Hello once again! Essay Assignment 1 I would like to give you some suggestions now that should help you as you are working on Essay Assignment 1. This presentation is somewhat long, but the information is especially important because much of it applies not only to Essay Assignment 1 but to all of the other essays you will write for the course. The basic principles explained here even apply to the research paper, although that paper is longer and more complex than the shorter essay assignments. This is the kind of information that you need to understand early in order to help you write strong papers. It s important to realize that you can follow the same pattern of organization and development explained here for all of the essays that you write for the course. I hope this is good news for you. Once you understand an effective way to organize and develop a persuasive and interpretive essay, you can use this same pattern for all persuasive or interpretive papers. Of course, the downside is that you will have problems with your papers if you do not understand and use this organizational pattern. And this pattern is not just one instructor s opinion about writing essays: it s an effective organizational pattern that is used in almost any kind of writing that seeks to persuade readers of something. In this course, all of the papers you will write involve the interpretation of literature, but these papers are also persuasive because you need to convince readers that you have a good interpretation of your subject: you need to argue your interpretation convincingly. The pattern of organization and development explained here would work well if you are writing a letter to your boss arguing that you deserve a raise, if you are writing a letter of application for a job you want, or if you are writing papers for your courses. Again, remember that most of the information here applies to all of the papers that you will be writing for the course. The early chapters of the textbook offer excellent advice on writing well, and there are at least three course web pages that should be especially helpful as you work on understanding the structure of a persuasive essay. These web pages are Organizing and Developing a Persuasive Essay, Organizing and Developing Persuasive Paragraphs, and Bad Paragraph / Good Paragraph: Writing Effective Persuasive Paragraphs. You can find all of these web pages linked on the Web Handouts page, which is part of the Web Resources section of the course. I would like to summarize and expand upon some of the important material presented on those web pages and in the textbook. First, when you write a short essay, you can assume that you will need at least three or four body paragraphs, along with an introduction and conclusion, so one of the first steps should be to determine the three or four main points you would like to develop and support. Each major point could then be the focus of one body paragraph. If you are writing a persuasive essay, an essay in which you are trying to convince readers of something, you should start by thinking about the three or four main claims that you are 1
going to try to support and develop. We can divide most of the material in a persuasive or interpretive essay into claims and facts. Claims represent your point of view and are the ideas that you are going to try to get your readers to agree with. Facts are, well, facts. Facts are indisputably true. Facts, in themselves, do not represent your point of view; facts are true no matter who is considering them. One of the keys to writing a strong persuasive essay is to present a limited number of claims and to support each of the claims with plenty of specific facts. So, we have the first question to ask yourself as you think about writing your essay: what are the three or four main claims that you are going to try to prove? Of course, the claims should be logically related. After all, they all will appear in the same essay. Once you have come up with three or four claims, you should put each claim into the form of a complete sentence. You can then use all of these sentences presenting claims to help you organize your essay. Where will you put these sentences in your paper? Well, you will need to support and develop each claim with specific facts, also called evidence, so the claims generally work best at the beginnings of body paragraphs. If you start a body paragraph with a statement of a claim, then you know what you need to do in the rest of the paragraph: you need to support that claim with specific facts. The topic sentence of a body paragraph, which is usually the first sentence of the paragraph, tells readers the main point that you are going to develop and support throughout the entire paragraph. Within the body paragraph, then, you should stay focused on presenting facts that support the claim that appears in the topic sentence. With this organizational pattern, we can even reduce the roles that sentences play in a body paragraph down to only four. One type of sentence will present the main claim at the beginning of the paragraph; this will be the topic sentence. A second type of sentence will present specific evidence, or facts, to support the main claim. A third type of sentence will explain the logical connections between each fact and the claim; it will explain how the fact logically supports the main claim presented in the topic sentence. And the fourth type of sentence is a transitional sentence that appears at the end of the paragraph: this sentence takes readers smoothly and logically from the main idea in the paragraph to the main idea that you will develop in the next body paragraph. It seems to me that it will make writing paragraphs easier for you if you consider the limited number of roles for the sentences in body paragraphs. You should be able to come up with a good rough outline for each essay if you keep in mind the pattern explained above. Just write down one of the claims that you think you will prove in your essay, and, under this claim, make a list of the facts that you think could support that claim. Try to make a long list of facts for each claim because then you can go through and eliminate the facts that might not be so good and focus on using the facts that should be solid support for your claim. Then, you are ready to write down the other main claims you plan to prove in your essay, with the supporting evidence for those claims. 2
