay

"The periodical essay in Samuel Johnson's view presented general knowledge appropriate for circulation in common talk. This accomplishment had only rarely been achieved in an earlier time and now was to contribute to political harmony by introducing 'subjects to which faction had produced no diversity of sentiment such as literature, morality and family life.'"  (Marvin B. Becker, The Emergence of Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century . Indiana University Press, 1994)

The Expanded Reading Public and the Rise of the Periodical Essay

"The largely middle-class readership did not require a university education to get through the contents of  periodicals and pamphlets written in a middle style and offering instruction to people with rising social expectations. Early eighteenth-century publishers and editors recognized the existence of such an audience and found the means for satisfying its taste. . . . [A] host of periodical writers, Addison and Sir Richard Steele outstanding among them, shaped their styles and contents to satisfy these readers' tastes and interests. Magazines--those medleys of borrowed and original material and open-invitations to reader participation in publication--struck what modern critics would term a distinctly middlebrow note in literature. "The most pronounced features of the magazine were its brevity of individual items and the variety of its contents. Consequently, the essay played a significant role in such periodicals, presenting commentary on politics, religion, and social matters among its many topics ."  (Robert Donald Spector, Samuel Johnson and the Essay . Greenwood, 1997)

Characteristics of the 18th-Century Periodical Essay

"The formal properties of the periodical essay were largely defined through the practice of Joseph Addison and Steele in their two most widely read series, the "Tatler" (1709-1711) and the "Spectator" (1711-1712; 1714). Many characteristics of these two papers--the fictitious nominal proprietor, the group of fictitious contributors who offer advice and observations from their special viewpoints, the miscellaneous and constantly changing fields of discourse , the use of exemplary character sketches , letters to the editor from fictitious correspondents, and various other typical features--existed before Addison and Steele set to work, but these two wrote with such effectiveness and cultivated such attention in their readers that the writing in the Tatler and Spectator served as the models for periodical writing in the next seven or eight decades."  (James R. Kuist, "Periodical Essay." The Encyclopedia of the Essay , edited by Tracy Chevalier. Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997)

The Evolution of the Periodical Essay in the 19th Century

"By 1800 the single-essay periodical had virtually disappeared, replaced by the serial essay published in magazines and journals. Yet in many respects, the work of the early-19th-century ' familiar essayists ' reinvigorated the Addisonian essay tradition, though emphasizing eclecticism, flexibility, and experientiality. Charles Lamb , in his serial Essays of Elia (published in the London Magazine during the 1820s), intensified the self-expressiveness of the experientialist essayistic voice . Thomas De Quincey 's periodical essays blended autobiography and literary criticism , and William Hazlitt sought in his periodical essays to combine 'the literary and the conversational.'"  (Kathryn Shevelow, "Essay." Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714-1837 , ed. by Gerald Newman and Leslie Ellen Brown. Taylor & Francis, 1997)

Columnists and Contemporary Periodical Essays

"Writers of the popular periodical essay have in common both brevity and regularity; their essays are generally intended to fill a specific space in their publications, be it so many column inches on a feature or op-ed page or a page or two in a predictable location in a magazine. Unlike freelance essayists who can shape the article to serve the subject matter, the columnist more often shapes the subject matter to fit the restrictions of the column. In some ways this is inhibiting because it forces the writer to limit and omit material; in other ways, it is liberating, because it frees the writer from the need to worry about finding a form and lets him or her concentrate on the development of ideas."  (Robert L. Root, Jr., Working at Writing: Columnists and Critics Composing . SIU Press, 1991)

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Essay on Periodical – Examples, 10 Lines to 1200 Words

Short Essay on Periodical

Essay on Periodical: Periodicals have been a staple in the world of literature for centuries, providing readers with a diverse range of content on a regular basis. In this essay, we will explore the significance of periodicals in the literary world, their impact on society, and their evolution over time. From newspapers to magazines to online publications, periodicals have played a crucial role in shaping public opinion, disseminating information, and providing a platform for writers to showcase their work. Join us as we delve into the world of periodicals and uncover their enduring influence.

Table of Contents

Periodical Essay Writing Tips

1. Choose a specific periodical to focus on: When writing an essay on periodical writing, it is important to choose a specific periodical to analyze. This could be a magazine, newspaper, journal, or any other publication that is published at regular intervals.

2. Research the history and background of the periodical: Before writing your essay, it is important to research the history and background of the periodical you have chosen. This will help you understand the context in which the publication operates and the audience it caters to.

3. Analyze the content and style of the periodical: Pay close attention to the content and style of the periodical you are analyzing. Look at the types of articles, the writing style, the layout, and any other features that make the publication unique.

4. Consider the target audience: Think about who the target audience of the periodical is. Consider the demographics, interests, and preferences of the readers and how these factors influence the content and style of the publication.

5. Evaluate the quality of the writing: Assess the quality of the writing in the periodical. Look at the language, tone, and structure of the articles to determine whether they are well-written and engaging.

6. Discuss the impact of the periodical: Consider the impact that the periodical has on its readers and the wider community. Discuss how the publication shapes public opinion, influences trends, and contributes to the cultural landscape.

7. Compare the periodical to others in the same genre: If relevant, compare the periodical you are analyzing to others in the same genre. Consider how it differs from or is similar to other publications and what sets it apart.

8. Provide examples and evidence to support your analysis: Use specific examples and evidence from the periodical to support your analysis. Quote passages, cite articles, and refer to specific features of the publication to illustrate your points.

9. Draw conclusions and offer insights: In your essay, draw conclusions based on your analysis of the periodical. Offer insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the publication, its significance in the broader media landscape, and any recommendations for improvement.

10. Proofread and revise your essay: Finally, make sure to proofread and revise your essay before submitting it. Check for grammar and spelling errors, ensure that your arguments are clear and coherent, and make any necessary revisions to improve the overall quality of your writing.

Essay on Periodical in 10 Lines – Examples

1. A periodical is a publication that is issued regularly, such as daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. 2. Periodicals can include newspapers, magazines, journals, and newsletters. 3. They are typically published on a specific topic or theme, such as fashion, politics, science, or literature. 4. Periodicals often contain articles, essays, reviews, and other written content. 5. They may also include photographs, illustrations, and advertisements. 6. Periodicals can be printed or digital, and are often available in both formats. 7. Subscriptions to periodicals are common, allowing readers to receive regular issues in the mail or online. 8. Libraries often have collections of periodicals for patrons to browse and borrow. 9. Periodicals can provide up-to-date information on current events, trends, and research in a particular field. 10. Reading periodicals can help readers stay informed, entertained, and engaged with the world around them.

Sample Essay on Periodical in 100-180 Words

Periodicals are publications that are released at regular intervals, such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly. They cover a wide range of topics, including news, entertainment, fashion, and scholarly research. Periodicals are an important source of information for readers, providing them with up-to-date and in-depth coverage of various subjects.

One of the key benefits of periodicals is their timeliness. They are able to report on current events and trends much faster than books or other forms of media. This makes them a valuable resource for staying informed about the world around us.

Periodicals also provide a platform for writers and researchers to share their work with a wider audience. They offer a space for in-depth analysis and discussion of important issues, helping to advance knowledge and understanding in various fields.

Overall, periodicals play a crucial role in our society by informing, entertaining, and educating readers on a wide range of topics.

Short Essay on Periodical in 200-500 Words

Periodicals are publications that are released on a regular basis, such as magazines, journals, and newspapers. These publications cover a wide range of topics, from current events and news to entertainment and scholarly research. Periodicals play a crucial role in keeping people informed and engaged with the world around them.

One of the key benefits of periodicals is their timeliness. Unlike books, which can take months or even years to be published, periodicals are released on a regular schedule, often weekly, monthly, or quarterly. This allows them to provide up-to-date information on current events, trends, and developments in various fields. For example, a weekly news magazine can keep readers informed about the latest political, economic, and social issues, while a scientific journal can publish the most recent research findings in a particular field.

Periodicals also offer a wide range of perspectives and voices on a given topic. Unlike books, which are typically written by a single author or a small group of authors, periodicals often feature contributions from multiple writers, experts, and commentators. This diversity of viewpoints can help readers gain a more comprehensive understanding of a subject and make more informed decisions.

Furthermore, periodicals are a valuable source of entertainment and leisure reading. Magazines and newspapers often feature articles on popular culture, fashion, travel, and lifestyle, providing readers with a welcome escape from their daily routine. Journals and academic publications, on the other hand, offer in-depth analysis and research on specialized topics, catering to the interests of scholars, researchers, and professionals.

In addition to their informational and entertainment value, periodicals also play a crucial role in the dissemination of knowledge and research. Academic journals, in particular, are essential for scholars and researchers to share their findings with the wider academic community. By publishing their work in peer-reviewed journals, researchers can contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field and engage in scholarly debates and discussions.

Overall, periodicals are a vital part of our media landscape, providing readers with a diverse range of content and perspectives on a wide range of topics. Whether you are looking for the latest news, entertainment, or scholarly research, there is a periodical out there for you. So next time you are looking for something to read, consider picking up a magazine, journal, or newspaper and see what new insights and perspectives you can discover.

Essay on Periodical in 1000-1500 Words

Periodicals are publications that are issued at regular intervals, such as daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. They cover a wide range of topics, from news and current events to entertainment, fashion, and lifestyle. Periodicals play a crucial role in keeping readers informed and engaged, providing them with a steady stream of information and entertainment.

One of the key benefits of periodicals is their timeliness. Unlike books, which can take months or even years to be published, periodicals are able to quickly report on breaking news and events. This allows readers to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in politics, business, sports, and other areas of interest. For example, newspapers are able to report on the outcome of an election or a major sporting event within hours of it happening, providing readers with immediate access to important information.

In addition to their timeliness, periodicals also offer a wide range of content to suit the diverse interests of readers. From in-depth investigative journalism to light-hearted entertainment pieces, periodicals cover a broad spectrum of topics and genres. This variety allows readers to choose from a range of publications that cater to their specific interests and preferences. For example, a reader who is interested in fashion may subscribe to a monthly fashion magazine, while a reader who is interested in politics may prefer a weekly news magazine.

Furthermore, periodicals provide a platform for writers and journalists to share their work with a wide audience. Many periodicals publish articles, essays, and opinion pieces written by experts in their respective fields. This allows readers to access high-quality, well-researched content on a variety of topics. In addition, periodicals often feature letters to the editor, allowing readers to engage with the publication and share their own opinions and perspectives.

Periodicals also play a crucial role in shaping public opinion and influencing public discourse. By providing readers with a platform to access information and engage with different viewpoints, periodicals help to promote critical thinking and informed decision-making. For example, newspapers and magazines often publish editorials and opinion pieces that discuss important issues and offer analysis and commentary. This can help to educate readers on complex topics and encourage them to form their own opinions based on a variety of perspectives.

In addition to their role in informing and engaging readers, periodicals also serve as a valuable source of revenue for publishers. Many periodicals rely on advertising revenue to support their operations, with advertisers paying to place ads in the publication. This revenue helps to offset the costs of producing and distributing the periodical, allowing publishers to continue providing high-quality content to readers. In addition, many periodicals also offer subscriptions to readers, providing a steady source of income that helps to sustain the publication over the long term.

Overall, periodicals play a vital role in our society, providing readers with timely, informative, and engaging content on a wide range of topics. From news and current events to entertainment and lifestyle, periodicals offer a diverse array of content to suit the interests and preferences of readers. By providing a platform for writers and journalists to share their work, shaping public opinion, and generating revenue for publishers, periodicals contribute to the vibrant and dynamic media landscape that is essential to a healthy democracy.

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What Is a Periodical Essay?

Publication Date: 06 Mar 2019

Periodical Essay

A periodical essay is a type of writing that is issued on a regular basis as a part of a series in editions such as journals, magazines, newspapers or comic books. It is typically published daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly and is referenced by volume and issue.

Volume indicates the number of years when the publication took place while issue denotes how many times the periodical was issued during the year. For example, the May 1711 publication of a monthly journal that was first published in 1702 would be referred to as, “volume 10, issue 5”. At times, roman numerals were also used to indicate the volume number. For the citation of text in a periodical, such a format as The Chicago Manual of Style is used.

The periodical essay appeared in the early 1700s and reached its highest popularity in the middle of the eighteenth century. London magazines such as The Tatler  and The Spectator  were the most popular and influential periodicals of that time. It is considered that The Tatler  introduced such literary genre as periodical essay while The Spectator  improved it. The magazines remained influential even after they stopped publications. Their issues were later published in the form of a book, which was in demand for the rest of the century.

Richard Steele and Joseph Addison are considered to be the figures who contributed the most to the development of the eighteen-century literary genre of periodical essays. They managed to create a winning team where Addison was more of an eloquent writer while Steele made his contribution by being an outstanding organizer and editor.

Typically, the essays can be classified into such two types as popular and scholarly. Also, this literary form was written for an audience of professionals who preferred to read business, technical, academic, scientific and trade publications.

However, for the most part, the periodicals were about morality, emotions and manners. Readers expected essays to be common sense and thought-provoking. Publications were relatively short and mainly characterized as those which provide an opinion inspired by contemporary events. Periodicals were meant to be not “heavy”, especially those which were referred to as popular reading. The majority of topics in the periodicals were supposed to be appropriate for the common talk and general discussion.

Many essays were written for female readers as a target audience. Periodicals were aimed at middle-class people who were literate enough and could afford to buy the editions regularly. The essays were written in a so-called middle style and high education was not required for reading the majority of the contents. Over time, many periodical writers shaped their styles in order to satisfy the literary taste of the audience.

All periodical essays tend to be brief but texts written by a columnist and freelance essayist would slightly differ in length. The former writes his material trying to shape the subject of discussion to fit the requirements of the column. The latter though can take advantage of a more liberating approach by crafting his work the way he wants as long as his text manages to effectively highlight the subject.

