Notes on Night Essay Drafts

In reviewing the essays about Night, there were a number of common errors that were widely distributed across almost everyone’s work. While I did make a short list on the board of things to consider while composing in class, a number of things mentioned persisted. Here is a list of things that should be considered when revising. The first three are the same three items that have been at issue since the beginning of the year. So you need to address them and make them automatic at this point when writing academic essays.

Use Present Tense – For some reason, despite being reminded, nearly everyone wrote in the past tense. Remember, we are approaching the memoir as a piece of literature not a historical document. Thus, the convention is to write about it in the present tense.

Avoid Contractions – There are still a significant number of you that are using contractions and informal language in your work. Stop doing this. Considering that this was an in-class draft, it is less problematic Yet again, it should be automatic at this point.

Use Third Person – A fair number of people continue to use first and second person in their essays, which is bad form and informal. Make sure you remain in third person, avoiding things like “you,” “I,” and “we.” State your analysis as though it were fact. Instead of “In my opinion, the worst form of dehumanization is…” just start the sentence after “opinion,” cutting the opening phrase.

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Paragraphs About Ideas – Paragraphs are not about evidence or quotes, they are about ideas. Also, the ideas need to be explained a little before the evidence is introduced in the paragraph. In establishing the idea of the paragraph, make it clear why it is important and supports your thesis. Make a claim and then explain and support it with evidence, as well as commentary and analysis.

Explaining Evidence – Make sure that the evidence supports the main idea of the paragraph. Try to use evidence and quotes higher in a paragraph, avoiding dropping the quote in at the end. Introducing the evidence earlier helps trigger more explanation. Remember, a quote’s meaning does not need to be explained as much as it needs to be connected to the idea, which requires more analysis and explanation than many are inclined to include. Push to get to deeper levels of analysis.

Along the lines of finding ways to increase the depth and detail of the commentary and analysis, here is a sample paragraph with some notes that highlight part of the process of development.

A main reason why the townspeople of Sighet remained complacent about the coming war concerned their geographic location.¹ The town of Sighet is a small town in the region of Transylvania, far from the war front, at this time, near the border between Hungary and the Soviet Union.² It is closer to Soviet territory than it is to the Hungarian capital, Budapest by hundreds of miles.³ The general feeling is “The Germans will not come this far. The will stay in Budapest. For strategic reasons, for political reasons…” (9).⁴ This location provides two main reasons for lack of action and concern. Being so far away from the political capital of the country insulates Sighet to a degree from the political turmoil that occurs there.⁵ When the Hungarian head of state is “forced to ask a leader of the pro-Nazi Nyilas Party to form a new government,” no one worries (9).⁶ The government changes almost overnight, the concern remains conservative and warrants no alarm.⁷ Additionally, as the Soviets increase their involvement in the war, those in Sighet are convinced that the Red Army will arrive long before the chance of a German advance as a matter of strategically securing the border area. Since the town is not significant for any reason, making the townspeople believe that they are safe from being swept up in the war.⁸

Paragraph Notes:

1. Sets up one supportive claim regarding what would be a thesis, making geographical position a factor
2. Uses a factual piece of evidence to establish the geographical location in context
3. Adds more contextual information to support the claim that requires some deduction
4. A piece of evidence, in the form of a quote, to further explain the influence of geography
5. Establishes two main reasons, from the quote, that link the claim and commentary and analysis
6. An additional piece of evidence, a quote, that supports the political reasons that support the claim
7. Analysis that supports the political reasons
8. Explanation about the strategic reasons that support the claim

Notes on “The Most Dangerous Game” Paper

One of the things that is still occurring are the creeping convention issues that were established early in the year. The big three items of academic writing: avoiding contractions, retaining third person, and  maintaining present tense consistently. These three errors are now beginning to prove more costly as we move into the second half of the term.

Another possible issue related to this paper relates to how much time there was for everyone to internalize and make adjustments between the composing of this paper and the previous one about The Scarlet Letter excerpt. Perhaps there wasn’t enough of a gap between those two assignments because some of the same notes still apply to these essays. Considering that they are both literary analysis essays that makes sense. Nevertheless, progress is being made but there is still a ways to go.

