English literature Essay ( 3-4 pages ) Due: Dec 11th

© 2016 Fidel Fajardo-Acosta

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Rev. 01/10/2016

Writing Guidelines

Outline

Make sure to do your thinking and analysis and know exactly what you want to say and where you want to say it before you actually start typing your essay. In other words, do an outline and follow it as you are writing.

Title

Your essay must have a title that, briefly and concisely, says something meaningful about what you are analyzing (the author/work and the specific aspects of it that are the focus of your essay) as well as the ideas you are offering.

Example of a good title:

Poisonous Creatures: Images of Serpents in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Example of weak titles:

Hamlet

To Be or Not to Be

The Serpent

Bad Guys

The title should appear centered on the first page just before your introductory paragraph. Do not use quotation marks, boldface type, all-capitals, or different fonts or font sizes relative to the main text of the essay.

Introduction

Your essay should have a well-developed introductory paragraph in which you clearly and objectively state the work, author and details of that work you are analyzing. Your introduction should make specific the ideas you are contributing, i.e. your thesis. An example of a thesis statement might be:

Shakespeare's Hamlet is a work where images of serpents are used as symbols of human treachery and wrongdoing. In particular, serpents in the play are allusions to the cold inhumanity and deceit of the courtiers and the way of life at the royal court of Denmark in Elsinore.

The introductory paragraph is also a good place to make clear the historical context of the work and any facts relevant to the argument you will be offering. It is very important that your introductory paragraph make very clear the what, who, when and where of the subject matter (work/author and specific details analyzed, time

when the work was composed, place/culture where it was produced, and the ideas proposed by your essay). Write from an objective point of view. Remember you are not offering personal opinions but trying to make sense of what you are reading and proving it with evidence. You are trying to demonstrate what the work seems to be saying or suggesting. Avoid unsupported generalizations, subjective evaluations, or statements of knowledge beyond the scope of your knowledge, i.e. don't waste time talking about how timeless or beautiful literature might be or about any supposed truths of human nature. Stick to what you you can prove from the textual evidence and stay focused on the specifics of your thesis. A standard essay might feature three or more main ideas contributing to the proof of that thesis. You will be stating and developing those ideas in the body of the essay.

Body of the Essay

The body of the essay should be constituted by a sequence of well-developed paragraphs which deal with one idea at a time. Do not start your paragraphs with quotations or vague statements. Each paragraph should begin with a clear sentence (called the "topical sentence") stating the idea that will be discussed in the paragraph, e.g. "In Hamlet, serpents are a recurrent image associated with the representation of crimes and wrongdoings." The opening sentence of each paragraph should let the reader know exactly what the paragraph will be dealing with. After the topical sentence, you will then offer a series of sentences explaining the point and providing textual or other evidence that can support the idea. After you offer a quotation you also need to explain what it means and why it indeed proves the point you are trying to make, e.g.

In Hamlet, serpents are a recurrent image associated with the representation of crimes and wrongdoings. [this is the topical sentence][notice the word Hamlet is italicized because it refers to the title of the work] After Hamlet's father died,[notice the word Hamlet here is not italicized because it refers to the protagonist by that name] the official explanation was that a serpent bit him while he slept in his orchard. When the ghost of his father appears to Hamlet, the ghost says: "Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me"[notice there is no punctuation separating the quotation from the parenthesis that follows] (Act I, Scene 5, lines 35-36). [notice the reference in parenthesis can be also just a page number referring to the text from which you are quoting -- the word "lines" can also be abbreviated ll. or l. for just a single line number, e.g. ll. 34-50, l. 5] The ghost then explains to Hamlet that "the serpent that did sting thy father's life / Now [notice when quoting lines from a poem or a play in verse form, the line breaks should be indicated with the slash / ] wears his crown" (I.5.39-40).[notice this is an alternative, more concise way of referencing the Act, scene and line numbers] In this way, the ghost reveals to Hamlet that the murderer was his own brother Claudius who then went on to become the king of Denmark. By characterizing Claudius as a serpent, the ghost suggests the falsehood of the official explanations of his death and also links the image of the serpent to the act of committing a crime such as murder. Later, suspecting the treachery of his supposed friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet refers to them as "adders fanged" (3.4.204). [notice there should be a period here after the parenthesis] Adders are a particularly poisonous and dangerous kind of snake.