Periodicals evolved in the 19 th  century and single essays were almost fully replaced by serial essay publishing. The writings became more eclectic, flexible and brave being at the same time literary and conversational.

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Easy English Notes

Periodical Essay – Definition & Meaning

The periodical essay is called ‘periodical’ because the periodical essays appeared in journals and magazines which appeared periodically in the eighteenth century. It flourished in the 18th century and died in the same century. Its aim was public rather than private. Its object was social reformation.

It conformed to the neo-classical ideal which placed a premium, not so much on the personal revelation and confession of the author himself as on his duty to inform the mind and delight the heart of the reading public. The periodical essay differs from the essays of Montaigne, Bacon, Hazlitt or Lamb because their essays were published collectively at one time in a single volume and presented a personal point of view to the readers.

The periodical essay like its other brothers, the novel and coffee houses tended to refine the taste and tone, the cultural and moral outlook of the educated and the wealthy middle classes. It was the literature of the middle classes, for the middle classes and by the middle classes of the eighteenth century. It has all the features of journalism-a wider appeal, a larger coverage. Brevity and precision, simple and chaste English, delicate tone and elegant style. The periodical essay had a double aim: to amuse and to improve. The subjects discussed by the periodical essayists were connected with the varied aspects of the social life with the city of London in the center. The style was deliberately easy, lucid and refined.

The periodical essay began In the year 1709 with the first periodical essay appearing in the Tattler on April 12. The real makers of the periodical essay were men of contrasted characters and temperaments. The Tattler and The Spectator set the fashion for all periodical papers and were soon followed by other imitations. Steele himself brought out the Guardian in 1713, and soon a host of other imitations like the Female Tattler, Whisper made their appearance and thus testifying to the popularity of this class of writing. The best of the wits of the age contributed to all these papers. Swift, Pope, Berkeley. Congreve, Parnell and others wrote occasionally for these papers and the vogue thus created for literary journalism continued right through the century and the next. Almost all the great figures in the literary field contributed either occasionally or regularly to such periodicals. Apart from the political nature of such periodicals, these papers became the chief organ for literary self-expression. Addison started Whig Examiner and Steele came out with Examiner, representing the Tory point of view. Fielding likewise was connected with the Champion; and the Craftsman and the Common-sense were two other journals of the same political colouring as the Champion. Ambrose Phillips made use of the Free Thinker to air forth his views. There were the Plain Dealer and the Farrot too. The growth of the political parties gave to these periodicals a strong party bias and each paper became the organ of one political party or the other. But while their political nature and learning are unmistakable their use of literary wits as the service ground is encouraging. They afforded to the literary aspirants an outlet for self-expression and by so doing, brought out to the full their talents.

The greatest and the best figures of the periodical essay are Addison and Steele. Addison and Steele was also associated with a darker and more somber personality, the greatest and most biting satirist of the age, Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) who transcended the limits of the periodical essay. His important contributions to the periodical essay are :

  • Predictions for the Year 1708.
  • Account of the Death of Mr. Partridge,
  • Letter to a Very Young Lady on Her Marriage,
  • Meditations upon a Broom-stick, etc.

In the pleasant art of living with one’s fellows, Addison is easily a master, “Swift is the storm, roaring against the ice and frost of the late spring of English life. Addison is the sunshine, which melts the ice and dries the mud and makes the earth thrill with light and hope. Like Swift, he despised shams, but unlike him, he never lost faith in humanity and in all his satires there is a gentle kindliness which makes one think better of his fellow men, even while he laughs to their little vanities” (Long).

To an age of fundamental coarseness and artificiality Addison came with a wholesome message of refinement and simplicity, much as Ruskin and Amold spoke to a later age of materialism; only Addison’s success was greater than theirs because of his greater knowledge of life and his greater faith in men. He attacks all the little vanities and all the big vices of his time, not in Swift’s terrible way, which makes us feel hopeless of humanity, but with a kindly ridicule and gentle humour which takes speedy improvement for granted. To read Swift’s brutal “Letters to a Young Lady”, and then to read Addison’s ‘Dissection of a Beau’s Head” and his “Dissection of a Coquette’s Heart” is to know at once the secret of the latter’s more enduring influence.

Addison’s essays are the best picture of the new social life of England. They advanced the art of literary criticism to a much higher stage than it had ever before reached, and led Englishmen to a better knowledge and appreciation of their own literature. Furthermore, in Ned Softly the literary dabbler, Will Wimble the poor relation, Sir Andrew Freeport the merchant, Will Honeycomb the fop, and Sir Roger the country gentleman, they give us characters that live forever as part of that goodly company which extends from Chaucer’s country parson to Kipling’s Mulvaney.

Addison and Steele not only introduced the modern essay, but in such characters as cited above they herald the dawn of the modern novel. Of all his essays the best known and loved are those which introduce us to Sir Roger de Coverley, the genial dictator of life and manners in the quiet English country.

In style these essays are remarkable as showing the growing perfection of the English language. Johnson says, “Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison”. And again he says, “Give nights and days, sir, to the study of Addison if you mean to be a good writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man”.

So the periodical essays, more particularly the essays of Addison and Steele, are well worth reading once for their own sake, and many times for their influence in shaping a clear and graceful style of writing.

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Steele is the originator of the Tattler, and joins with Addison in creating the Spectator-the two periodicals which, in the short space of less than four years, did more to influence subsequent literature than all other magazines of the century combined. On account of his talent in writing political pamphlets, Steele was awarded the position of official gazetteer. He could combine news, gossip and essays instantaneously.

Johnson’s Rambler is usually ranked as the first of the classical periodicals after The Guardian. Johnson also contributed to The Idler and The Adventurer. His style is mannered and Latinised. His is a learned prose. His vocabulary is heavy and sonorous. He is the classic of pedantic prose. Another luminary of the periodical essay is Oliver Goldsmith. He started his career as a periodical essayist with his contributions to The Bee, a weekly which did not survive its 8 th number. Among his best periodical essays mention must be made of “The City Night Piece”, “The Public Ledger”, “The Citizens of the World”, etc. Oliver Goldsmith should be remembered for his sympathetic humour, magic of his personality, simplicity, chastity and carefulness. His style is always light and refreshing. His descriptions are vivid and picturesque. He carried the personal vein of Steele, his compatriot, a step further and heralded the autobiographical manner of Charles Lamb.

Later on the romantic writers like Lamb, Hazlitt and De Quincey also contributed their essays to the periodicals of their time, but their essays are very much different in spirit of manner from those of the real practitioners of the periodical essay.

The rise of the periodical essay can be attributed to various causes such as vast growth of a reading public, rise of the middle classes, growth and development of numerous periodicals, the rise of the two political parties (the Whig and the Tory), the rise of the coffee-houses as centers of social and political life, the need of social reform and the popular reception accorded by the public to the periodical literature. The periodical essay was a very popular form of literature and communication and recreation in the eighteenth century because it was the mirror of the Augustan age in England” (A. R. Humphreys). It was the social chronicler of the time. It was particularly suited to the genius of the new patrons, because it was the literature of the bourgeoisie. It gave them what they wanted. It gave them pleasure as well as instruction. It was a delicate and sensitive synthesis of literature and journalism. It was neither too ‘literary’ to be comprehended and appreciated by the common people nor too journalistic to meet the fate of ephemeral writings. It could be read. Appreciated, and discussed at the tea-table or in the coffee-house. Its lightness and brevity were its two major popularising factors. The periodical essay, normally, covered not more than two sides of a folio half-sheet; quite often it was even shorter. Furthermore, it was suited to the moral temper of the age. It struck a delicate and rational balance between the strait-jacketed morality of the Puritan and the reckless Bohemianism of the Cavalier. In the words of A. R. Humphreys, “conventionally the code of pleasure was that of the rake: Steele and Addison wished to equate it with virtue, and virtue with religion”. Above all, the periodical essay has a wider appeal to various sections of the eighteenth century society. It appealed not only to the lovers of literature and literary criticism, but also to those who were interested in men and manners, fashions and recreation. It appealed very well to women. The authors were writing for men as well as women, said Mrs. Jane H. Jack.

The periodical essay further avoided heated religious and political controversies and maintained a balance, following generally a middle path. Mr. Spectator says in the very first issue of The Spectator: “I never espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories…” It also showed a healthy interest in trade, and thus appealed to the traders and merchants too. Lastly, the periodical essay became popular due to the chaste style of its contributors. They used simple and everyday language. It covered all accounts of gallantry, pleasure and entertainment, poetry, learning, foreign and domestic news.

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How To Write a Periodical Essay

December 26, 2016

Periodical essay papers are a journey or journal through one's eye or characters develop based on series of events accordingly.

Essay papers based on periodical is affected by century, culture, language and belief of the community, showing the mirror of their age, the reflection of their thinking. How literature acts as a medium in daily’s usage of a population in certain areas affect most on how this periodical journal is produced, how characters are developed, what makes the journal stands out from the others and so on.

How To Write?

Joseph Addison and Steele have applied periodical essay in their papers which are Tatler in 1709-1711 and Spectator in 1711-1712 and again in 1714. This means that custom periodical essay papers have been recognized and used the long time ago to produce series of events through custom essay papers. It is said that custom periodical essay papers existed even before Joseph Addison and Steele start their work, through sketches and letters from various features.

The most successful periodical essays can be a long list. Most influential custom periodical essay papers include Henry Fielding’s Covent Garden Journal in 1752, Samuel Johnson’s Rambler in 1750- 1752, Henry Mackenzie’s Mirror in 1779-1780, Oliver Goldsmith in 1757 to 1772 to name a few.

Cultures and analysis of the ways relate to the associations are reflected through actors characterization and goals for the particular projects. The role of maintaining language practices in the community allows these essayists to work on their periodical essay papers customization. College essay papers also related to social networks in a culture by the time these papers are produced.

That is basically how these popular periodical essays gain attention from worldwide at their century.

Editorial Policies

The impact on periodical essay papers was immediate through the eighteenth century. It is definitely beyond Addison and Steller's expectations as well as publications. These guys re-modeled their content and editorial policies of their periodical essay, Tatler, and Spectator, as well as Guardian into different languages outside England, gained immediate attention from a community outside England.

Oliver Goldsmith from 1757 to 1772 also contributed to numbers of custom periodical essay including The Monthly Review with ran to eight weekly numbers. His best work, The Citizen of the World in 1762 proves that he is attractive, lack of formality and sensitive as the main attraction to his periodical essay.

Periodically essay is still emerging despite the deep roots and far-reaching networks by the eighteenth century. These essay papers belong to definite period due to its tight connection in publishing practices, politics, and law.

Howeve,r the numbers of publication rise and fall considerably even at times of national crisis.

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Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

As you read, hover over the highlighted parts to learn what they do and why they work.

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Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

  • An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
  • Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
  • A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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MLA Works Cited Page: Periodicals

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Periodicals include magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals. Works cited entries for periodical sources include three main elements—the author of the article, the title of the article, and information about the magazine, newspaper, or journal. MLA uses the generic term “container” to refer to any print or digital venue (a website or print journal, for example) in which an essay or article may be included.

Below is the generic citation for periodicals using the MLA style. Use this as guidance if you are trying to cite a type of source not described on this page, omitting any information that does not apply:

Author. Title. Title of container (self contained if book), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publisher Date, Location (pp.). 2nd container’s title, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Pub date, Location (pp.).

Article in a Magazine

Cite by listing the article's author, putting the title of the article in quotations marks, and italicizing the periodical title. Follow with the date of publication. Remember to abbreviate the month. The basic format is as follows:

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Periodical , Day Month Year, pages.

Poniewozik, James. "TV Makes a Too-Close Call." Time, 20 Nov. 2000, pp. 70-71.

Buchman, Dana. "A Special Education." Good Housekeeping, Mar. 2006, pp. 143-48.

Article in a Newspaper

Cite a newspaper article as you would a magazine article, but note the different pagination in most newspapers. If there is more than one edition available for that date (as in an early and late edition of a newspaper), identify the edition after the newspaper title.

Brubaker, Bill. "New Health Center Targets County's Uninsured Patients." Washington Post, 24 May 2007, p. LZ01.

Krugman, Andrew. "Fear of Eating." New York Times, late ed.,  21 May 2007, p. A1.

If the newspaper is a less well-known or local publication, include the city name in brackets after the title of the newspaper.

Behre, Robert. "Presidential Hopefuls Get Final Crack at Core of S.C. Democrats." Post and Courier [Charleston, SC],29 Apr. 2007, p. A11.

Trembacki, Paul. "Brees Hopes to Win Heisman for Team." Purdue Exponent [West Lafayette, IN], 5 Dec. 2000, p. 20.

To cite a review, include the title of the review (if available), then the phrase, “Review of” and provide the title of the work (in italics for books, plays, and films; in quotation marks for articles, poems, and short stories). Finally, provide performance and/or publication information.

Review Author. "Title of Review (if there is one)." Review of Performance Title, by Author/Director/Artist. Title of Periodical, Day Month Year, page.

Seitz, Matt Zoller. "Life in the Sprawling Suburbs, If You Can Really Call It Living." Review of Radiant City , directed by Gary Burns and Jim Brown. New York Times, 30 May 2007, p. E1.

Weiller, K. H. Review of Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender: Historical Perspectives and Media Representations , edited by Linda K. Fuller. Choice, Apr. 2007, p. 1377.

An Editorial & Letter to the Editor

Cite as you would any article in a periodical, but include the designators "Editorial" or "Letter" to identify the type of work it is.

"Of Mines and Men." Editorial. Wall Street Journal, eastern edition, 24 Oct. 2003, p. A14.

Hamer, John. Letter. American Journalism Review, Dec. 2006/Jan. 2007, p. 7.

Anonymous Articles

Cite the article’s title first, then finish the citation as you would any other for that kind of periodical.

"Business: Global Warming's Boom Town; Tourism in Greenland." The Economist , 26 May 2007, p. 82.