The thesis statement is of course another important aspect of an essay. The thesis statement appears in the introduction and should present all of the main claims of your paper in just one sentence. Please make sure to get all of your main ideas into just one sentence. In high school courses, students are often told to begin an introduction with a thesis statement and then to list the separate ideas of the body paragraphs in separate sentences in the introduction, following the thesis statement. Please avoid this pattern. The pattern works well in terms of making you think carefully about organization, but it is not effective in other important ways. For one thing, I find that the ideas in separate sentences often do not seem logically related. If the ideas are presented in separate sentences, maybe there is no strong sense that those ideas ought to be closely related. On the other hand, the logical relationship among the main claims of your paper can be much clearer if you put all of your major claims into a one-sentence thesis statement in the introduction. If you can get all of your main points into one sentence in the introduction, and that sentence makes sense, then you should be able to get all of the ideas into one essay effectively. The need for a good thesis statement is another important reason to list the main claims of your essay before you even begin writing a draft. You can bring those main claims together into one sentence, and you have your thesis statement for the paper. Of course, the thesis statement is an important sentence in your essay. Make sure to read the information about thesis statements on some of the course web pages that are linked to the essay assignment page. Sometimes, when I evaluate essays, I will make the comment that an essay seems to lack the necessary structure. What I mean by this comment is that there do not appear to be effective topic sentences at the beginnings of body paragraphs and that body paragraphs do not seem to be focused on supporting and developing just one main idea each. Imagine an analogy of building a house. You have to start with the foundation and the general structure of the house before you start filling in the rest. We can continue the analogy further. Once you have created the foundation and have built the general structure, you should then have a better sense of what exactly you need to complete your house. The same is true of an essay. This organizational pattern may sound overly rigid. Well, you might be surprised. I read hundreds of essays each semester, and the good ones generally follow the pattern I have explained. No two essays are alike, though. Even if you follow this pattern, there is still plenty of room for your own unique writing style. Without the structure, though, it s often difficult for the writer to hold all of his or her ideas together effectively. Now, I would like to explain briefly how these ideas apply specifically to the essay that you will be writing for Unit 1. The assignment is to choose one of the assigned works of literature and to write an essay that helps readers better understand your subject. You can assume that your audience has already read the work of literature that you are analyzing, so you should not simply summarize it. This is not a kind of book report. Instead, you should give your audience an interpretation of your subject, an insightful explanation that 3
will help your audience understand its meaning and significance. And, again, this is a persuasive essay because you need to convince readers that you have a good understanding of your subject and that the conclusions that you make concerning your subject are valid and well supported by the facts of the subject itself. At first, you might be overwhelmed by ideas, especially if you have been reading the many comments in WebBoard. However, your first step should be to focus on only three or four major claims that you can support and develop concerning your subject. Of course, the claims should be logically related if they are going to be presented in the same essay. For a specific example, I would like to talk about James Joyce s short story Eveline, which is not one of the works of literature assigned for Essay 1 but does appear in Chapter 1 of the textbook. After reading the story repeatedly and studying it carefully, I might conclude that the author, through symbolic details, suggests that Eveline is already dead in a way, even though she is still alive physically. So I start by writing down a sentence conveying this idea. Notice that this is a claim; it s not a fact, not something that is indisputably true. No one does the author state directly that Eveline is symbolically dead. Good we have my point of view, my interpretation, expressed in the sentence. I then look for facts that I can list under this claim. I have to have the facts, also called evidence, to support and develop my interpretation. I might notice, for example, that Eveline is repeatedly described as breathing dust and that dust seems to surround her. Maybe I am reminded of the familiar expression ashes to ashes and dust to dust, so I associate dust with death. I also notice that Eveline hopes that Frank would give her life and that Eveline wanted to live. These are the exact words from the story, so I write them down and put quotations marks around them. I also notice that Eveline thinks of how her employer, Miss Gavan, says, Look lively, Miss Hill. As I reread the story again, looking for more details suggesting Eveline s symbolic death, I notice that Eveline s cheek is described as being pale and cold near the end of the story. I write down each of these facts and probably a few more, each fact related in that each fact suggests something about Eveline s symbolic death. Good I have some facts to support my interpretation. If I feel that I have good facts to support my claim, and enough facts (maybe at least three specific facts), the next step is to start writing a paragraph. I am going to begin the paragraph with a topic sentence conveying my claim about the story. For my example, I will begin with a sentence stating that symbolic details in the story suggest that Eveline is already dead, even though she is still alive physically. Then, I will look at my list of supporting details and decide which fact to present first. I then choose one of the facts, and, as I put the fact into a sentence, I make sure to explain how the fact supports my claim about Eveline. Once I have presented and explained one fact well, making sure not to bring up additional claims, I am then ready to describe and explain the second supporting fact. I will continue this pattern until I feel that I have a well-developed 4
