Proposal.

Treasure Hunting When you move from your claim (isolating your main term or point to work with) to the essay itself, you’ll find that it’s time to do some research within the text. The types of things that you look for will depend heavily on what you chose to focus on in the first place. Essentially, each thing that you find will become a focusing point for your body paragraphs. Did you choose one of the ways to enter the conversation from the document we put together when deconstructing the prompt? If so, focus on the way in which you responded to the opportunity you’re responding to.

1. What about it fascinated/shocked/perplexed you? 2. Was there anything else in the text that fascinated/shocked/perplexed you in a

similar fashion? 3. Are there any other places in the text the reader needs to see in order to

understand the opportunity you’re responding to? Did you find an ambiguity, gap, tension, contradiction or difficulty in the essay?

1. First, find all of the places the author says the first thing. 2. The more times you find it, the more chance it is a deep part of how they

feel/what they think and the more chance it’s a contradiction. 3. Then, look for how many times they say the second thing that contradicts the first

one- if it’s just one, it might be that they’re unaware of the contradiction. 4. Only a few times, it might be a gap, tension, or ambiguity. 5. If it’s a lot of times, it might be that they’re trying to highlight the contradiction

knowingly, or to foreground a difficulty in their discussion. 6. Once you know which type of contradiction you’re dealing with, you can start to

figure out how to work through your own discussion of the problem you’re seeing in the text.

7. You’re looking for: whether it is intentional/unintentional, and how strong it is. Did you choose to focus on a term? If so, then you should look for all usages of that term, or any potentially related terms. Then, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is the author using the term ​consistently​? If so, how are they using it? If not, how do their usages differ from one another?

2. Does the author use any other terms ​interchangeably​ with the term you chose to focus on? If so, what is that term? Are those usages fully consistent? If not, how do they differ at times?

3. Does the author use any terms ​next to​ or ​near​ or ​in relation​ to that term? If so, what is the other term? What is the relationship between those terms?

Did you choose to focus on a paragraph, and narrow your main idea down to one sentence from that paragraph? If so, you may have the easiest job of all, because you’re basically just going to work through that paragraph throughout the entire essay. However, it’s worth noting that there may be other paragraphs or words/phrases/lines that are related, so you may want to consider expanding your search!

1. Think about why you chose that paragraph- what about it appealed to you, interested you, or made you wonder why it was there?

2. When you look at your paragraph, what role does it play in the entire essay? Is it a main argument? Is it something that weakens the overall argument?

3. Are there any other paragraphs your reader would need to see in order to understand that paragraph?

Did you choose to focus on part of a story? If so, you should ask yourself the following questions:

1. Where does the story ​begin​? 2. Where does the story ​end​? 3. Are there any ​arguments​ or ​statements​ or ​questions​ related to that story that

show up in other sections of the article? Remember: you should always look for more than you could possibly use. If it turns out that you have found way, way too much, then you get rid of the stuff that isn’t the best or the most related to what you’re trying to do. However, you may find that you want to keep things that others might respond to negatively, and entertain the other side’s opinions. When searching:

1. Choose quantity over quality at first. 2. Then, narrow down your choices and put quality ahead of quantity. 3. Keep your search page and your drafting pages separate; never save over your

previous work. 4. Name your drafts/documents appropriately, and group them in folders by subject

and project where possible.