The following paragraph of the essay should begin with a new topical sentence stating the idea to be explored and proven in the paragraph. In this case, it could be something like, "Serpents are not always directly seen, but indirectly alluded to by means of the related image of poison." [notice that idea would naturally link the second paragraph to the first] Then you would go on to describe situations in the play where poison plays a role, offering relevant quotations, and explaining how they might help connect the related ideas of serpents, poison and criminal actions. It would be very important in that paragraph to stick to the analysis of passages where poison is present and where the serpent is only implicitly but not explicitly shown.

Notice paragraphs require substantial development, One, two or even three sentences are not quite enough to constitute a well-developed paragraph. You need to consider that, in each paragraph, you are making a point and also explaining and supporting it with arguments and evidence. It takes focused and sustained discussion and quotation and explanation of evidence before a point can be considered sufficiently established.

Conclusion

After discussing in detail and proving a number of ideas, you will then close the essay with a well-developed paragraph making clear how the different ideas come together in the substantiating of the thesis. The concluding paragraph is also a good place to push the argument further and make additional observations that may seem plausible in view of the evidence and explanations offered in the essay. In other words, the conclusion should wrap up your discussion by bringing together the different strands of your argument and discussing the implications (the so-what) of your observations. Merely repeating what you stated before is not the point of the conclusion. Instead, in the conclusion, you are trying to make further sense of the arguments you pursued in the essay.

Originality and Personal Work

Essays are graded on the basis of the student's ability to generate original insight and offer personal work, attention to details of the materials analyzed, use of textual and other evidence, analytical depth and significance, clarity and precision of the writing, proper development of the ideas, completeness of explanations, logical reasoning, as well as ability to constructively apply course concepts and ideas to the materials under analysis. The language, writing and ideas of the essay must be the product of personal work. Outside sources or the work of others may be quoted or otherwise incorporated into the essay provided it is properly acknowledged at the exact point in the essay where it occurs and must also be fully documented in a Bibliography or List of Works Cited at the end of the essay. Ideas or writing from outside sources should never constitute the central thesis or bulk of the essay and should only be used to provide background facts or starting points for the student's own work and thinking. The use in essays of any language or ideas from sources not properly acknowledged, including online and print materials, essays bought, borrowed or stolen from others, as well as files kept by fraternities and sororities is Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty .

Planning

Start work on your paper as soon as you can. These papers are not the kind of work that you can put together overnight. Sketch an outline in advance listing the ideas you will pursue and the specific evidence you will present and discuss in order to prove each one of those ideas. Sort out the different ideas which will be part of your paper so you can discuss them one at a time in specific paragraphs. It is very important to have a clear idea of what you want to say and of how your discussion will be ordered prior to doing any writing. For that purpose, read and reread the materials under analysis, take notes, brainstorm and sketch observations, make lists of the ideas you want to pursue and of the items of evidence you intend to use (specific words, passages, details, events or other aspects of the text or other material you are analyzing). Once you have a clear outline of the paper, you can begin the writing of the essay. Stick to your plan and keep the argument focused on the issues. If you find yourself rethinking or reconsidering your ideas as you do the writing, go back to the planning stage and formulate a new outline.

Topic, Thesis, and Analysis

Papers should have a clear and well-focused thesis (i.e. a main idea or group of related ideas that the essay is proposing and trying to prove) that is relevant to the assigned topic. The analysis should make clear but also go beyond the literal/obvious aspects of the material being analyzed and should strive to clarify its possible underlying significance, concerns or implications. All ideas have to be supported with textual, contextual or other evidence, as well as clear explanations of how the evidence works and how it proves the points you are trying to make. Quotations by themselves don't prove anything. They need to be explained in detail. Your analysis and conclusions must be logical and you must be able to justify them in terms of the evidence you presented. Pay attention to the precise details of the material under analysis. Your interpretation must evolve out of a careful and attentive reading/examination of the work and its contexts and not just from personal opinions, judgments, or subjective perspectives.

Language

Speak in your own voice. Use your own words and your own language. It is fine to use the pronoun "I" in your writing but the pronoun "you," addressing the reader of your essay, is not recommended. Do not attempt to sound like a textbook or use language which you would not use in intelligent conversation (i.e. you have to strike a reasonable balance that avoids both pedantic and colloquial language). The language and reasoning of an analytical paper must be clear, logical, and concise. In general, an essay must be written in the simplest and clearest prose you're capable of writing. Your task is to explain the text, not to repeat or copy it or to imitate its style or summarize its plot or otherwise paraphrase its contents. There is a difference between creative and expository writing. Leave the creative writing to the poets and storytellers and concentrate instead on making good sense in your arguments. Also avoid hyperbole and subjective statements. To say that a text is a work of genius or that it's amazing or beautiful does not help your arguments and only wastes space in the essay.

