INSTRUCTIONS FOR SEVEN-PAGE ANALYSIS PAPER
 

--Due Oct 24: Email me one paragraph on your essay topic and the issues you anticipate exploring: do NOT send an outline.

--Due Nov.2: Seven-page paper, due in class or in my mailbox by 12:00 in the evening.
 

--If you have two major exams, or essays due, in other classes the same week that this assignment is due, you may submit it the following Monday.  You must get permission in advance for this option. 

HERE ARE THE RULES

1)  The goal is to write a focused, specific analysis of one of the texts or films we've studied thus far or are soon to read or watch (you can get special permission to write about a late-semester work), using your insights, not secondary research materials.  You may draw upon information/perspectives gleaned from class or my "Prof. Stuff", but the ideas and particular angle or interpretive "take" should be your own.  Do NOT use web sample papers, SparkNotes, etc. to get ideas or for phrasing.
 

2)  Stick to one text: no comparative essays, please. (This rule can be broken--but you must discuss your topic with me.)

3)  Your essay should be 7 pages long or longer, double-spaced, with normal 1 inch margins. 

4)  Organization, quality of analysis, and style will all be factors in determining your grade, worth 25% of the course grade.  Be sure to make a computer-disk backup.

5)  See Oct. 24 deadline above for submission of a paragraph on your paper topic.

6)  Please do not be deluded into a false sense of security if are getting "2"s or "3"s on your response papers.  A "2" basically means satisfactory or above.  My standards for papers are very rigorous.

7)  See the request below to turn in a Checklist when you turn in your paper!

8) I will provide some sample essays from previous classes a week or so before the paper is due.  Please remind me.

HERE ARE SOME ESSAY-WRITING GUIDELINES

TITLE: Your title is the first chance to make an impression on the reader.  A vague title (e.g., "Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter " or "The Horrors of Slavery") that could fit any other paper written on the same author gives a vague impression, indicating that the essay to follow likely lacks an argument (I don't mean that you need to be combative, but that you have a thesis supported by evidence). 

AUDIENCE: Assume an audience much like your fellow students‑‑an audience familiar with the work, but unfamiliar with your particular approach, and therefore requiring specific examples (textual evidence) to understand, appreciate, and accept your analysis and argument.  Avoid plot summary, however.

IDEAS:  Good ideas come not from your abstract memory of a text, but from your close reading and rereading.  I do not expect you to come up with something "new" from my perspective, but something "new" from your perspective.  If you don't make a discovery in the process of writing the paper, it probably will not be very satisfactory.  Idea-discovery is like constructing a house (based upon observations that get built level upon level): it is not an archaeological process of finding hidden meaning.  If you worry about being profound, you will not be: you must relax a bit and let the text--its complications--speak to you.  At the same time, you need to read very intensely, to pay attention to details that might radiate out into larger patterns of complexity.

DEVELOPMENT: Good essays unfold a major idea or argument stage-by-stage, in a manner that will be compelling and convincing to the reader.  This means that the old, somewhat boring high-school strategy of breaking down your basic idea into three (more or less disconnected) subpoints may not be the most suitable arrangement.  Instead, for example, an essay (depending upon the thesis, of course) could in the first fourth highlight some intriguing contradiction or tension in a text; the next fourth might frame the tension in terms of a larger moral, literary, philosophical, religious, or historical debate or issue; and the last two fourths would illustrate the ramifications of the tension for the text you're exploring (tensions resolved? and if so, by what means? tensions not resolved? and if so, how does the author/narrator cope with irresolution?).  An essay can be thoughtful and well-organized, and yet still be confusing to the reader.  Most often this occurs because the essay writer needs to provide clearer sign-posts to the overall argument.  At crucial junctures (the topic sentence for a paragraph introducing a new stage of your argument), try to foreground analytical points rather than just something about character or the plot.  Finally, if necessary, you should be willing to sacrifice some of your insights for the sake of coherence. 

INTRODUCTIONS: Keep us focused on the text.  Do not start off with generalities about morality, the human condition, and so on.

QUOTES: Depositing too many long quotes in a paper wastes space.  Too few or no quotes, however, suggest inattention to the text or texts.  You should have one or two longer, inset quotes, which you set up and analyze (e.g., "Richard Wright's sense of the violence of language is expressed most emphatically in a key scene in which. . . .." Quotes, besides helping to anchor/prove your points, often lead to analytical discoveries. 

REVISION CHECKLIST 
(YOU MUST TURN IN THIS CHECKLIST, CHECKED-OFF, WITH YOUR PAPER)

Three tips for effective revising:

  --        Revise with "fresh eyes": revise at least a day after you've completed a substantial draft.

  --        Use a printed copy and revise at a different locale.

  --        Revise in four "loops," using the revision checklist below. 

Yes      No                   CONTENT

____    ____    sharply focused: no extraneous material

____    ____    complex aspects of issue thoughtfully examined

____    ____    judicious use of supporting specifics/quotes

                                    ORGANIZATION & DEVELOPMENT

____    ____    unified paragraphs, with clear topic sentences

____    ____    transitions between ideas and sections of essay

____    ____    essay unfolds stage-by-stage, no unnecessary "back-tracking" or repetition of sections

                                    PROSE STYLE

____    ____    straightforward and precise phrasing, without sentence fragments or run-ons

____    ____    few boring "is" verbs

____    ____    appropriate use of transition words

____   ____     varied sentence length and patterns               

                                    CORRECT GRAMMAR, ETC.

____    ____    correct use of possessives and punctuation

____    ____    correct match between verbs and subjects

____    ____    no typos/misspellings

GRADING SCALE:

A = focused, interesting main idea suggesting you read, re-read, and probed around.  Prose is not merely correct: it is compelling and sophisticated.  Organization makes sense given the topic and argument of the paper.  The paper is of sufficient quality that it could be put online as a sample paper.

B = Main idea and development are clear, but the organization is weak in a section or two, or there are a few sentence or punctuation glitches that suggest lack of thorough editing.

C= Paper has a main idea, but not thought through by attending to the text actively.  Organization falls apart at key moments.  Sentence construction, although usually correct, is imprecise or wordy.

D = The thesis is vague, and the organization is often chaotic.  Or the prose style suggests the need to go to the Learning Center.

No Grade = The paper goes astray so far, or lacks sufficient editing, or is so half-hearted, that it cannot be read.