"Aging; Women Expect to Care for Aging Parents but Seldom Prepare." Women's Health Weekly, 10 May 2007, p. 18.

An Article in a Scholarly Journal

A scholarly journal can be thought of as a container, as are collections of short stories or poems, a television series, or even a website. A container can be thought of as anything that contains other pieces of work. In this case, cite the author and title of article as you normally would. Then, put the title of the journal in italics. Include the volume number (“vol.”) and issue number (“no.”) when possible, separated by commas. Finally, add the year and page numbers.

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal , Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu ." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

Duvall, John N. "The (Super)Marketplace of Images: Television as Unmediated Mediation in DeLillo's White Noise ." Arizona Quarterly , vol. 50, no. 3, 1994, pp. 127-53.

An Article in a Special Issue of a Scholarly Journal

When an article appears in a special issue of a journal, cite the name of the special issue in the entry’s title space, in italics. Add the descriptor “special issue of” and include the name of the journal, also in italics, followed by the rest of the information required for a standard scholarly journal citation.

Web entries should follow a similar format, and should include a DOI (if available), otherwise include a URL or permalink.

Burgess, Anthony. "Politics in the Novels of Graham Greene." Literature and Society, special issue of Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 2, no. 2, 1967, pp. 93-99.

Case, Sue-Ellen. “Eve's Apple, or Women's Narrative Bytes.” Technocriticism and Hypernarrative, special issue of Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 43, no. 3, 1997, pp. 631-50. Project Muse , doi:10.1353/mfs.1997.0056.

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Introduction to library research.

  • Types of Periodicals
  • How to Tell If It's Peer-reviewed
  • The Peer Review Process

Video: Scholarly Vs. Non-Scholarly Sources

  • Popular Magazine vs. Scholarly Journal: Handout
  • Google Scholar
  • Finding Books and Articles
  • Evaluating Sources
  • Reference: Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
  • Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources
  • Primary Materials and Statistics
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What is a periodical?   A periodical is anything that comes out periodically. Magazines, newspapers, and journals are all periodicals. They may come out daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually, but new issues are released on a fixed schedule. While this legacy fades with the dominance of 24/7 production in the digital age, periodicity still plays an important role in scholarly publication.

Who is the audience?   Magazines, newspapers, trade journals, and academic journals are intended for different audiences.


For the general reader. Magazines typically have advertisements for popular consumer products like cars, perfume, or electronics. They rely on editors to determine the suitability of contributed works, rather than a peer-review process. Magazine articles are written by journalists or contributing writers, and they do not have to cite sources.


For the general reader. Newspaper articles are written by journalists, but may reflect reporting, investigative reporting, or opinion. While newspapers may be focused on authoritative and quality news reporting, journalists rely on different types of evidence than scholars. They do not necessarily have to cite sources, but some do.


These are specifically created for particular professions, or trades. They also have advertisements directed to that profession. For example, a trade journal for dentists may advertise and discuss new dental technologies.


Most scholarship is produced by professors and experts outside of academia. Scholarly journals depend on the peer review process to determine the suitability of submitted work. Academic articles can be original research or analysis, and all include citations. Most scholarly publications will not have advertising. If there's an ad on the page it is probably not scholarly.

 

An editorial process most scholarly works go through. Other professionals working in the same field (peers) evaluate works to ensure quality, credibility, and accuracy.

 

Distinguishing content on the internet:  The stylistic cues that make it relatively easy to distinguish different types of content vanish when presented on the web. It's easy to tell the difference between an analog newspaper and scholarly journal. They look and feel very different from each other. When using information from the internet it is important to develop the skills to critically analyze the information you're presented with, rather than rely on stylistic cues to determine the quality of information you're consuming.

How to Tell if an Article is Peer Reviewed

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Search by ISSN, subject, publisher, or language. Over 300,000 journals with 900 subject specialties.

Provides data points such as ISSN, publisher, language, subject, abstracting & indexing coverage, full-text database coverage, tables of contents, and reviews written by librarians. You can narrow OA results by clicking on the "Open Access" option. OA journals are also indicated with the bright blue "unlocked" icon.

  • Journals: How to Locate Top Journals in Your Discipline So many scholarly journals! How can you tell which ones are the best?

The Peer Review Process 

periodical essay example

  • Peer-Review Chart (pdf)

Check out this video from Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Libraries on the differences between scholarly and non-scholarly sources.

Here is a handout which may help you distinguish academic/scholarly journals from popular magazines.

  • Distinguishing Magazines and Scholarly Journals A brief guide to help tell the difference between magazines and journals.
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periodical essay example

periodical essay example

APA Style Guide for Citations and Student Papers: Periodicals

  • Formatting Guidelines
  • Sample Paper
  • Periodicals
  • Online Resources
  • In-Text Citations
  • How To Videos

Changes New to the 7th ed.

  • Up to 20 authors can be listed individually, rather than using et al.
  • Do not include "Retrieved from" before a URL 
  • If including a DOI, include https:// before the DOI
  • In most cases, it is recommended not to include database information.   See here for more information.

Article from a print magazine

Squatriglia, C. (2019, Winter). The song of the immortal violin. Popular Science , 291(4), 56-63.

Article from an online periodical

Mearian, L. (2018, April 9). How blockchain could solve the internet privacy problem. Computerworld . Retrieved from https:// www.computerworld.com/article/3267930/blockchain/how-blockchain-could-solve-the-internet-privacy-problem.html

Journal article from a library database

Gouveia, S., Villalobos, F., Dobrovolski, R., Beltrao-Mendes, R, & Ferrari, S. F. (2014, April 28). Forest structure drives global diversity of primates. Journal of Animal Ecology, 83(6), 1523-1530.  https://doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12241

Article with multiple authors (up to 20 authors)

Bowman, N. D., Kowert, R., & Cohen, E. (2015, December). When the ball stops, the fun stops too: The impact of social inclusion on video game enjoyment. Computers in Human Behavior , 53, 131-139. https://doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.036

Article with unknown author

Are supplements safe? Current regulations don’t protect consumers. (2020, February). Consumer Reports On Health , 32(2), 2.

Should database information be included?

The 7th edition of APA's Publication Manual says that in most cases, it is not necessary to include the name of the database from which you accessed a work. It argues that there are usually numerous ways to access an electronic source. Leave the database information off of the reference, unless it is a database that publishes its own original content or provides access to works that have limited accessibility (e.g. dissertations).

A note about dates

You may have notices that the way dates are listed in citations differs from source to source. Sometimes you may see a citation that includes a year of publication only, and sometimes you may see a date listed out with the year, month, and day. A good rule of thumb is to include the date information as listed on the publication.

  • If you see only a year listed as the date of publication, it is acceptable to include the just the year in your citation. Books usually fit into this category.
  • For a monthly periodical, you may list the month and year of publication.
  • For a seasonal periodical, you may list the year and the season. For example, (2019, Summer).
  • If you see a date of publication that includes the year, month, and day, you may list the full date in your ciation. For example, (2019, April 9).

What is a DOI?

DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier. Many articles that are published electronically are assigned a DOI. The DOI is a unique string of alphanumeric characters that are assigned to to an article and help researchers find articles. APA style dictates that if an article is assigned a DOI, the DOI is included in the citation.

  • Digital Object Identifier System

Information

Author  - This is the author of the article.

Title  - In this case of a citation for a periodical article, title refers to the the title of the article.

Periodical Title  - This is the title of the periodical. E.g. Newsweek, Washington Post, Journal of Experimental Psychology

Date of Publication  - This is the date that the article was published.

Volume & Issue  - Each time a periodical is published, it is assigned a volume number and an issue number. The volume usually refers to the number of years the periodical has been published, while the issue number refers to the number that have been published that year. However, not all periodical publishers supply volume and issue numbers.

Pages  - This is the pages of the periodical on which you will find the article being cited.

DOI - The DOI is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies an electronically published document. DOI stands for Digital Object Identfier.

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Eighteenth Century Periodical Essay

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http://www.ijila.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/V3-P1-Dr.-Girija-Suri.pdf Eighteenth-century England is marked by a resurgence in writing for the periodicals that were being written with the twin objectives of educating as well as entertaining the masses. The growth of the periodical essay in the 18th century is a story of the rise of the educated classes in England, women gaining centre-stage in the reading public, and the wave of public discussions and debate that animated the public sphere in England at the time. This essay traces the reasons and conditions for the growth of the periodical essay in 18th century England. It further discusses at the length the distinguishing features of the major periodical writers of the time including Addison, Steele, and Samuel Johnson and their contributions to the growth and refinement of English prose that paved the way for the novel form.

periodical essay example

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First a talk at various places, then a published essay in about 2000 in Eighteenth-Century Fiction.

Writing and Victorianism

Laurel Brake

This was an invited paper given at the 'Inventions of the Text' seminar at Durham University in May 2018. The paper considers the relationship between empiricism and the familiar essay in the eighteenth century. It notes the emergence of scepticism, dialogue, and the idea of performative rationality as hallmarks of what might be termed a tradition of ‘socialised’, decentred empiricism that flourished in the mid-to-late eighteenth century in Britain. The essay was vital to this emergence because of the ways in which the genre drew together experience and communication, the philosophical and the social. By subordinating methodical 'dispositio' to dialogical 'complicatio', the essay offered an alternative model of order and rational thought to that implied by system. This model relied not upon a priori principle or even sensory data, but upon a blurry consensus underpinned by a mixture of doubt, dialogue and the performance of civic virtues. And yet, even as it celebrates an idea of truth that was underpinned by these activities and qualities, the familiar essay ultimately testifies to the passing of this idea.

Susanne Schmid

Journal of European Periodical Studies

Journal of the History of Ideas

Lucia Dacome

Cambridge History of Literary Criticism

James Basker

The rise of periodical literature changed the face of criticism between 1660 and 1800. To chart a course through this jungle of literary growth and its implications for the history of criticism, it is useful to look at three basic periods within which slightly different genres of periodical predominated and left their mark on literary culture. The first, from the mid- 1600s to 1700, saw the infancy of the newspaper and, from about 1665, the establishment of the learned journal; during the second, from 1700 to 1750, the periodical essay enjoyed its greatest influence, and the magazine or monthly miscellany, with all its popular appeal, came to prominence; in the third, from about 1750 to 1800, the literary review journal emerged in a recognizably modern form and rapidly came to dominate the practice of criticism.

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Moral Weeklies (Periodical Essays)

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The early eighteenth century witnessed the birth in England of the "Spectators", a journalistic and literary genre that developed in the wake of the Glorious Revolution (1688). Beginning in 1709 these newspapers and their fictitious narrators would influence the entire European continent. In the Anglophone world the "Spectators" were also called "periodical essays", whereas in German-speaking lands they were known as "Moralische Wochenschriften" or, in a re-translation into English, as "Moral Weeklies". These periodicals constituted a new public medium, aimed especially at a bourgeois audience and responsible for a brisk discursive transfer. They thus not only added further dimensions to public communication, but they also contributed decisively to the development of modern narrative forms.

Preconditions for the Periodical Essay

The Spectator genre owed its development in England to the political and cultural events of the late 17th century. In the reigns of William III of Orange (1650–1702) and his successor Queen Anne Stuart (1665–1714) , new forms of democratic sensibility emerged that diverged from absolutist models and laid the foundation for the genesis and promotion of public communication. England had long since set its own course, one that was critically opposed to the traditional social forms of the European continent . Work in Parliament laid the foundation for English law, and new public structures arose; both processes were closely connected to the development of medial communication. The reigning moral code became that of the sober and pragmatic Protestant worldview, which underlay the national stereotype of the "practical Englishman".

The philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) , the founder of modern epistemology and the critique of knowledge, gladly returned to England after William ascended the throne (1688). With his works An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) he contributed decisively to both the reflection on the process of social renewal and the communication of knowledge in the modern sense. The time was slowly arriving for the successful English model to be exported to the European continent.

Philosophy was joined by freedom of the press, introduced in 1695, in promoting the notion of fairness and tolerance. This brought with it a trend towards liberalization that strengthened the middle class's sense of itself, giving rise to an appreciable feeling that change was in the air. At that time the gentry set the tone in English society, and its ideal of the gentleman served as the model for the emerging bourgeoisie, especially in the capital city of London . Critical observers, however, found fault with this code of behaviour, claiming that it was otiose, morally nonchalant and constituted a playing field for the increasing depravity of culture. At the turn of the century, numerous cries were heard for the comprehensive reform of morals and behavioural patterns. 1

Joseph Addison (1672–1719), undatierter Kupferstich, unbekannter Künster. Bildquelle: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?494468 © New York Public Library.

The literary roots of the periodical essays can be found partly in French culture, which at the time still served as the model for wide social circles in Europe . Nicolas Boileau's (1636–1711) writings provided access to discussions about the reception of the hegemonic textual forms of Greek and Roman antiquity. In the foreground of this transfer stood literary forms like satire, the character portraits of Jean de la Bruyère (1645–1696) , and the dramas of Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) . Michel de Montaigne's (1533–1592) Essais (1580) also influenced the development of the Spectators , although the latter departed from the authentic first-person narrator of the French model and vanish behind the mask of a fictional narrator.

Cultural forerunners of the periodical essay can also be found in the literary forms of the Italian classics and the Spanish Golden Age, the Siglo de Oro (16th/17th century), which had had an early influence on English literature. One thinks, among the many possible examples, of Giovanni Boccaccio's (1313–1375) novellas, of the narrative forms of the Spanish picaresque novel, of the romance and its transcendence through Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's (1547–1616) El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (1605/1615), of the dream narratives of a Francisco Quevedo (1580–1645) , and of the masque, which spread to Spain by way of Italian culture.

"Spectatorial" Prototypes

The tatler (1709–1711).