Sentences

A properly structured sentence has to include at least a subject and a verb and must express a complete thought. Example: "The airplane flew over the city." "The airplane" is the subject, "flew" is the verb, and "over the city" is the predicate or complement. It should be very clear, in all your sentences, what exactly is the subject, what is the action, and what the complements. If a sentence does not have at least a subject and a verb, it is incomplete and grammatically incorrect. Keep your sentences short and simple. Don't try to pack too many ideas into one single sentence. In general, as with paragraphs, one sentence, one idea. A period marks the end of a sentence.

Evidence

All your ideas must be supported with evidence from, and logical explanations and observations of, the details, language or other features of a text and its contexts. You may also use ideas or statements from clearly acknowledged research sources but this should not be the main point of the essay, i.e. you can use outside sources to support some observations but you have to go beyond what others are saying and use it to build your own interpretation. Everything you say in your paper should be clearly related to the words, images, situations, characters, and other details in the text you are analyzing. If you quote something you must fully explain it and make clear how it proves your point. Keep quotations short and concise--quote only what is absolutely essential to your argument. Avoid overly long quotations unless you intend to make use of all the details and language in the passages quoted. Avoid abstract or vague discussions, unsubstantiated opinions, unsupported generalizations, and anything which is not clearly growing out of and clearly relevant to the text you are analyzing. In general, stick to what you can prove from a careful reading and analysis of the evidence.

Quotations

Generally, quotations will be short and should be integrated into your own sentences in a way that harmonizes with the grammar of your own statements. Examples:

The gods tell Utnapishtim, "tear down your house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life, despise worldly goods and save your soul alive" (108). [notice there is punctuation separating the quotation mark from the parenthesis and there is a period following the parenthesis][page references can be just a number, or you can also use p. and pp. as abbreviations indicating page or pages, e.g. p. 4. pp. 5-15]

Gilgamesh expected Utnapishtim to look "like a hero prepared for battle." [notice there is no reference in parenthesis here because you offer that reference after he next sentence, this avoids

excessive/unnecessary repetition of references] Instead, Utnapishtim was relaxed and resting, "taking ... [his] ease on ... [his] back" (107). [notice here the use of ellipsis (...) and brackets [] to indicate that the original language of the quotation, "taking your ease on your back," was modified to make it conform to the grammar of your statement -- the ellipsis indicates you removed something and the brackets indicate you are adding words of your own]

If you find it necessary to quote a long passage (usually over 40 words or exceeding five lines), you should set it off as a block quotation, indenting it by half an inch from the left margin. Block quotations do not take quotation marks. In block quotations, the parenthesis with the reference is not followed by a period, the only exception to such punctuation. Example of a passage from an essay discussing Homer's Odyssey and including a block quotation from the text:

In Homer's Odyssey, the prophet Tiresias tells the hero Odysseus:

Great captain, a fair wind and the honey lights of home are all you seek. But anguish lies ahead; the god who thunders on the land prepares it, not to be shaken from your track, implacable, in rancor for the son whose eye you blinded. One narrow strait may take you through his blows: denial of yourself, restraint of shipmates. (XI.106-116)

These words of the prophet emphasize the idea that Odysseus and his men need to control their own behavior if they expect to be able to return home.

[notice in this example that the parenthetical reference following the block quotation indicates this passage comes from Book XI of the Odyssey, lines 106-116][notice the block quotation is indented half inch from the left margin of the essay][there is no period following the parenthesis][notice also no quotation marks are used since it is clear this is a quotation as it is indented from the main text of your discussion]

Citing Sources

All outside sources consulted must be listed, including full bibliographical information (author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, etc), arranged alphabetically in a Bibliography or Works Cited section at the end of the paper. The precise ideas or quotations taken from each source also have to be acknowledged in the main body of the paper through a parenthesis or footnote following the cited material with sufficient information to find the source in the list of Works Cited and a page number or other specific location of the quotation or idea in the original source. For example:

Toward the beginning of the play, Orgon tells Cleante, "Brother, stop right there / You do not know the man of whom you speak" (Molière, 31). [when your essay includes references to more than one source, you may need to include the author name, Molière in this case, in the parenthetical reference] By the end of the play, however, "Orgon ... [notice an ellipsis indicates materials was omitted from the original language of the source -- notice also the ellipsis is written as three periods preceded and followed by a space ... ] actually listens to the advice of Cleante" (Fajardo- Acosta, 9). This suggests that a transformation has occurred and that Orgon is now a better person who is able to listen and take advice from others.

