Major Essay Notes and Tips!
As you work on your essay, feel free to use this in addition to the guidelines to help you work and develop on your writing. Of course, you are more than welcome to email me or to request a zoom meeting to review thoughts or passages.
Thesis:
Your thesis should be persuasive and focus on proving one point or idea. It should not only connect with the story but it should also showcase a worldview. You only have one thesis idea for the entire paper and everything in your paper should revolve around proving the thesis.
Organization:
The order of your essay is simply about making the material accessible to your reader. Transitions help move from one idea to another with fluidity as opposed to making the reading jarring or confusing to the reader. For example, rather than begin a body paragraph with a quote, there needs to be a transition word, phrase or sentence that leads us into the quote and then your thoughts.
Here is a great TED TALK to help you consider organization and audience:
Nancy Duarte The Secret Structure of Great Talks
Introduction: make sure you mention the story or stories you will be discussing. However, do not summarize each story. Simply connect them to your thesis. The introduction is a place where you state your thesis and why it’s important for the reader to note.
Body Paragraphs: Every body paragraph should have a quote to anchor your ideas and connect it to the story/analysis. Do not simply throw the quote in—make sure to transition into it and make sure it’s the best quote for the thesis and analysis of your paper.
Conclusion: Is your finals thoughts. There should be no summary or quotes.
How to Write a Conclusion:
The conclusion is a call for action, the final thought, the last moment to persuade your readers to believe in your as a writer etc. Here you will not summarize the paper (your readers are not dumb), but rather you will showcase your knowledge and credibility as a writer—in other words, what is the so what factor? You’ve spent time and energy on this paper—why? That is, what do you want your reader to leave with? Will you forecast—give the reader insight on what might happen if we continue the trends you showcased? Do you want to inspire them—encourage them to break free from their norm and become a leader? Do you want them to become better consumers of art? What do you want from them? What is the call for action? And lastly, never use transitions words like to conclude or in conclusion—you want to move away from easy and overly familiar transition words to more sophisticated language or phrases; this will make your writing interesting and unique.
Analysis:
Your analysis uses the quote to explain and to prove the thesis. It anchors your opinions and thoughts. It allows your to develop what you infer about the story and the characters as well as allows you to tie it to a bigger worldview. Analysis is not a summary or a rephrasing of the quote. Always ask yourself why is this quote important, how does it service the thesis and what is it telling the reader?
Voice:
Please avoid any personal pronouns (I, us, we, our, me, mine etc) and you. Feel free to use they, them, she/he, her/him. Think of other ways to refer to us or we, like society or people. Avoid asking questions or using slang/clichés. Avoid using terms like maybe, perhaps, it seems—all these words create a weak stance and your reader will doubt your certainty. The formal reading response guidelines have more details on voice.
MLA/Work Cited:
In text citation is last name of the author and page number: (Saunders, 5). This is placed after the quote.
In addition to in text citation, you’ll need to have a work cited page which is found at the end of the paper. With this paper, you are simply citing the story or stories you will be using in the paper. So your work cited will showcase 1 or 2 sources. No outside sources are allowed. Make sure that if you use two stories that you list them alphabetically by author’s last name.
All the information can be found in the pdf files I have sent. And all the stories are from The New Yorker. Here is the template:
Saunder, George. “Adams.” The New Yorker. 5 Aug 2004.
Last Name, First Name. “Title” Publishing Magazine. Year of Publication.
Pitfalls to Avoid—these are the don’t of writing!
- Ignoring your audience
- Writing to impress
- Having more than 1 aim
- Being inconsistent
- Over qualifying (difficult to comprehend phrases)
- Not defining
- Mis-introducing
- Dazzling with data
- Not highlighting
- Not re-writing
Audience: Remember that your reader doesn’t read passively or absorb writing; they will form their own concepts and make meanings as they go. Thus readers remember not only what we tell them but what they tell themselves. Finally, readers choose information as they read based on their needs. They will try to fill new information to what they already know or even recall.
Persuasive: As a writer your aim is to promote a change of thinking or behavior in your reader. You’ll need to anticipate your reader’s preconceptions and counter their convictions. Even writing that does not appear issue-driven has an aim to convince readers.