This was the background for the journalistic enterprise of the Whig Richard Steele, who launched The Tatler. By Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. on 12 April 1709. 2 After the first issues had appeared, Steele was joined by his longtime friend and confidant Joseph Addison. The paper ran on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, the days on which mail was delivered in the countryside. The rhythm suggested by the term "weekly" had not yet been established. It would first come into use in continental imitations, especially in connection with German papers. Thus a genre was created that in the course of the century would spread all over Europe in hundreds of different periodicals. The distinctive feature of this model lay in the fact that it did not just engage in the didactic moralism typical of Anglican devotional literature but rather presented moral considerations in a new, playful and informal way.

In his first "Spectatorial" enterprise Steele used the persona of Isaac Bickerstaff, a fictional character originally contrived by Jonathan Swift. This imaginary figure was well known in England and especially in London, and thus this first observer of contemporary society was in a certain sense "trustworthy." Steele created a fictional frame for Bickerstaff and used this perspective to observe the mercantile society of London. Many contemporaries might have guessed that Steele was behind the mask, but only in the final issue of the newspaper did the true author identify himself. 3 With issue 271 on 2 January 1711, the author brought his Tatler , in which Addison had come to play an increasingly important role, to an end. Nevertheless, in a letter to the editor Bickerstaff was prompted to continue his intellectual game. A sequel to the project was thus to be expected.

The Spectator (1711–1714)

[Joseph Addison / Richard Steele]: The Spectator (1711–1714), Nr. vom 7. September 1711. Bildquelle: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spectator.jpg.

The Guardian (1713)

The third and last journalistic prototype was the short-lived magazine The Guardian , which first appeared on 12 March 1713 and reached 175 issues. 5 The narrator was now Nestor Ironside, a retired tutor living in the circle of his host family, whose patriarch had died. The septuagenarian Ironside possessed the necessary distance to the individual members of the family to portray their moral character and to interpret their conversations accordingly. Here, too, piety and virtue played a central role, as did the rational upbringing of youth and the observation of private discourse.

Characteristics of the Genre

Periodical publication and reissues.

The periodical essays were characterized by their entertaining portrayal of moralizing contents. They were published in regular intervals, and after a certain period of time the folios were often collected and reissued in book form. Depending on the journal, they could appear in several editions over decades, sometimes even being printed in different cities. Thanks to their particular entertaining streak, these volumes tended to enjoy high sales. The economic factor could not be separated from "Spectatorial" enterprises. Thus it often happened that the economic success was reflected upon in the writings themselves or that reader reception was explicitly measured.

The valorisation of public communication brought with it the vitality that was essential to early liberal societies. Since reader expectations were always maintained, the regularly appearing issues became an event unto themselves and facilitated a kind of communication that was closely coupled (in Luhmann's terms) with the differentiation of functional social systems. This dynamic was all the more idiosyncratic, as the weeklies did not deal with issues of everyday politics but rather with life's basic moral-philosophical questions (and thus the same themes tended to recur). Repetition was one of the central traits of the papers, whose articles were self-contained and – with very few exceptions – could be exchanged with one another at will. The articles' timelessness is the reason that the papers could appear years later in anthologies and continue to be of interest to the inquiring readers of the evolving middle class.

Translations and Adaptations

The moralizing journalism pioneered by Steele was quick to win an audience and to give rise to adaptive imitations and translations. This type of reception occurred as early as regarding the Tatler itself. Soon after the journal's appearance several related titles hit the market. 6 Thus on 8 July 1709 – i.e. about three months later – a competing enterprise appeared in the dress of a cooperative union: The Female Tatler. By Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a Lady that knows every thing . The fictional editor Mrs. Crackenthorpe claimed to be a colleague of Bickerstaff and to operate her periodical as a complement to his. The true author of this paper, which ended on 31 March 1710 after 115 issues, has still not been identified. 7

Female Audience

As this example shows, the periodical essays and the later weeklies displayed another core trait: they were often aimed at a female audience, such that the first women's magazines on a larger scale can be found in this genre. 8 Gender roles were critically called into question, and problems dealing with the reigning order of the sexes were discussed. The impact could be more or less appreciable depending on the cultural context in which the journal appeared, such as in Italy or Spain. Female voices were often a disguise for male authors, some of whom were Catholic priests. This was the case in the weekly La Pensadora Gaditana (1763/1764) 9 which appeared under the pseudonym Beatriz Cienfuegos.

The Role of Fictional Authors and Editors

One of the most important traits of the genre was the introduction of fictional authors and editors. Relying on a masked, anonymous authority like Bickerstaff, Spectator or Ironside allowed the periodical essays to achieve a high degree of aesthetic appeal and to communicate moral arguments and observations. The observers were able to capture and comment on all the communication in their environment unnoticed and could therefore construct a moral code that accommodated bourgeois interests. Such characters, finally, provided the audience with innovative possibilities for self-identification. A game was developed with the readers, who felt that their own lifestyle was continually being addressed and that they were themselves being challenged. Many weeklies would later adopt this method, an excellent example of which can be seen in the introduction to the Spectator :

I have observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure 'till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author. To gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader… 10

This clearly shows the significance of the communicative process between author and reader, in which the author's hidden identity increases the work's playful character. A complex interplay is developed between various types of observers, with opposite types mirroring and adroitly paired with each other, thus creating a reflexive composition of viewpoints. In this way, the anonymity and the mask produced a disjunction in the interaction between writer and reader, as it made it impossible for either one to ascribe anything to any specific individual. The advantage to this novel means of communicating information lay in the way it reduced prejudice to a minimum in the exchange of opinions. For it deactivated the influence that a specific author's name, age, appearance, and so forth might otherwise have on the reader. A similar technique would make its appearance in literature somewhat later in the works of Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) and Denis Diderot (1713–1748) . On the one hand this game between author and reader became typical of the communicative processes being developed in London at the time. On the other it served the transmission of moral teachings in the traditional sense.

These methods made their way into numerous translations and imitations in other European cultural spheres. As linguistic studies of some individual journals have already described in more detail, the fictional first-person narrator of the weeklies was given great importance everywhere. 11 At the same time, the personal narrative style of the disguised authors, which was based on the communicative form of the written letter and carried it forward in a new dress, also became evident. An example of the application of this style in the German context is provided by the introduction to the weekly Hypochondrist (Hypochondriac, 1762). Here the fictional narrator Zaccharias Jernstrupp sketches his hypochondriac symptoms as follows:

Ich würde vielleicht nicht einmal auf den Einfall gekommen seyn, ein Wochenblatt zu schreiben, wenn ich dieser Krankheit entbehren müsste, dass sie mir zu einem schönen Titel für meine Blätter verholfen hat. Ich habe nun alles, was zu einem wöchentlichen Autor erfordert wird. Ich bin eigensinnig, mürrisch, ein bischen eitel, eine Art von Philosoph… 12

The Staging of Sociability

The introduction of a fictional author was not the only prominent innovation of the weeklies; another was the involvement of readers in the genesis of the journal. It was common for many weeklies to invite readers to participate in discussions via letters to the editor and thus to transmit their texts to the editor or fictional author. This staging of sociability on the model of pragmatic communication strategies was probably one of the factors that contributed to the great success of such publications in the English metropolis.

The question just how much these letters, which were revised by the "fictional" editor, can still be ascribed to their "real", original authors provides a further difficulty for the reception and interpretation of such texts. Whether the letters were made up from the very beginning in order to get the communication process going, or whether they reflect what readers actually wrote, will remain a mystery for many weeklies and is a part of the hybridization that characterizes the genre. The tie to the readers is also strengthened by the original titles of the journals, which generally described their respective fictional observers. The broad spectrum spanned from the Matrone ("Matron" – 1728–1729), 13 the Braut ("Bride" – 1740) 14 and the Jüngling ("Youth" – 1747), 15 to the Vernünfftler ("Rationalist" – 1713/1714) 16 and the Patriot ("Patriot" – 1724–1726), 17 down to the Einsiedler ("Hermit" – 1740/1741), 18 the Duende (" Goblin" – 1787/1788), 19 the Misanthrope (1711/1712) 20 and even the Scannabue ("Oxen Butcher" – 1763–1765), 21 to name only a few. French scholarship has examined the entire collection of titles with the aim of elaborating a functional classification valid for all the journals. This research found five functional categories for the genre: réflexion, regard, bavardage, folie and collecte . 22

Literary Forms

Another innovation is the essayistic, narrative treatment of everyday life. The "Tatler", like his much more famous successor, the "Spectator", acts as a reflection of the social discourse in which he participates as well, integrating everything he sees and hears into his texts. It is not only his self-portrayal that is important but also the way he depicts others together with the accompanying stories, conversations, and reports. The poetics of Horace (65–8 B.C.) with its dictum "prodesse et delectare" is the inspiration here. Many other elements of the periodical essays are likewise influenced by classical literature. Letters, dream narratives and allegories, fables and satirical portrayals, all relying on Greek and Roman models, shaped the perception of the genre. Exemplary quotations appear as mottos throughout the texts, aphoristically formulating the points they communicate.

The Netherlands, Portal to the Continent

It did not take long for the periodical essays to make their way to continental Europe. The most important point of transfer for the genre was the Protestant Netherlands , especially Amsterdam and The Hague . A large group of emigrants moved north and settled in the area after the Edict of Nantes had been repealed (1685), contributing decisively to book production in French. English was also more used in this cultural context than in other parts of the continent.

Justus van Effen (1684-1735), undatierter Stich, unbekannter Künstler, Bildquelle: Lebensbeschreibung in der zweiten Auflage des Hollandsche Spectator, Amsterdam 1756, Coll. Goudse Librije, SAHM, online: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Justus_van_Effen_%281684-1735%29.jpg.

Justus van Effen, the author of the Misanthrope , was born in Utrecht and played an important role in bringing English literature to Holland. He is known above all for his translations of the novel Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe, 1719) and of texts by Jonathan Swift and Bernard de Mandeville (1670–1733) . His Misanthrope was published every Monday in The Hague. In a liberal adaptation of its English model, it successfully discussed moral questions of contemporary society. That two further editions 25 followed – in 1726 and 1742 – testifies to the auspicious reception of the enterprise.

[Justus van Effen]: Hollandsche Spectator (1731−1735). Bildquelle: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De_Hollandsche_Spectator.jpg.

Justus van Effen was the essential link in the transfer and further development of the genre on the continent. He initiated a communication process through which the texts, in the form of adaptations and translations, went from England to Holland and partly even to France . In the years following, the journals were exported to the rest of Europe via francophone connections. Van Effen was quick to recognize the journalistic and literary potential of the English prototypes and to provide for their brisk adaptation to other cultural contexts. He took clever advantage of the resulting dynamic for his own enterprise, and he might even have managed to have an indirect impact on the ongoing development of the Spectator . Likewise he exercised a dialogic influence on later French productions.

His impact can be measured in yet another way. On the one hand, he – like many subsequent European authors, especially in Romance areas – established translations of original texts as the authoritative means for replicating the English prototype. This can be seen in his treatment of the Guardian . On the other hand, from the very beginning he also promoted liberal imitation and thus the adaptation of the canon and relevant moralizing issues to suit specific national and regional characteristics. Typical features of his work were multilingualism, the promotion of cultural transposition, and his many insights into the various processes of national development, which especially helped him to contribute decisively to national adaptations of the prototype – for example in the Hollandsche Spectator . His rationalistic arguments in the interest of bettering the morals of a nation became models for many contemporaries.

Furthermore, he was especially dedicated to the weekly rhythm of publication, such that he became associated not only with the Spectator genre but also with that of the moral weeklies in general. It is thus no wonder, for example, that the first such Spanish journal, El Duende especulativo (1761), 30 was based no longer on the Tatler or Spectator of Steele and Addison but rather on Van Effen's Misanthrope .

The circulation of the English prototypes was exaggerated on the continent from the get-go, the idea clearly being to underline the economic attractiveness of this journalistic enterprise. In one of the first letters accompanying the Misanthrope , the Dutch bookdealer responsible for its publication claimed that 12,000 to 15,000 copies of the Tatler were printed daily – a technical impossibility for a small press. 31 In the foreword to the Spanish Filósofo a la moda ("The Fashionable Philosopher"), the circulation of the first issues was, in imitation of its Dutch model, even placed at 20,000. 32 All in all, the most important weeklies in Europe, depending on region, probably had an average circulation of between a few hundred (Italy, Spain, etc.) and two or three thousand (England, Germany , France, etc.) copies.

The Emergence of a European Network

Further diffusion of the journals in Europe ensued rapidly, although the respective cultural milieus reacted differently. The journals' clearly formulated Protestant values determined their reception, and the genre initially enjoyed greater success in the North than in the South. Urban centres, in which bourgeois values were already more strongly developed, were more favourable than rural areas.

Johann Jacob Haid (1704-1767), Johann Mattheson (1681–1764) nach einem Gemälde von J. S. Wahl, Kupferstich, 1746; Bildquelle: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_mattheson.jpg(vormals Sammlung Andre Meyer).

Although the weeklies blossomed in northern Lutheran lands, a few decades were necessary for the genre to develop in the Catholic South. In Romance areas, the Holland-based Spectateur was probably the most influential model.

Apart from a free, abridged translation of the Spectateur that appeared in Venice as early as 1728 under the title Il Filosofo alla Moda ("The Fashionable Philosopher"), 40 the genre did not make its way to Italy until the second half of the century. In 1752 La Spettatrice ("The Female Spectator") 41 appeared; it was followed closely by the Gazzetta Veneta ("Venetian Gazette" –1760/1761), 42 the Osservatore Veneto ("Venetian Observer" – 1761/1762) 43 (later Gli Osservatori Veneti ["The Venetian Observers"]), La Frusta Letteraria di Aristarco Scannabue ("The Literary Whip of Aristarcus the Oxen Butcher" – 1763–1765) and Il Caffè ("The Café" – 1764–1766). 44

[José Clavijo y Fajardo]: El Pensador (1762−1767). Bildquelle: Memoria digital de Canarias, online: http://mdc.ulpgc.es/u?/MDC,70506.