paragraph and that I have presented an interpretation that readers are likely to agree with because of all of the good supporting evidence I present and explain. As I write the paragraph, I make sure that it is clear to readers how each fact in the paragraph supports my interpretation expressed in the topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph. Once I have finished a rough version of one paragraph, I am ready to begin the next paragraph. I just come up with a different but related claim about the story and follow the pattern of presenting the claim and supporting and developing it with specific evidence. I don t want to suggest that this will be easy. Writing seldom is. But following this organizational pattern should make the writing process a little easier for you and should give you the sense that you know what you are doing in terms of developing and supporting ideas in paragraphs. Now, I would like to explain briefly two common problems that come up when writers are trying to develop persuasive paragraphs. One problem occurs when the writer begins a body paragraph with a fact instead of a claim. Imagine starting a paragraph on James Joyce s Eveline by stating that Eveline is sitting by the window and looking out as her neighborhood. Well, that s true. I would have nothing to prove in the paragraph if I began it with this fact, no clear interpretation to develop and support. On the other hand, if I begin with a claim, an interpretation, I will have something to focus on proving in the paragraph. Another problem occurs when the writer, instead of presenting facts as supporting evidence, presents more claims. For example, let s say I begin a body paragraph by stating that there are many good reasons that Eveline should leave with Frank. Good I have presented a claim to develop and support in the paragraph. But let s say that I try to support this interpretation by stating, for example, that Eveline does not like living with her father. But this is another claim, another example of my interpretation concerning the story. Maybe I then add that Eveline will be much happier if she leaves with Frank. But, here again, I have presented another claim. So far, I have gotten nowhere in trying to support and development my interpretation that there are many good reasons that Eveline should leave with Frank. This is because I have not presented any specific facts, or evidence, from the story. I have not presented any argument yet because I have just presented a series of claims but no logical argument, which involves the support of claims with facts. What are needed are specific facts from the story to support my claims. Now, you can present what are referred to as secondary claims, which are claims that, once proven with facts, will support the primary claim of the paragraph. I could argue that there are many reasons that Eveline should leave with Frank by arguing that Eveline no longer likes living with her father, but I have to present specific facts to prove that she does not like living with her father. My interpretation must be supported by a solid foundation of facts. For an example of a paragraph developed well with both a primary claim and secondary claims, see the web handout Bad Paragraph / Good Paragraph: Writing Effective Persuasive Paragraphs. 5
There is much more that could be said about organizing, developing, and supporting ideas in an interpretive and persuasive essay, but I hope this summary will help you as you are working on Essay Assignment 1 and as you are working on all of the other essays you will write for the course. I would like to offer just a few more suggestions that should help you with your essays. One thing I would like to emphasize is the importance of having a good awareness of your audience, the readers of your essay. Most importantly, you should assume, as the assignment description explains, that your readers have already read the work of literature that is the subject of your essay. Therefore, you do not need to summarize what happens in the work of literature just for the sake of letting readers know what happens. If I summarized parts of Joyce s Eveline for no other reason than to let people know what happens in the story, then I am not telling readers anything that they do not already know. That kind of summary is completely unnecessary and should be deleted from my essay. However, I should summarize parts of the story if that information is helping me support and development a specific claim about the story, some aspect of my interpretation. After you have written a draft of your essay, read through your essay carefully, and, in every place where you summarize or quote something that happens in the work of literature you are analyzing, ask yourself the question, so what? Why is this factual detail necessary in my essay? If the detail seems to have no clear purpose other than to let readers know that it happens, then it would probably be best to delete that information. Another important aspect of your essay to consider is the order of ideas in it, both the order of ideas within body paragraphs and the order of the body paragraphs themselves. A good general rule is to save the most important or the best material for last, but any order that makes sense logically should work. There should be a logical progression of ideas in your essay, so that the main idea in one body paragraph smoothly and logically leads to the main idea in the next body paragraph. I m sometimes surprised when I ask students why they have put the material in their essays in a particular order and they look at me as if it s the first time they have even considered this idea. But it s an important aspect of an essay to think about. Often, simply changing the order of the body paragraphs goes far in strengthening an essay. Another point to consider is your use of quotations as supporting evidence in your paper. You will need to use quotations to help you support and develop your interpretation, and you need to make sure that you are using the quotations effectively and correctly. All quotations must be presented accurately and must be cited properly with the correct punctuation. The sample essay on Joyce s Eveline in the textbook presents a good example of how to use and cite quotations correctly, and we also have resources on the Web Handouts page that explain how to use and cite quotations properly. Please note as well that a Work Cited page is required for this essay, as explained on the essay assignment page. 6
I want to end with another point for you to think about. So often, I see students sitting in front of a blank screen, unable to decide how to start their essays. Most often, these students are trying to begin an introduction, but they find it difficult to do so. Well, it s obviously difficult to write an introduction to an essay when you are not exactly sure about the content of your essay. Why not start by writing one of your body paragraphs instead? If you know of at least one claim about your subject that you might be able to support well in your essay, why not start your essay by writing a paragraph on that idea? I have found that it s much easier to write an introduction after I have written at least most of the body of an essay. Especially with word processors, it s easy to move around parts of an essay, so I would suggest putting in an introduction after you have written some or even all of the body of your essay. That s all for now, but there is a lot of important information to consider as you are planning and writing your essay. And I can t emphasize enough that the pattern of organization and development that I have explained here is the same pattern that will work well for all of the papers you will write for the course and for most other writing situations in which you are trying to persuade readers to accept your point of view about something. As usual, please ask questions as you are working on your essays! I would like to help you, but you need to let me know how I can offer more help! 7