Scene analysis essay

Spadoni • revised Jan. 2020

—continued—

Checklist for Essay Writers PART 1. FORMATTING

Follow these steps now to save yourself headaches later and avoid losing credit Title a word processor file “film-template” or something. Follow the instructions in this Formatting section. For an essay title, type “[essay title]”. For paragraph text, type a sentence and copy and paste it repeatedly until you have a paragraph. Do the same to make another paragraph, and another, until you’re onto your second page. Do this to make sure MS Word isn’t adding extra space between paragraphs (see below) and that you have no first page header and the correct second page header (see below). When it’s time to write your essay, open this template file and save it to a new name. Keep the template file for your next essay (and any future course you take with me). Some formatting instructions below are to ensure students are meeting the same length requirement and that no formatting deviations are disguising this fact. If I ask you to email me the word-processor copy of your essay and it shows deviations, you will lose more credit than if you had just handed in a paper under the page minimum. If you email me a file that is not identical to the essay you handed in, you will lose even more credit.

1. Format the top of your essay like this. To get the above-and-below spacing for your title as below, enter a hard return above and

below your title, then (in your double-spaced document) make these above-and-below lines single space.

Angelo Marconi Engl 367—Intro to Film Prof. Spadoni May 24, 2020 [Center essay title; 12 pt font; no boldface, underlining, or brackets]

Essay text starts here. Make sure no more space precedes and follows your essay title than you see above. ....

2. Last name and page number in the top-right corner of the second and subsequent pages (not the first page). Don’t hand write this

information on the tops of your pages.

Marconi 6

3. Black ink. Standard white paper. Single sided. 4. Times, Times Roman, or Times New Roman typeface (not Cambria), 12 point—including essay title. Don’t change typeface or

font size to increase page length. 5. Double space your work. Don’t alter line spacing to increase page length. 6. Standard margins (1 inch top and bottom, 1 or 1.25 inch left and right). Don’t adjust margins to increase page length. 7. One space (not two) between sentences. 8. No extra space between paragraphs. MS Word likes to insert extra space. Don’t leave figuring out how to tell it not to for the last

minute. 9. Italicize film titles—and at the first mention, follow title with the director and year in parentheses, like this: In an early scene in

Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975), a character tries to… Italicize book titles; essay titles are not italicized and go in double quotes. 10. Staple pages, top-left corner. Unstapled essays will be returned ungraded. 11. You’ll lose points for terrible printout quality, because you shouldn’t be finishing your essay and printing it at the last second.

Checklist for Essay Writers • Spadoni • 2

PART 2. WRITING Advice for this section: Read it through, marking it up, then set it aside and write your essay. (Don’t let this document or anything else spoil the fun of writing your essay.) When you have a first draft (well ahead of the due date or none of this works), use these instructions, and the formatting points above, as a checklist.

12. Your essay title should provide an idea or hint of your thesis. (See below on theses.) Avoid titles that signal not what your thesis is

but what the assignment is. (A bad title would be “Motifs in The Matrix”) If your essay focuses on one film, incorporate the film’s title into your essay title. (A bad title for an essay on The Matrix would be “Keanu Kicks High”)

13. Assume your reader has seen the film. No need to fill up space summarizing the plot. Include only as much plot description as is necessary to help the reader grasp and appreciate your analysis.

14. Have a thesis and state it early, typically the bottom of your first paragraph. A thesis statement articulates your essay’s main claim, your unique point of view, your take on the topic on which you’re writing.

15. Avoid evaluation, especially in thesis statements. “Star Wars is a masterpiece” is not a good thesis statement (and such a sentence should appear nowhere in your essay). Neither is “Motifs in Star Wars bind the film together in interesting ways,” since that claim could be made about every film ever made. Avoid calling something “interesting” and instead articulate why it is so.

16. Avoid statements of author intention, like: “This shot shows that Jenkins wants viewers to suspect that...”; and “Varda moves the camera closer until it frames...” Consider not what the author is doing but what the film is doing. Focus not on author intentions but textual functions and effects.

17. Your essay should have an argument with a structure that flows from and supports your thesis. This isn’t easy. Even experienced writers often don’t figure out what they’re doing until deep into their first draft—which is why it’s crucial to revise your work (more on revising below). Sketching an outline of your argument and its parts before drafting is a good way to rough out an effective essay design. (Essays that weren’t outlined first tend to read like it.) Remember that you can help keep your reader oriented by clearly indicating transitions within your paper. I am happy to meet with you to discuss this.

18. Revise your work. A good way to spot problems is to read your essay aloud. If you stumble or get lost in a sentence, chances are your reader will, too. Look for grammar and readability issues. Is the essay jargony? Is it saying things in a complicated way that could be said in a clear and simple one? Is it redundant? Look for awkward passages, claims that need further explanation or support, missed chances to make your argument richer, and other problems that characterize every first draft. Never hand in an essay you haven’t read as a hard copy first. Editing and writing at a computer is fine for early drafts and last minute tweaks, but in many ways you have not read your essay until you have read a hard copy. After a certain point, you simply won’t see problems that are right in front of you if you’re working on a screen. (A fabulous short book that will help you become a better writer is Williams and Bizup, Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace.) How do I know I’ve revised enough? You’ll know when you read a printout and make zero red marks on it—but here’s a guideline if you’re not used to bringing this kind of attention and care to your writing: Print, mark up, and input changes a minimum of five times before handing the essay in. Note that sometimes fixing something involves not fiddling with what you wrote but taking a pad of paper and writing a sentence or paragraph clean—a great thing to do, and it almost certainly will make necessary more printing, marking, inputting, and so on. Print at least five times. If you don’t do this, you still might get an A, but you’ll leave the joys of revision largely undiscovered, and you’ll never know what you were capable of with this assignment.

19. Beware DVD commentaries and the Internet! Unless the assignment is to write a research paper (and even then you need to be

careful), avoid Googling around and reading what people have said about your film. Avoid DVD commentary tracks. It’s incredibly easy to let phrases and ideas from these sources creep into your work—and that’s plagiarism. DVD commentaries in particular can really kill the joy of discovering a film for yourself. To repeat: Do not go on the Internet for hints and inspiration to help get you started. In a recent semester, I gave Fs to three students who did this and who incorporated into their essays ideas (but no phrases) that were not their own. Do not plagiarize. Avoid the Internet altogether. I am guessing you would not like to go before an Academic Integrity Board and have to explain what happened. Be aware that a careful and thoughtful essay that is wholly a student’s own tends to look totally different than one that carries, however faintly, the stink of plagiarism.

20. Turn in an essay that has not been rewritten by your parents, friends or anyone else. Turn in your work. There are permissible

ways to get help with an essay. See the syllabus and/or talk to me. 21. When quoting a source, give a page number: Dunlop notes that “films are like dreams” (33). Note where the period, close quote,

and parentheses are in relation to each other. Use double, not single, quotation marks. When you quote, quote exactly. 22. When paraphrasing a source, give a page number. Example: Smith acknowledges that there are exceptions (286-87). If you’re

paraphrasing so closely that you’re using words and phrases the author uses, rephrase or quote instead. 23. If you refer to material not on the course reading list (and follow the assignment regarding whether this is permitted), include a

bibliography. For formatting guidelines, see the current Chicago Manual of Style. 24. Meet the minimum page length. A paper that makes it three quarters of the way down the seventh page is 6.75 pages long and not

long enough for an assignment that calls for a 7-8 page paper. 25. Spell check

Feel free to schedule a meeting with me to talk about your essay and these guidelines.