Characteristics of the Genre's Transnational Transfer

In its transfer from the English context via Dutch-French mediation to other cultural milieus, the weekly genre took on national characteristics that could also show hints of local colour. Although the journals only seldom discussed events of the day, they were nevertheless integrated in narrative forms and modes of representing sociality that varied from nation to nation. It was common for internal matters of English politics, literature and culture to be left out of continental translations and adaptations or to be replaced or supplemented with issues relevant to the target culture. The fictional author or editor was usually given a local hue or was at least open to discussing cultural issues from his own milieu. Similar strategies were employed when French-language weeklies were adapted by authors of a different provenance. In this way French, German, Italian and Spanish authors enriched their writings with local characteristics and thus contributed to the development of a transnational network.

Journalistic and literary debates were often ignited by the question whether a given weekly was shaped by local cultural conditions or rather an import from the English, Dutch, French or German cultural sphere. A related question was to what extent Protestant ethics were being implanted in Catholic culture or, similarly, how much the liberal tendencies of a given weekly were responsible for bringing modernity to a given cultural milieu. It was, however, also possible for the defenders of a specific tradition to use the weekly as a means of combating the genre itself and the liberalisation it conveyed, as was the purpose behind the Spanish El Escritor sin título ("The Untitled Author", 1763). 47 In such cases, the author's true intention was usually kept hidden behind the weekly's satirical tone, and conflicts of interpretation were still highly likely.

The End of the  Periodical Essays

From the very beginning the  periodical essays were destined to be ephemeral. They faded more quickly in Protestant areas, giving way to the novel, whereas in the Catholic South, for example in cities like Vienna and Madrid, their moralizing conversational tone helped some to persevere into the nineteenth century. They also stayed alive in the form of supplements to informational bulletins like Justus Möser's (1720–1794) Wöchentliche Osnabrückische Intelligenzblätter ("Weekly Osnabrück Bulletins"). Their traces can also be found in many narrative works. Wolfgang Martens (1924–2000) , a scholar of German weeklies, has described their end quite aptly:

Die Wochenschrift alten Schlages, die die Verfasserfiktion beibehält und zugleich nach wie vor Vernunft und Tugend zum Zwecke der bürgerlichen Glückseligkeit zu fördern bestrebt ist, ist nach 1770 in den nördlichen Breiten selten geworden. Der Roman der Hermes, La Roche und Miller macht ihr das Publikum abspenstig. Sturm und Drang und der Hochsubjektivismus der Empfindsamkeit sind für die Nachfahren der Gattung kein gedeihliches Klima mehr. Das stärkere politische Interesse, das sich seit den 70er Jahren in Deutschland bemerkbar macht, ist ihr fremd, die Aufregungen der Französischen Revolution vollends verschlagen ihr die Rede und der Geist der Romantik ist ihrer bürgerlich-lehrhaften Haltung gänzlich fern. Stoffe, Themen, Motive, erbaulicher Sinn und redliche Absichten leben fort im bürgerlichen Unterhaltungsblatt des 19. Jahrhunderts …. 48

Klaus-Dieter Ertler

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924091319503 [2021-07-26]

http://gams.uni-graz.at/mws [2021-07-26]

http://gazettes18e.fr/publications [06.01.2012].

English ( Periodical Essays ):

[Addison, Joseph / Budgell, Eustache / Tickell, Thomas]: The Spectator [2nd series], London [18 June] 1714–[20 December] 1714, nos. 556–635.

[Baker, Thomas]: The Female Tatler: By Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a Lady that Knows Everything, London [8 July] 1709–[31 March] 1710, nos.1–111.

Bond, Donald Frederic (ed.): The Spectator, Edited with an Introduction and Notes, Oxford 1965, vol. 1–5.

[Fowler Haywood, Eliza]: The Female Spectator, London 1745–1746 [first edition in instalments April 1744–March 1746]. URL:  https://archive.org/details/femalespectator01haywgoog [2021-07-26]

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: The Spectator: To be continued every Day [1st series], London [1 March] 1711– [6 December] 1712, nos. 1–555.

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: The Tatler: By Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., London [12 April] 1709–[2 January] 1711, nos. 1–271.

[Steele, Richard et al.]: The Guardian: To be Continued every Day, London [12 March] 1713–[1 October] 1713, nos. 1–175.

French ( Feuilles périodiques à forme personnelle ):

[Anonymus]: La Bagatelle, ou Discours Ironiques: où l'on prête des sophismes ingénieux au Vice & à l'Extravagance, pour en faire mieux sentir le ridicule, Amsterdam [5 May] 1718–[13 April] 1719, vol. 1–3.

[Anonymus]: La Spectatrice, Paris [29 March]–[January] 1728.

[Fowler Haywood, Eliza]: La Spectatrice: ouvrage traduit de l'anglois [von Jean- Arnold Trocheneau de La Berlière], Paris 1751, vol. 1–2.

[Marivaux, M. de]: Le Spectateur français, Paris [June/July] 1721–[Oct.] 1724. In: Frédéric Deloffre und Michel Gilot (ed.): Journaux et œuvres di­verses, Paris 2001, pp. 107–267.

[Steele, Richard et al.]: Le Mentor Moderne: ou discours sur les mœurs de siècle [aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Justus van Effen], Den Haag et al. 1723, vol. 1–3. URL: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k57055088 [2021-07-26]

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Le Spectateur, ou le Socrate moderne: Où l'on voit un Portrait naïf des Mœurs de ce Siècle: Traduit de l'anglois, Amsterdam et al., 1714–1726. URL: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k49666j [2021-07-26]

[van Effen, Justus]: Le Misanthrope: Contenant Des Réflexions Critiques, Satyriques & Comiques, sur les défauts des hommes, Den Haag [19. May] 1711–[26. December] 1712, reprint Oxford et al. 1986, ed. by James Lewis Schorr.

[van Effen, Justus]: Le Misanthrope: contenant différens discours sur les mœurs du siècle , Amsterdam 1742.

[van Effen, Justus]: Le Misanthrope: Nouvelle Edition revuë & augmentée de plusieurs Discours importans, Den Haag 1726.

[van Effen, Justus]: Recueil de toutes les feuilles de la Spectatrice qui ont paru et de celles qui n'ont pas paru, Paris 1730.

[van Effen, Justus]: Nouveau Spectateur François, Den Haag 1725–1726, vol. 1–2.

German ( Moralische Wochenschriften ):

[Anonymus]: Die Braut: wöchentlich an das Licht gestellet in Dreßden, nebst vollständigem Register, Dresden 1742 [first edition in instalments 1740].

[Anonymus]: Der Einsiedler, Königsberg 1740/1741.

[Anonymus]: Der Patriot, vom Jahre 1724, 1725 und 1726 mit einem Register über alle drey Jahre: Patriotens CLVI Stuck über die Sitten der Welt worin nebst der Verbesserung der Sitten seiner Mitbürger so wohl ins gemein als insonderheit allerhand Moralische Neuigkeiten eine ausbündige Sprache und Schreib-Art und viele auserlesene Stuck gelehrter Leuten ausgestellet werden. Zu leichterer Anschaffung und Gebrauch dieser höchst-nützlichen Arbeit zum Druck befördert, o. O. 1726. URL:  https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10614892-7 (vol. 1) /  https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10614893-3 (vol. 2) /  https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10614894-8 (vol. 3) [2021-07-26]

[Bode, Johann Joachim Christoph]: Der Denker: Eine Wochenschrift aus dem Spanischen des Herrn Joseph Clavijo y Faxardo auszugsweise übersetzt, Bremen 1781.

Bodmer, Johann Jakob / Breitinger, Johann Jakob: Die Discourse der Mahlern, Zürich [1 May] 1721– [end of January] 1723, reissue with notes Frauenfeld 1887–1891, ed. by Theodor Vetter.

Cramer, Johann Andreas / Giseke, Nikolaus Dietrich: Der Jüngling, Leipzig 1747.

[Fowler Haywood, Eliza]: Die Zuschauerin, aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Christian Bernhard Kayser, Hannover et al. 1747–1748.

Gerstenberg, Heinrich Wilhelm von et al. (ed.): Der Hypochondrist: Eine hollsteinsche Wochenschrift, Schleswig 1762.

[Gottsched, Johann Christian]: Der Biedermann, Leipzig [01 May] 1727–[04 April] 1729.

[Gottsched, Johann Christian]: Die Vernünfftigen Tadlerinnen, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1725–1727. URL:  https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb11045809-2 (vol. 1) /  https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb11045810-5 (vol. 2) [2021-07-26]

Hamann, Johann Georg: Die Matrone, Hamburg 1728–1729.

[Lange, Samuel G.]: Der Gesellige: eine moralische Wochenschrift Halle 1748–1750, reprint Hildesheim 1987, ed. by Wolfgang Martens, vol. 1–6.

Riegel, Christoph: Der Spectateur: Oder Vernünftige Betrachtungen über die verderbten Sitten der heutigen Welt, Frankfurt et al. 1719 and 1725, vol. 1–2.

Sonnenfels, Joseph von: Der Mann ohne Vorurteil, Vienna 1765.

[Steele, Richard]: Der Schwätzer: Eine Sittenschrift, aus dem Englischen des Herrn Richard Steele. Übersetzt von J. D. Tietze. Leipzig 1756, vol. 1­–2. URL:  https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10616552-5 (vol. 1) /  https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10616553-1 (vol. 2) [2021-07-26]

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Der Getreue Hofmeister, sorgfältige Vormund, neue Mentor, oder einige Diskurse über die Sitten der gegenwärtigen Zeit: welche unter dem Na­men des Guardian von Herrn Addison, Steele und anderen Verfassern des Spectator aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Ludwig Ernst von Faramund, Frankfurt am Main et al.1725. URL:  https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:urmel-79dbea6b-4825-409e-bc40-bf9297f7527f3 [2021-07-26]

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Der Vernünfftler: Das ist: Ein teutscher Auszug aus den Engeländischen Moral-Schriften des Tatler und Spectator vormahls verfertiget; mit etlichen Zugaben versehen und auf Ort und Zeit gerichtet von Joanne Mattheson, Hamburg 1721, nos. 1–101 [first edition in instalments 31 May 1713–30 May 1714].

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Der Zuschauer. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched, Leipzig 1739–1743, vol. 1–8.

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Englischer Zuschauer [abridged], nach einer neuen Übersetzung von Johann Lorenz Benzler / Carl Wilhelm Ramler, Berlin 1782–1783, vol. 1–8.

[Steele, Richard u. a.]: Der Engländische Guardian oder Aufseher, ins Deutsche übersetzt von Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottschedin, Leipzig 1749.

Spanish ( Prensa moralista ):

[Anonymus]: El Apologista Universal: Obra periódica que manifestará no sólo la in­struc­ción, exactitud y belleza de las obras de los autores cuitados que se dejan zurrar de los semicríticos modernos, sino también el interés y utilidad de algunas costumbres y establecimientos de moda, Madrid [July] 1786–[February] 1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-apologistauniversal&locale=de [2021-07-26]

[Anonymus]: El Corresponsal del Apologista, Madrid 1786. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-corresponsaldelapologista&locale=en [2021-07-26]

[Anonymus]: El Filósofo a la moda o el Maestro universal: Obra periódica que se dis­tribuye al público los lunes y los jueves de cada semana: Sacada de la obra francesa intitulada Le Spectateur ou le Socrate moderne, Madrid 1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-filosofoalamoda&locale=de [2021-07-26]

[Bueno de Castilla, Don Patricio]: El Belianís literario: Discurso andante (dividido en varios papeles perió­dicos) en defensa de algunos puntos de nuestra Bella Literatura, contra todos los críticos partidarios del Buen Gusto y la Reformación, Madrid 1765. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-belianisliterario&locale=de [2021-07-26]

[Celis y Noriega, Manuel Rubín de]: El Corresponsal del Censor, Madrid 1786–1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-corresponsaldelcensor&locale=de [2021-07-26], reprint Madrid / Frankfurt am Main 2009, ed. by Klaus-Dieter Ertler, Re­na­te Hodab, Inma­cu­lada Urzainqui.

Cienfuegos, Doña Beatriz: La Pensadora Gaditana, Bd. I/II: Madrid 1763, Bd. III/IV: Madrid 1764 [14 July 1763–1762 July 1764]. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-pensadoragaditana&locale=de [2021-07-26], reprint et al. Cádiz 1996, ed. by Cinta Canterla.

[Clavijo y Fajardo, José]: El Pensador por Don Joseph Álvarez de Valladares, Madrid 1762–1767. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-pensador&locale=de [2021-07-26], critical edition Las Palmas 1999, ed. by Yolanda Arencibia.

[Freyre da Silva, Fray Manuel]: El Duende político que da cuenta de los más pre­sen­tes negocios, y anuncia los más críticos futuros desta Monarquía en los años de 1735 y 1736, Biblioteca del In­sti­tuto Feijoo de Estudios del Siglo XVIII (unprinted manuscript).

[García del Cañuelo, Luis / Marcelino Pereira, Luis]: El Censor: Obra periódica, Madrid 1781–1788, vol. 1–8, 167 Diskurse. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-censor&locale=de [2021-07-26], critical edition Oviedo 1989, ed. by José Miguel Caso González.

[Garrido, Antonio Mauricio]: El Amigo y Corresponsal del Pensador, Madrid 1763. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-amigodelpensador&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Habela Patiño, Eugenio: El Teniente del Apologista Universal, por Eugenio Habela Patiño, cliente y comisionado especial suyo, Madrid 1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-tenientedelapologista&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Mercadal, Juan Antonio (ed.): El Duende especulativo sobre la Vida Civil, dispuesto por Don Juan Antonio Mercadàl, Madrid [9 June]–[26 September] 1761. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-duendeespeculativo&locale=de [2021-07-26], reprint Frankfurt am Main 2011, ed. by Klaus-Dieter Ertler.

