Writing Advice Foss 335B F11

Some information about essay writing from your beloved professor of BRL

THESIS: Your essay needs a thesis statement. This need not be a single sentence, but somewhere in (usually at the end of) your introductory paragraph/section you need to delineate, as specifically as possible, what your argument/claim about the class period is. This should not be a statement of purpose (an announcement), or a factual statement. It should identify the critical significance (the ‘so what?’) of your argument. That is, it is not enough to merely say what was covered. What is the usefulness of this information? What do we discover about the writers, or their texts, or their time, etc.—particularly in relation to the topical focus point for any given day (for the class summary) or to the question of canonization (for the canonball)? A critical thesis supplies an answer to such questions. Then, of course, remember that this thesis should determine what you do and do not discuss in the body of the essay. Be careful not to wander outside its parameters. Your job is to present and analyze evidence that proves the validity of your thesis.

EVIDENCE: The evidence you present in support of your thesis primarily should consist of specific references to comments made by the instructor and/or by classmates (and potentially even particular passages of text quoted by one or the other) for the class summary or of specific references to your text(s) in the form of direct quotation, paraphrase, and a combination of the two for the canonball. And, remember that it is your job to delineate the significance of this evidence. It is not enough to cite moments from the class period or to find passages from a text that potentially shed light on/support your thesis; you need to be sure to take the further step of clearly articulating precisely how this evidence supports the thesis (and, where applicable, how it relates to other evidence you are discussing/have discussed.

INTEGRATION: In a literary essay, no sentence should consist solely of quoted material. At the very least you need to introduce full-sentence quotations with some sort of attribution or contextual comment. As a general rule, you are better off quoting in smaller bits, interspersing quotes throughout your own critical assertions. This means you should avoid the longer block quotations as much as possible. Show you have “thought long and deeply” about the material by synthesizing (rather than regurgitating), by integrating textual evidence in such a fluid way that it blends into your own sentences rather than sticks out like a sore thumb from them.

DOCUMENTATION: All of you should be familiar with the Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation system. The system has rules for you to follow regarding the formatting of your quotations, parenthetical in-text citations (which by the way are different for different forms of literature), and Works Cited page. For these particular assignments, you may dispense with name information for Mellor and Matlak texts (unless you are discussing multiple works at the same time and it may not be immediately clear to which you are referring) and only include page or line number information in the parenthetical citation. Obviously, If you consult any secondary sources, these need to be documented properly.

CREDIBILITY: Please proofread your essays very carefully. I want to judge your work primarily on its content rather than its form, but obviously as an English professor I expect a certain level of technical and stylistic polish. You may be someone who struggles with grammar or diction, and that may require some extra effort on your part. But all of you can take equal time to avoid sloppiness of presentation. A lot of typographical errors simply should not be present in an above average essay. You need to be especially aware of such errors where author or character names are concerned. This is of the same ilk as throwing out incorrect plot details. You undermine the reader’s confidence in how attentive you’ve been to the text(s) and to your writing. Your credibility is severely damaged by such carelessness; if you have not taken the time to know the name of the writer or the title of the work you are discussing, how confident can the reader be that you have taken the time necessary to adequately summarize and assess our class discussions? You also need to be extremely careful not to misrepresent source material. There are ways to alter source material properly for clarification or for integration. You certainly do not want to introduce errors into quoted material. Such sloppiness is another huge red flag for the reader; how confident can the reader be in your claims about a passage if that passage is not even reproduced accurately? Don’t shoot yourself in the foot before you even have the chance to start making a good impression on the reader where your thoughtfulness and credibility are concerned.

MISCELLANEOUS: Please make sure (1) your essay has a title; (2) your ellipsis points have spaces in between them; (3) you do not use a hyphen where a dash is appropriate, and (4) you include your word count.