The information in the parentheses in the passages above will then allow the reader of the paper to find the relevant items in the list of Works Cited at the end of the paper, which might contain items like these:

Fajardo-Acosta, Fidel, "Molière's Tartuffe: A Lecture," ENG 121 Course Materials, Creighton University, Fall 2012.

Gilgamesh, The Epic of, trans. N. K. Sandars (New York: Penguin Classics, 1960). [notice in this case the name of the author is not known so the entry is alphabetized under the key word

of the title, in this case "Gilgamesh"]

Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fitgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998).

Molière, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, Tartuffe, in The Bedford Anthology of World Literature, eds. Paul Davis, Gary Harrison, et al., Vol. 4 (Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003), 17-87.

Shakespeare, William, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, ed. Sylvan Barnet (New York: Signet Classics, 1998). [notice there are different styles of citing sources -- the exact details of how to format a bibliographical entry vary across disciplines -- the key and most important thing however is to provide all the relevant information ]

In your essays for this class you can use the style of your choice so long as you are consistent. The standard manuals (style sheets) for citing sources in different fields are the following (they can be found online fairly easily):

• MLA Style: MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers • Chicago Style: The Chicago Manual of Style • APA Style: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

Other

Notice that titles of long works (novels, plays, magazines, journals, newspapers, films, paintings, etc.) are underlined or italicized. Example: The Great Gatsby, A Clockwork Orange, The Mona Lisa, The New York Times, Death of a Salesman, The Atlantic Monthly. Titles of shorter works (poems, short stories, articles, essays, songs, etc.) are enclosed within quotation marks. Examples: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "The Rocking-Horse Winner," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Note the correct use of punctuation in a sentence containing quotation marks. All periods and commas are placed inside all quotation marks. All semicolons and colons are placed outside quotation marks. Examples:

The teacher said, "periods and commas go inside quotation marks, semicolons outside." But the student said, "I don't care"; he did not write a good paper. [notice the period inside the quotation marks and the semicolon outside the quotation marks]

Phaedra told Oenone, "I see a monster" (p. 155). [notice the period goes after the parenthesis and not inside the quotation marks]

When you are quoting material that contains quotation marks itself, then you use double quotes (e.g. "quoted words") for the overall quotation and single quotes ('quoted words') for the material inside the quotation that is itself a quotation. Example:

The speaker noted the importance of the ideas of Karl Marx and said in his speech: "Marx believed history repeats itself and stated, 'all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice ... the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.' This idea is fundamental to his philosophy of history." [notice the overall quotation is in double quotes, whereas the statement quoted within the quotation is in single quotes]

Know the difference between its and it's

A car has wheels. Those are its wheels. It's important to notice its and it's do not mean the same thing.

Know the difference between car, car's and cars'

A car is a vehicle. A car's wheels are round. Fifty cars' remnants littered the highway.

The word man is singular, men is plural

A man crossed the highway. Many men refused to support the tyrant.

The word woman is singular, women is plural

A woman can accomplish any goals she sets for herself. Women are the hope of the future.

The expression would have is sometimes incorrectly written as would of

I would have gotten a good grade if I had not written would of instead of the correct would have

Know the difference between the words affect and effect

An effect is something that happens as a result of something else. The effects of too much drinking include incoherence, confusion, unconsciousness and possibly death. To affect something means to influence it. Too much drinking affected his brain.

Grading

Your papers will be graded according to depth and insight of the analysis, understanding of the various possible levels of meaning of a text, originality and relevance of your ideas to the assignment, ability to engage and build on the ideas and concepts you are learning in the class, clarity of the writing, grammatical correctness, orderly presentation and sensible organization of the arguments, clear and logical reasoning. For every paper, you must attempt to produce a piece of work of which you can be proud and that leads you to make personal discoveries and contributions. For details on the criteria and standards used in the grading of essays see the documents Grading Standards and Procedures and Grading of Essays and Other Written Work.

Recommended resources on Writing and Formatting of Papers, Citations, etc.:

• How to Cite Your Sources, Creighton Reinert Alumni Library: http://www.creighton.edu/reinert/researchtoolbox/howtociteyoursources/index.php

• The Writer's Handbook, University of Wisconsin: https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/index.html

• Twelve Common Errors: A Student Self-Editing Guide, University of Wisconsin: https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/CommonErrors.html

• William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style [this can easily be found online and also in many printed editions -- although the work is a bit dated, it remain one of the best, clearest and briefest guides to good writing -- read it]

With deepest gratitude to Charles W. Bassett, Peter Harris, Ira Sadoff, and Ruth Peacock, who taught me how to write.

© 2016 Fidel Fajardo-Acosta

Rev. 01/10/2016