[Nipho y Cagigal, Don Francisco Mariano]: El Murmurador imparcial y observador desapasionado de las locuras y despropósitos de los hombres: Obra periódica que ofrece en obsequio de las per­so­nas de buen gusto, Ma­drid 1761. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-murmurador&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Romea y Tapia, Cristóbal: El Escritor sin título: Discurso primero dirigido al autor de las Noticias de moda, sobre lo que nos ha dado a luz en los días 3, 10 y 17 de Mayo: Traducido del español al castellano por el licenciado don Vi­cen­te Serraller y Aemor, Madrid 1763, nos. 1–11. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-escritorsintitulo&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Trullench, Pedro Pablo: El Duende de Madrid, Madrid 1787/1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-duendedemadrid&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Italian ( Fogli moralistici ):

[Anonymus]: La Spettatrice, Venice 1752.

[Baretti, Giuseppe]: La frusta letteraria di Aristarco Scannabue, Milan [1 October] 1763–1765. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-lafrustaletteraria&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Frasponi, Cesare: Il Filosofo alla Moda, ovvero Il Maestro universale di quanto e oggidi proprio ad istruire, e divertire: Ricavato dall'opera di varij scrittori anonimi, intitolato Le Spectateur, ou Le Socrate moderne, Venice 1728. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-filosofoallamoda-it&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Gozzi, Gasparo / Pietro Chiari (ed.): Gazzeta Veneta: che contiene tutto quello ch'è da vendere, da comperare, da darsi a fitto, le cose ricercare, le perdute, le trovate, in Venezia o fuori di Venezia, il prezzo delle merci, il valore de' cambi ed altre noticie, parte dilettevoli e parte utili al Pubblico, Venice [6 February] 1760–[31. January] 1761; continued as Nuova Veneta Gazzetta until [10 March] 1762, nos. 1–104, critical edition Milan 1943, ed. by Bruno Romani, vol. 1–2.

[Gozzi, Gasparo]: L'Osservatore Veneto, Venice [4 February] 1761–[18. August] 1762 (since February 1762: Gli Osservatori Veneti). URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-osservatoreveneto&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Verri, Pietro e Alessandro: Il Caffè: ossia brevi e vari discorsi distribuiti in fogli periodici, Milan [1 June] 1764 –[31 May] 1766, critical edition Torino 1998: Il Caffè, 1764–1766, ed. by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, 2nd ed.

Dutch ( Spectatoriale Geschriften ):

[van Effen, Justus]: De Hollandsche Spectator, Amsterdam [20 August] 1731–[8 April] 1735, nos. 1–360, vol. 1–12, reprint Amsterdam 1998/1999, ed. by Susanne Gabriëls, vol. 1–4.

Blassneck, Marce: Frankreich als Vermittler englisch-deutscher Einflüsse im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Leipzig 1934.

Bolufer Peruga, Mónica / Haidt, Rebecca: Mujeres e Ilustración: La construcción de la femenidad en la España del siglo XVIII, Valencia 1998.

Bond, Richmond Pugh: The Making of a Literary Journal, Cambridge, MA 1971.

Bony, Alain: Joseph Addison et la création littéraire: Essai périodique et modernité, Paris 1985.

Böning, Holger: Bibliographie der deutschsprachigen Presse von den Anfängen bis 1815, Tübingen 1992.

Böning, Holger: Der Musiker und Komponist Johann Mattheson als Hamburger Publizist: Studie zu den Anfängen der Moralischen Wochenschriften und der deutschen Musikpublizistik, Bremen 2011.

Böning, Holger: Periodische Presse, Kommunikation und Aufklärung: Hamburg und Altona als Beispiel, Bremen 2002.

Böning, Holger et al.: Biobibliographische Handbücher zur Geschichte der deutschsprachigen periodischen Presse von den Anfängen bis 1815, Stuttgart et al. 1996, vol. 1–6.

Böning, Holger / Jäger, Ulrich Johannes (eds.): Kultur der Kommunikation, Berlin 2007.

Borinski, Ludwig: Der englische Roman des 18. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden 1978.

Buijnsters, Pieter Jacob: Spectatoriale Geschriften, Utrecht 1991.

Buijnsters, Pieter Jacob: Justus van Effen (1684–1735) leven en werk, Utrecht 1992.

Bosch Carrera, María Dolores: Costumbres y opinión en el periodismo del siglo XVIII, Barcelona 1988.

Cameron, Ruth Allen: The Prose Style of Addison and Steele in the Periodical Essay, Ann Arbour, MA 1972.

Cantos Casenave, Marieta (ed.): Redes y espacios de opinión pública: XII Encuentros de la Ilustración al Romanticismo: 1750–1850: Cádiz, América y Europa ante la Modernidad, Cadiz 2006.

Colombo, Rosa Maria: Lo Spectator e i giornali veneziano del settecento, Bari 1966.

Connery, Willard: Sir Richard Steele, London 1934.

Egido López, Teófanes: Prensa clandestina española del siglo XVIII: El Duende crítico, Valladolid 2002.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Kleine Geschichte der spanischen Aufklärungsliteratur, Tübingen 2003.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Die Spectators in der Romania – eine paneuropäische Gattung? Frankfurt am Main 2011.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Die moralischen Wochenschriften in Spanien: José Clavijo y Fajardos El Pensador, Tübingen 2003.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Tugend und Vernunft in der Presse der spanischen Aufklärung: El Censor, Tübingen 2004.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter / Hodab, Renate / Humpl, Andrea Maria: Die spanische Presse des 18. Jahrhunderts: La Pensadora Gaditana von Beatriz Cienfuegos, Hamburg 2008.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter / Köhldorfer, Jessica: Die Spectators in Spanien: El Duende Especulativo sobre la Vida Civil von Juan Antonio Mercadal, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2010.

Evans, James E. / Wall, John Nelson: A Guide to Prose Fiction in the Tatler and the Spectator, New York, NY et al. 1977.

Fischer, Ernst (ed.): Von Almanach bis Zeitung: ein Handbuch der Medien in Deutschland: 1700–1800, Munich 1999.

Fitzmaurice, Susan: The world of the periodical essay: Social networks and discourse communities in eighteenth century, London 2007 (Historical Sociolinguistics and Sociohistorical Linguistics 7).

Gelz, Andreas: Tertulia: Literatur und Soziabilität im Spanien des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2006.

Graeber, Wilhelm: 'Ces songes méthodiques qu'on ne trouve que dans les livres': Le rêve dans les hebdomadaires moraux, in: Bernard Dieterle et al. (eds.): The Dream and the Enlightenment / Le rêve et les Lumières, Paris 2003, S. 207–223.

Graeber, Wilhelm: Moralistik und Zeitschriftenliteratur im frühen 18. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1986.

Graeber, Wilhelm / Roche, Geneviève: Englische Literatur des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts in französischer Übersetzung und deutscher Weiterübersetzung: Eine kommentierte Bibliographie, Tübingen 1988.

Haßler, Gerda: Die Moralischen Wochenschriften aus sprachwissenschaftlicher Sicht: narrative und begriffliche Darstellungsformen, in: Klaus-Dieter Ertler: Die Spectators in der Romania – eine paneuropäische Gattung? Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 13–35.

Hodab, Renate / Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Die Presse der spanischen Aufklärung: El Corresponsal del Censor, Vienna et al. 2008.

Jacobs, Helmut C. et al. (eds.): Die Zeitschrift Il Caffè: Vernunftprinzip und Stimmenvielfalt in der italienischen Aufklärung, Frankfurt am Main 2003.

Jacobs, Helmut C.: Schönheit und Geschmack: Die Theorie der Künste in der spanischen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1996.

Jacobs, Jürgen: Aporien der Aufklärung: Studien zur Geistes- und Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen 2001.

Jacobs, Jürgen: Prosa der Aufklärung: moralische Wochenschriften, Autobiographie, Satire, Roman: Kommentar zu einer Epoche, Munich 1976.

Jäger, Hans-Wolf: "Öffentlichkeit" im 18. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 1997.

Junge, Bettina: Richard Steeles Tatler und Spectator: Untersuchungen zum Periodical Essay als neuer Form der kulturellen Selbstverständigung im England des 18. Jahrhunderts, Hamburg 2008.

Jüttner, Siegfried (ed.): Anfänge des Wissenschaftsjournalismus in Spanien: Der Diario de los literatos de España – Horizonte des Kulturtransfers, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2006.

Kay, Donald: Short Fiction in The Spectator, Alabama 1975.

Ketcham, Michaël G.: Transparent Designs: Reading, Performance, and Form in the Spectator Papers, Athens, GA 1985.

Kilian, Elena: Bildung, Tugend, Nützlichkeit – Geschlechterentwürfe im spanischen Aufklärungsroman des späten 18. Jahrhunderts, Würzburg 2002.

Kleinau, Elke / Opitz, Claudia et al.: Geschichte der Mädchen- und Frauenbildung, Frankfurt am Main 1996, vol. 1: Vom Mittelalter bis zur Aufklärung.

Labrosse, Claude / Rétat, Pierre: L'Instrument périodique, la fonction de la presse au XVIII e siècle, Lyon 1985.

Larriba, Elisabel: Le Public de la presse en Espagne à la fin du XVIII e siècle (1781–1808), Paris 1998.

Lévrier, Alexis: Les journaux de Marivaux et le monde des 'spectateurs', Paris 2007.

Maar, Elke: Bildung durch Unterhaltung: Die Entdeckung des Infotainment in der Aufklärung: Hallenser und Wiener Moralische Wochenschriften in der Blütezeit des Moraljournalismus, Pfaffenweiler 1995. URL:  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-86226-306-6 [2021-07-26]

Martens, Wolfgang: Die Botschaft der Tugend: Die Aufklärung im Spiegel der deutschen Moralischen Wochenschriften, Stuttgart 1968. URL:  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-99659-6 [2021-07-26]

Martín Gaite, Carmen: Usos amorosos del dieciocho en España, Barcelona 1988.

Moureau, François: La Plume et le plomb: espaces de l'imprimé et du manuscrit au siècle des Lumières, Paris 2006.

Moureau, François: Le Mercure galant de Dufresny (1710–1714) ou le Journalisme à la mode, Oxford 1982.

Niefanger, Susanne: Schreibstrategien in Moralischen Wochenschriften – formalstilistische, pragmatische und rhetorische Untersuchungen am Beispiel von Gottscheds "Vernünfftigen Tadlerinnen", Tübingen 1977.

Okel, Hugo Sebastiaan: Der Bürger, die Tugend und die Republik: "Bürgerliche Leitkultur" in den Niederlanden im 18. Jahrhundert im Spiegel der Moralischen Wochenschriften, PhD Thesis Trier 2004. URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:385-2982 [2021-07-26]

Opitz, Claudia: Aufklärung der Geschlechter, Revolution der Geschlechterordnung: Studien zur Politik- und Kulturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Münster 2002.

Pallares-Burke, Maria Lucia G.: A Spectator of the Spectators: Jacques-Vincent Delacroix, in: Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink et al. (eds.): Enlightenment, Revolution and the periodical press, Oxford 2004, pp. 145–157.

Papenheim, Wilhelm: Die Charakterschilderungen im Tatler, Spectator und Guardian: Ihr Verhältnis zu Theophrast, La Bruyère und den englischen Character-Writers des 17. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1930.

Peterson, H.: Notes on the Influence of Addison's Spectator and Marivaux' Spectateur français upon El Pensador, in: Hispanic Review IV (1936), pp. 256–263. URL:  https://doi.org/10.2307/469916 [2021-07-26]

Rau, Fritz: Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung des Tatler und Spectator, Heidelberg 1980.

Rétat, Pierre (ed.): Le Journalisme d'Ancien Régime: Questions et propositions, Lyon 1982. URL:  https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3323205j [2021-07-26]

Riebe, Wolfgang: Thematische und formale Aspekte des periodical essay im Tatler, Erlangen 1966.

Rodin-Pucci, Suzanne R.: Sites of the Spectator: Emerging literary and cultural practice in eighteenth-century France, Oxford 2001.

Schmidt-Haberkamp, Barbara et al. (eds.): Europäischer Kulturtransfer im 18. Jahrhundert: Literaturen in Europa – Europäische Literatur? Berlin 2003.

Schneider, Ulrich Johannes (ed.): Kulturen des Wissens im 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2008. URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110212402 [2021-07-26]

Schneider, Ute: Der moralische Charakter: ein Mittel aufgeklärter Menschendarstellungen in den deutschen Wochenschriften, Stuttgart 1976.

Schorr, James L.: Justus van Effen and the Enlightenment, Ann Arbour, MA et al. 1981.

Sermain, Jean-Paul: Métafictions (1670–1730): La réflexivité dans la littérature d'imagination, Paris 2002.

Sgard, Jean (ed.): Dictionnaire des journaux: 1680–1789, Paris et al. 1991, vol. 1–2.

Sgard, Jean (ed.): Dictionnaire des journalistes: 1680–1789, Paris et al. 1999, vol. 1–2.

Stürzer, Volker: Journalismus und Literatur im frühen 18. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main 1984.

Ter-Nedden, Gisbert: Buchdruck und Aufklärung, Hagen 1999.

Urzainqui, Inmaculada: Autocreación y formas autobiográficas en la prensa crítica del siglo XVIII, in: Anales de la literatura española, Alicante, no. 11 (1995), pp.193–226. URL:  http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/nd/ark:/59851/bmcdj5t1 [2021-07-26]

Urzainqui, Inmaculada: Un nuevo instrumento cultural: La prensa periódica, in: Joaquín Álvarez Barrientos et al. (eds.): La república de las letras en la Espana del siglo XVIII, Madrid 1995, pp. 125–216.

Urzainqui, Inmaculada / Álvaro Ruiz de la Peña: Periodismo e ilustración en Manuel Rubín de Celis, Oviedo 1983.

Uzcanga Meinecke, Fernando: Sátira en la Ilustración española. Análisis de la publicación periódica El Censor (1781–1787), Frankfurt am Main et al. 2004.

Van Delft, Louis: Les Spectateurs de la vie: Généalogie du regard moraliste, Laval 2005.

Vellusig, Robert: Schriftliche Gespräche: Briefkultur im 18. Jahrhundert, Vienna et al. 2000.

Tschilschke, Christian von: Aufklärung der Identität – Identität der Aufklärung: Literatur- und Identitätsdiskurs im Spanien des 18. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2009. URL:  https://doi.org/10.31819/9783954879076 [2021-07-26]

Wildermuth, Mark E.: Print, chaos and complexity: Samuel Johnson and the Eighteenth Century Media Culture, Newark 2008.

Witthaus, Jan-Henrik (ed.): Beiträge zur Nationalisierung der Kultur im Spanien des aufgeklärten Absolutismus, Frankfurt am Main 2010.

  • ^ Cf. Graeber, Moralistik und Zeitschriftenliteratur 1986, pp. 12; Borinski, Der englische Roman 1978, pp. 67; Connery, Sir Richard Steele 1934.
  • ^ [Steele / Addison], The Tatler 1709–1711.
  • ^ Cf. especially the excellent discussion of this aspect of the early English weeklies in Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, pp. 13.
  • ^ [Steele / Addison], The Spectator 1711–1714.
  • ^ [Steele], The Guardian 1713.
  • ^ Bond, The Making of a Literary Journal 1971, p. 167. Quoted according to Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 29.
  • ^ Cf. [Baker], The Female Tatler 1709/1710. The necessity of a comparative study of the links between the Female Tatler and the Tatler has already been observed by Rau in his comprehensive analysis of the weeklies, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 27.
  • ^ Cf. [Fowler Haywood], The Female Spectator 1745/1746.
  • ^ Cf. Cienfuegos, La Pensadora Gaditana 1763/1764.
  • ^ [Steele / Addison], The Spectator 1711, p. 1.
  • ^ Cf. Fitzmaurice, Periodical essay 2007; Haßler, Die Moralischen Wochenschriften 2011.
  • ^ Gerstenberg / Schmidt, Der Hypochondrist 1762, p. 1: "I might never have thought of writing a weekly if it had not been for this illness, which has provided me with such a pretty name for my paper. Now I have everything that a weekly author needs. I am opinionated, cantankerous, a little vain, a kind of philosopher…" (transl. by P.B.).
  • ^ Cf. Hamann, Die Matrone 1728–1729.
  • ^ Cf. [Anonymous], Die Braut 1742.
  • ^ Cf. Cramer / Giseke, Der Jüngling 1747.
  • ^ Cf. [Steele / Addison], Der Vernünfftler 1721.
  • ^ Cf. [Anonymous], Der Patriot 1724–1726.
  • ^ Cf. [Anonymous], Der Einsiedler 1740/1741.
  • ^ Cf. Trullench, El Duende de Madrid 1787/1788.
  • ^ Cf. [van Effen], Le Misanthrope 1711/1712.
  • ^ [Baretti], La Frusta letteraria di Aristarco Scannabue 1763–1765.
  • ^ English equivalents: "reflection", "observation", "chatter", "madness", "collecting" (transl. by P.B.] (German equivalents: "Reflexion", "Blick", "Geschwätz", "Wahnsinn", "Sammeln" [transl. by K.-D. E.]); Lévrier, Les journaux de Marivaux 2007, p. 164.
  • ^ Cf. [van Effen], Le Misanthrope, 1711/1712.
  • ^ Cf. [Steele / Addison], Le Spectateur 1714–1726.
  • ^ Cf. [van Effen], Le Misanthrope 1726 and 1742.
  • ^ Cf. [Steele], Le Mentor Moderne 1723.
  • ^ Cf. La Bagatelle 1718/1719.
  • ^ Cf. [van Effen], Nouveau Spectateur François 1725–1726.
  • ^ Cf. [van Effen], De Hollandsche Spectator 1731–1735, critical edition Gabriëls 1998/1999.
  • ^ Cf. Mercadal, El Duende especulativo 1761.
  • ^ Cf. Avertissement du Libraire in the first issue of the Misanthrope, 19 May 1711 and Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 15.
  • ^ [Anonymous]: Filósofo a la Moda, 1788, p. 3.
  • ^ Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 191.
  • ^ Cf. [Steele / Addison], Der Vernünfftler 1713/1714, Hamburg 1721. A critical edition is currently being prepared by Holger Böning.
  • ^ Cf. Bodmer / Breitinger, Die Discourse der Mahlern 1721–1723.
  • ^ Cf. [Marivaux], Le Spectateur français 1721–1724.
  • ^ Cf. Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 226.
  • ^ Cf. [Anonymous], Der Patriot 1724, p. 1: "I am a man who was born in Upper Saxony and raised in Hamburg, but whose fatherland is the entire world, which is like one big city, and who sees himself as the relative or fellow-citizen of every other human being." (transl. by P.B.)
  • ^ Cf. Gottsched, Die Vernünfftigen Tadlerinnen 1725–1727.
  • ^ Cf. Frasponi, Il Filosofo alla Moda 1728.
  • ^ Cf. [Anonymous], La Spettatrice 1752; [Anonymous], La Spectatrice 1728.
  • ^ Gozzi / Chiari, Gazzeta Veneta 1760–1761(from 1762 Nuova Veneta Gazzetta). Cf. the critical edition by Romani 1943.
  • ^ Cf. [Gozzi], L'Osservatore Veneto 1761–1762 (from February 1762: Gli Osservatori Veneti).
  • ^ Cf. Verri, Il Caffè 1764–1766. Cf. the critical edition by Francioni / Romagnoli, 2nd ed. 1998.
  • ^ [Clavijo y Fajardo], El Pensador 1762–1767, Cf. the critical edition by Arencibia 1999.
  • ^ [García del Cañuelo / Marcelino Pereira], El Censor 1781–1788, Cf. the critical edition by Caso González 1989.
  • ^ Romea y Tapia, El Escritor sin título 1763.
  • ^ Martens, Die Botschaft der Tugend 1968, p. 99: "The weeklies of the old stamp, with their fictional authors and their aim of promoting reason and virtue as a means to bourgeois bliss, became rarer in northern areas after 1770. The novels of Hermes, la Roche and Miller stole their audience. The successors of the genre could no longer thrive in the climate of Sturm und Drang or in the extreme subjectivity of sensibility. The increasing interest in politics that began to grip Germany in the 1770s was alien to them, the tumults of the French Revolution knocked the wind out of them, and the spirit of Romanticism was utterly strange to their bourgeois, didactic demeanour. Their contents, themes, motifs, edifying tone and forthright intentions lived on in the light bourgeois gazettes of the nineteenth century.…" (transl. by P.B.)

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Übersetzt von: Translated by: Patrick Baker Fachherausgeber: Editor: Jürgen Wilke Redaktion: Copy Editor: Christina Müller

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Ertler, Klaus-Dieter : Moral Weeklies (Periodical Essays) , in: Europäische Geschichte Online (EGO), hg. vom Leibniz- Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG), Mainz European History Online (EGO), published by the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz 2012-06-28 . URL: https://www.ieg-ego.eu/ ertlerk-2012 - en URN: urn:nbn:de:0159-2012062800 [JJJJ-MM-TT] [YYYY-MM-DD] .

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Essay periodical

C. Grignion, ‘Frontispice of The Spectator’, The Spectator, 1763

The rise of the leisure press after 1690 caused the appearance of new forms of middle-class sociability. The tea-table is a case in point, around which the two sexes gathered, read periodical essays together, which provided subject matter to polite conversation. Periodicals, however, also staged new forms of sociability in their columns, constructing communities of readers which they endeavoured to instruct and educate. Periodical essayists promoted a Whig reformist agenda, which dictated new forms of sociability along gender lines. They projected an ideal of reasonable femininity which largely restricted female sociability to the domestic sphere. This model proved so hegemonic that it became difficult for later female journalists to discard it.

Practices > Reading & Writing

Practices > Communication

Concepts > Literary & Artistic genres

Concepts > Taste & Manners

Gendered sociability in the English periodical essay

While seventeenth-century English newspapers and the political press were largely associated with male coffeehouse sociability – customers could read the papers for the price of a cup of coffee – the leisure press which emerged after 1689 in the form of the periodical essay and prevailed in the first half of the eighteenth century, staged and gave birth to new forms of mixed sociability based on gender balance and politeness.

Essay periodicals , which could be dailies like  The   Spectator  (1711-1712/1714) or  The   Guardian  (1713), bi-weeklies like  The Free-Thinker  (1718-1721), or yet triweeklies like  The Tatler  (1709-1711) or  The Lover  (1714) were not only available in coffeehouses but also through private subscriptions. Women, who were barred access to coffeehouses, could therefore read them at home. Their literacy and purchasing power were improving fast.  The   Spectator  for instance invited female readers to devote a daily quarter of an hour to reading the paper, claiming that it would later conveniently ‘furnish tea table talk.’ 1

  • 1 . The Spectator n° 4, ed D. F. Bond (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, 5 vols.) vol. 1, p. 21.

The phrase itself shows the intimate relationship the  Spectator ’s authors wished to establish between reading such ephemeral prints and shaping people’s social behaviours. Reading periodicals was conceived as an essentially collective activity. It was often performed aloud to a small audience whether in the coffeehouse or at home. First and foremost, each issue was expected to be commented upon and therefore served to popularize and redefine emerging, fashionable group activities such as tea or coffee drinking. Taking tea was a genteel form of sociability which became increasingly associated with femininity as the eighteenth-century unfolded. Its prestige was derived from the material cost and exoticism of tea and of tea sets. Yet, writers of essay periodicals often blamed it for encouraging idleness. They endeavoured to upgrade it to a more highbrow and moral form of sociability ; one which, thanks to their essays, combined entertainment and moral didacticism. It included literary and aesthetic conversation, as opposed to gossip.  The   Free-Thinker  (1718-1721), a bi-weekly essay paper coedited by the poet Ambrose Philips and a circle of Hanoverian Whigs, typically ambitioned to teach the readers of both sexes how to ‘philosophize’, 2  a term which meant both to ponder philosophically but also to exchange about philosophy with other people. It therefore popularised the Cartesian and Lockean philosophies, claiming that they constituted the core principles of polite conversation understood as sociability.

  • 2 . The Free-Thinker n° 147 (London, 1722), vol. 3, p. 308.

The move was in itself paradoxical. Periodicals claimed to improve upper-class forms of sociability by displacing their value from the luxurious material objects which had occasioned them, – the tea sets –  to cheap yet enlightening prints 3  which would turn each tea /coffee table assembly into exclusive circles reminiscent of the seventeenth-century French  salons . Doing so, they highlighted that the core tenets of sociability – politeness and conversation 4  – could in fact be practised  without  the luxurious parapharnelia of tea by the upper and middling ranks and could be a popular pedagogical instrument. 

That papers favoured mixed sociability is confirmed by the very format of the journals. Periodical essays were commonly headed by untranslated Latin and Greek mottos, which created a sense of belonging to a reading community sharing the same culture. At the same time, since the mottos offered a further comment on the essays’ topics, they introduced several levels of understanding of the essays. They reflected the subtle distinctions of ranks and intellectual authority. While male readers had easy access to all levels of meanings and could discuss them, female readers, who were rarely literate in the classical languages, constituted a separate community of readers who could socialise with the main group only up to a certain extent. Yet, the lack of translation could also be a strategy to trigger and cement social relationships between the less educated and the more enlightened readers, with the latter explaining the meaning to the former. 

  • 3 . Periodicals cost one penny before the 1712 Act imposed a stamp duty which subsequently doubled their price.
  • 4 . See The Tatler n° 225, ed. Donald F. Bond (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987, 3 vols.), vol. 3, p. 172.

The community of readers was doubled by the creation of a mixed community of correspondents who were invited to write to the editors either to respond to the topics developped by the journals or to offer new essays. Epistolarity was one way of staging and enforcing harmonious sociability. The journals often mixed genuine letters and forged ones ;  The   Spectator  banned gossip and personal satire 5  while  The   Free-Thinker  fixed the rules of controversy and debates by forbidding personal abuses and misuse of words. 6

In addition, some of the papers were explicitly fashioned as the produce of polite sociability: some personas – fictional editors like Isaac Bickerstaff in The Tatler - allegedly wrote their columns from coffeehouses and used coffeehouse conversation topics and rumours as a source of inspiration. Other papers like The Female Tatler (1709-1710) or The Lover could transcribe the conversations of a fictitious team of writers meeting in a club.

  • 5 . The Spectator n° 16, vol. 1, pp. 71-72.
  • 6 . The Free-Thinker n° 26, vol. 1, p. 180.

It is noteworthy that translating the sociability of clubs onto paper could eventually serve as a pedagogical model for European elite sociability. This is evidenced by the Swiss Société du comte de la Lippe, a club of erudites meeting every saturday in Lausane in the 1740s in order to perfect the education of the young German Count of Lippe Detmold. Its distinguished members commented on various political and philosophical works, which included some of the essays of  The   Spectator  and  Guardian. 7

  • 7 . Claire Boulard Jouslin, ‘Joseph Addison in Lausanne: Reading Addison’s works at the Société du Comte de la Lippe,’ in Claire Boulard Jouslin and Klaus-Dieter Ertler (ed.), Addison and Europe (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2020), pp. 163-177.

Many of the most famous early leisure essay periodicals (those of Addison and Steele and their circle of friends) promoted an ideal of sociability which, they claimed, was essentially commercial. Essay journals were commercial ventures offering guidance about how to interact harmoniously with others. They spread the idea that the language of social harmony and virtue was intimately related to that of credit and exchange. Defining sociability as a commercial activity was therefore a political move. Papers suggested that those who had contributed to turning Britain into a modern and prosperous parliamentary monarchy after the 1689 revolution were mostly the urban, professional, banking, upper and middle ranks which had financially supported the new regime. In other words they claimed that true male sociability was socially mixed, British, urban, and Whig. 8

  • 8 . As opposed to the landed elite and freeholders who had the reputation of being Tories.

Essay periodical also defined commercial sociability in a broader sense that included moral and social issues. Following the moral agenda of the emerging Societies for the Reformation of Manners, journals had an Augustinian vision of society. They believed it to be corrupt and in need of moral reformation. Purporting to improve manners by promoting heightened morality, the periodicals dictated what the acceptable forms of sociability were and which ones should be banned. New forms of public sociability such as masquerading were repeatedly described as dangerous and scandalous because disguise gave too many freedoms to the sexes.  The   Spectator  consistently satirised lower-rank male clubbing in essays on the two-penny club, 9  the ugly club, 10   etc., laughing at the aspirations and vanity of their members who foolishly aped elite and political institutions like the Kit Cat or the October clubs.

  • 9 . The Spectator n° 9, vol. 1, p. 43.
  • 10 . The Spectator n° 17, vol. 1, pp.74-76.

On the whole, the Whig journals’ prescriptive agenda tended to frame sociability along gender lines. In  The Spectator , men’s and women’s sociabilities were dictated by what was believed to be their respective and complementary nature. Masculinity was defined as strong, learned and public while femininity was largely characterised as beautiful, fragile, sensitive and naturally caring. Combined with natural good sense, these respective qualities would enable men to socialise outside the family and manage their affairs in the coffeehouses or in the parliament, while ‘Fair sexing it’ 11  enabled journals to construct ideal feminine sociability as essentially domestic, private and rural ; ladies were expected to exercise their social skill within the narrow family sphere with their spouse, children and servants. The household was depicted as a sort of happy and apolitical commonwealth. 12

  • 11 . Jonathan Swift coined the phrase in his Journal to Stella : ‘I’ll not meddle with the Spectator – let him fair-sex it to the world’s end.’
  • 12 . The Spectator n° 15, vol. 1, p. 68: Aurelia embodies that kind of sociability in essay 15.

The papers often relied on character sketches to condemn the fashionable forms of sociability of upper-class women. For example, Fulvia ‘thinks life lost in her own Family, and fancies her self out of the World when she is not in the Ring, the Play-House, or the Drawing-Room. […] The missing of an Opera the first Night, would be more afflicting to her than the Death of a Child.’ 13

  • 13 . The Spectator n° 15, vol. 1, p. 69.

Such forms of public sociability were also condemned for encouraging women to confuse sociability with publicity and ultimately with political proselytism. Ladies who displayed their political opinions on their fans or with their face patches 14  at the opera were charged with renouncing their natural qualities of meekness and with being animated by their passions. Their inadequate public sociability threatened the new political order because they would often end up adopting anti-social behaviours (losing their temper in public over political issues, or becoming coquettes in order to gain admirers to their cause).

The papers promised to be particularly useful to women readers by enlightening them on how to achieve polite, domestic sociability, and by offering them, a semi-private safe space where to socialise through epistolarity and where to find moral guidance.

The construction of sociability in and by The Tatler , The Spectator and their followers was therefore ambiguous because it was both an instrument of intellectual empowerment likely to soften and enrich social interaction, and, at least for women, a tool meant to restrict female social practice within private, apolitical bounds.

  • 14 . The Spectator n° 81, vol. 1, p. 348.

This Whig ideal of polite sociability was so influential that it made it difficult for women journalists to offer an alternative definition. The main reason was that the ideal of female domestic sociability deprived women writers who sought to deal with matters unrelated with the private sphere of their authority. Since respectable ladies were not expected to be in contact with political or even economic forms of sociability, those who did were considered abnormal, unnatural females whose sociability was flawed from the start. This explains why by 1740 there were only three short-lived essay periodicals which used a female persona ; the two  Female Tatlers 15   and   the  Parrot  (1728) by Mrs Prattle. The latter, who declared ‘Scandal is the woman’s weapon’ 16  and vindicated women’s right to write scathing political satires against Walpole’s government clearly challenged the conversational model of virtuous female sociability promoted by Whig essay periodicals. It is highly meaningful that these three Tory journals sought to subvert the Whig doctrine precisely by assaulting the journalistic rhetoric of female virtuous sociability. They thus debunked the hypocritical foundation of Whig politeness and sociability which was so powerfully staged by the press.

T he model of polite female sociability was so hegemonic that when, later, female journalists like Eliza Haywood in her Female Spectator (1744-1746) sought to gain authorial authority by heading their magazines with a female persona, one essential precondition was to construct their journal as spaces promoting and defending private respectable female sociability.

  • 15 . The first one was written by a persona named Mrs Crackenthorpe (1709) ; its continuation (1709-1710) was allegedly written by a club of six ladies who were in reality the playwright Suzanna Centlivre and the philosopher Bernard Mandeville.
  • 16 . The Parrot n° 3 (October 9, 1728).
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Further Reading

Bloom, Edward A. & Lilian D., Addison’s sociable Animal, in the Market Place, on the Hustings, in the Pulpit  (Providence: Brown University Press, 1971).

Boulard, Claire, Presse et socialisation féminine, Conversations à l’heure du thé (Paris : L’Harmattan, 2000)/

Bowers, Terence, ‘Universalizing Sociability. The Spectator , Civic Enfranchisement, and the Rule(s) of the Public Sphere’, in Donald J Newman (ed.), The Spectator, Emerging Discourse , (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005), p. 150-174.

Ezell, Margaret, ‘The Gentleman’s Journal and the Commercialization of Restoration Coterie Literary Practices', Modern Philology (vol. 89, n° 3, 1992), p. 323-340.

Klein, Lawrence E., ‘Gender, Conversation, and the Public Sphere in Early Eighteenth-Century England’, in Still, Judith and Worton, Michael (eds.), Textuality and Sexuality : Reading Theories and Practices (Manchester: Manchester  University Press, 1993), p. 100-115.

Mackie, Erin (ed.), The Commerce of Everyday Life , Selections from the Tatler and the Spectator (Boston: Bedford, 1998).

Markman, Ellis, ‘Sociability and polite Improvement in Addison’s Periodicals’ in Davis, Paul (ed.), Joseph Addison , Tercentenary Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

Philipson, Nicholas, ‘Politeness and Politics in the reign of Anne and the early Hanoverians’, in Pocock, JGA, Schochet, Gordon J. and Schwoerer, Lois S. (eds.), The Varieties of British Political Thought, 1500-1800  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 211-245.

Shevelow, Kathryn, Women and Print Culture: The Construction of Femininity in the Ea rly Periodical (London: Routledge, 1989).

In the DIGIT.EN.S Anthology

How To Tackle The Weirdest Supplemental Essay Prompts For This Application Cycle

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Writing the college essay

How do you write a letter to a friend that shows you’re a good candidate for the University of Pennsylvania? What reading list will help the Columbia University admissions committee understand your interdisciplinary interests? How can you convey your desire to attend Yale by inventing a course description for a topic you’re interested in studying?

These are the challenges students must overcome when writing their supplemental essays . Supplemental essays are a critical component of college applications—like the personal statement, they provide students with the opportunity to showcase their authentic voice and perspective beyond the quantitative elements of their applications. However, unlike the personal essay, supplemental essays allow colleges to read students’ responses to targeted prompts and evaluate their candidacy for their specific institution. For this reason, supplemental essay prompts are often abstract, requiring students to get creative, read between the lines, and ditch the traditional essay-writing format when crafting their responses.

While many schools simply want to know “why do you want to attend our school?” others break the mold, inviting students to think outside of the box and answer prompts that are original, head-scratching, or downright weird. This year, the following five colleges pushed students to get creative—if you’re struggling to rise to the challenge, here are some tips for tackling their unique prompts:

University of Chicago

Prompt: We’re all familiar with green-eyed envy or feeling blue, but what about being “caught purple-handed”? Or “tickled orange”? Give an old color-infused expression a new hue and tell us what it represents. – Inspired by Ramsey Bottorff, Class of 2026

What Makes it Unique: No discussion of unique supplemental essay prompts would be complete without mentioning the University of Chicago, a school notorious for its puzzling and original prompts (perhaps the most well-known of these has been the recurring prompt “Find x”). This prompt challenges you to invent a new color-based expression, encouraging both linguistic creativity and a deep dive into the emotional or cultural connotations of color. It’s a prompt that allows you to play with language, think abstractly, and show off your ability to forge connections between concepts that aren’t typically linked—all qualities that likewise demonstrate your preparedness for UChicago’s unique academic environment.

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How to Answer it: While it may be easy to get distracted by the open-ended nature of the prompt, remember that both the substance and structure of your response should give some insight into your personality, perspective, and characteristics. With this in mind, begin by considering the emotions, experiences, or ideas that most resonate with you. Then, use your imagination to consider how a specific color could represent that feeling or concept. Remember that the prompt is ultimately an opportunity to showcase your creativity and original way of looking at the world, so your explanation does not need to be unnecessarily deep or complex—if you have a playful personality, convey your playfulness in your response; if you are known for your sarcasm, consider how you can weave in your biting wit; if you are an amateur poet, consider how you might take inspiration from poetry as you write, or offer a response in the form of a poem.

The goal is to take a familiar concept and turn it into something new and meaningful through a creative lens. Use this essay to showcase your ability to think inventively and to draw surprising connections between language and life.

Harvard University

Prompt: Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you.

What Makes it Unique: This prompt is unique in both form and substance—first, you only have 150 words to write about all 3 things. Consider using a form other than a traditional essay or short answer response, such as a bullet list or short letter. Additionally, note that the things your roommate might like to learn about you do not necessarily overlap with the things you would traditionally share with an admissions committee. The aim of the prompt is to get to know your quirks and foibles—who are you as a person and a friend? What distinguishes you outside of academics and accolades?

How to Answer it: First and foremost, feel free to get creative with your response to this prompt. While you are producing a supplemental essay and thus a professional piece of writing, the prompt invites you to share more personal qualities, and you should aim to demonstrate your unique characteristics in your own voice. Consider things such as: How would your friends describe you? What funny stories do your parents and siblings share that encapsulate your personality? Or, consider what someone might want to know about living with you: do you snore? Do you have a collection of vintage posters? Are you particularly fastidious? While these may seem like trivial things to mention, the true creativity is in how you connect these qualities to deeper truths about yourself—perhaps your sleepwalking is consistent with your reputation for being the first to raise your hand in class or speak up about a cause you’re passionate about. Perhaps your living conditions are a metaphor for how your brain works—though it looks like a mess to everyone else, you have a place for everything and know exactly where to find it. Whatever qualities you choose, embrace the opportunity to think outside of the box and showcase something that admissions officers won’t learn about anywhere else on your application.

University of Pennsylvania

Prompt: Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge.

What Makes it Unique: Breaking from the traditional essay format, this supplement invites you to write directly to a third party in the form of a 150-200 word long letter. The challenge in answering this distinct prompt is to remember that your letter should say as much about you, your unique qualities and what you value as it does about the recipient—all while not seeming overly boastful or contrived.

How to Answer it: As you select a recipient, consider the relationships that have been most formative in your high school experience—writing to someone who has played a large part in your story will allow the admissions committee some insight into your development and the meaningful relationships that guided you on your journey. Once you’ve identified the person, craft a thank-you note that is specific and heartfelt—unlike other essays, this prompt invites you to be sentimental and emotional, as long as doing so would authentically convey your feelings of gratitude. Describe the impact they’ve had on you, what you’ve learned from them, and how their influence has shaped your path. For example, if you’re thanking a teacher, don’t just say they helped you become a better student—explain how their encouragement gave you the confidence to pursue your passions. Keep the tone sincere and personal, avoid clichés and focus on the unique role this person has played in your life.

University of Notre Dame

Prompt: What compliment are you most proud of receiving, and why does it mean so much to you?

What Makes it Unique: This prompt is unique in that it invites students to share something about themselves by reflecting on someone else’s words in 50-100 words.

How to Answer it: The key to answering this prompt is to avoid focusing too much on the complement itself and instead focus on your response to receiving it and why it was so important to you. Note that this prompt is not an opportunity to brag about your achievements, but instead to showcase what truly matters to you. Select a compliment that truly speaks to who you are and what you value. It could be related to your character, work ethic, kindness, creativity, or any other quality that you hold in high regard. The compliment doesn’t have to be grand or come from someone with authority—it could be something small but significant that left a lasting impression on you, or it could have particular meaning for you because it came from someone you didn’t expect it to come from. Be brief in setting the stage and explaining the context of the compliment—what is most important is your reflection on its significance and how it shaped your understanding of yourself.

Stanford University

Prompt: List five things that are important to you.

What Makes it Unique: This prompt’s simplicity is what makes it so challenging. Stanford asks for a list, not an essay, which means you have very limited space (50 words) to convey something meaningful about yourself. Additionally, the prompt does not specify what these “things” must be—they could be a physical item, an idea, a concept, or even a pastime. Whatever you choose, these five items should add depth to your identity, values, and priorities.

How to Answer it: Start by brainstorming what matters most to you—these could be values, activities, people, places, or even abstract concepts. The key is to choose items or concepts that, when considered together, provide a comprehensive snapshot of who you are. For example, you might select something tangible and specific such as “an antique telescope gifted by my grandfather” alongside something conceptual such as “the willingness to admit when you’re wrong.” The beauty of this prompt is that it doesn’t require complex sentences or elaborate explanations—just a clear and honest reflection of what you hold dear. Be thoughtful in your selections, and use this prompt to showcase your creativity and core values.

While the supplemental essays should convey something meaningful about you, your values, and your unique qualifications for the university to which you are applying, the best essays are those that are playful, original, and unexpected. By starting early and taking the time to draft and revise their ideas, students can showcase their authentic personalities and distinguish themselves from other applicants through their supplemental essays.

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How to cite ChatGPT

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Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

  • Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
  • Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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IMAGES

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COMMENTS

  1. Periodical Essay Definition and Examples

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  24. How to cite ChatGPT

    The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large ...