Here are some specific issues related to this paper:

• Finishing the thesis
  Thesis development is coming along quite well, considering that it has not been a specific focus in class yet. Most everyone has grasped the fundamental three-pronged thesis. Yet, the three items are only part of the recipe. Of the four parts (Topic, Elements, Point, Preview), they are the Elements – the literary devices that will be addressed in the body. What is still a struggle is clarifying and refining a Point. With this batch of essays there were a lot of thesis statements that looked something along the lines of this. 

  In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell builds suspense through an ominous setting, evasive characters, and clever omissions.

  This statement seems fine at first glance, clearly establishing the Topic, Elements, and even some of the Preview. However, the Point is not quite finished because there is no reason why Connell uses those devices to build the suspense, for what purpose or end. Thus, simply lifting and tweaking a phrase from the prompt, “to create a greater sense of dread,” actually finishes the original statement quite nicely and strengthens the Point. So a small improvement can make a significant difference.

  In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell builds suspense through an ominous setting, evasive characters, and clever omissions to create a greater sense of dread.

• Integrating the evidence
  Take a look at the Notes on The Scarlett Letter Excerpt Paper or more information about how to do this better.
• Building more blue
  One of the chief objectives over the last few weeks and papers if centered on how to more fully develop your body paragraphs, generating more depth and detail in the commentary and analysis. There is progress but many are still struggling to push to deeper levels of analysis, which is generated by the kinds of questions that you continue to ask yourself about the material, your main idea for the thesis and each paragraph, the gathered evidence, and even the initial analysis. Remember this is where webbing and an outline can become very helpful tools.
• Questions as a device
  A number of the papers included faulty attempts to use the question as a rhetorical device. There really is not much place for questions in the analysis of a body paragraph. That is not to say that it can never be used, but it requires a fair degree of subtlety and sophistication of style to work effectively. Moreover, they are better used in introductions and conclusions, rather than in the body of the document. It is a particularly poor attempt when the question posed is never answered, which was the case with most of the uses in this paper. Remember the objective of a literary analysis paper is to answer questions. So craft questions in the prewriting but focus on answering those questions in the essay rather than including them.
• Forget about the reader
  Take a look at the Notes on The Scarlett Letter Excerpt Paper or more information about focusing more on the text.
• Muddying matters with mood
  A few papers included an interesting idea of working mood into their analysis, which is not by itself a bad thing. In almost all cases it was linked with the setting and the early exposition of the story. However, unless mood is established in support of the paragraph’s main idea used to build suspense, it simply muddies up the clarity of the paragraph. Mo one made mood a central element that contributed to the building of suspense. Consequently, if it is used at all as a supplementary point, and it is a good one, it has to be included with much greater precision to ensure that the difference between mood and the main idea of the paragraph remain clear.

Notes on The Scarlet Letter Excerpt Paper

Again, a few of these items have been mentioned with prior assignments. So, it is becoming imperative that the routine issues that keep arising, especially the ones that are a function of attentiveness.

• Use the given thesis
  In an effort to simplify this task and focus in body paragraph development, I supplied the thesis. Use it. It is alright that all of these papers will be developing the same thesis. All of the prewriting and preliminary development was based on the working thesis that was provided. It may not be the greatest thesis but it is serviceable for this assignment, at least the first draft. For some reason, a lot of people opted to write their own when there was no need.
• Present tense *
  This remains a problem, although now it is more of an issue of consistency. Remember the convention when writing about literature is to use present tense. Many begin writing in the present tense and then for some reason switch to past. This seems to occur more often after the quote or evidence has been introduced in a paragraph, which is likely to be phrased in past tense. Consequently, it is as if the tense become contagious and the rest of the paragraph or essay remains falsely stuck in the past tense.
• Verb choices
  Strong verb choices carry sentences. Vivid and descriptive verbs do the heavy lifting for a writer. Always opt for an active verb rather than a passive one, whenever possible, which is almost always. Often this requires a re-framing of the sentence, possibly adjusting the subject. The key issue relates to avoiding “to be” verbs like “is” and selecting verbs that do something, like “reveals.”
• Inert subjects & verbs
  For some reason, a number of subjects like the “passage,” or “text,” or “excerpt” have taken on life like qualities and become animated as the subjects of some sentences. So, suddenly the excerpt “talks about” something or other, as if it had a mouth to speak. While using active verbs as often as possible is encouraged, try not to activate or personify subjects with verbs that have the passage or dead writer acting in ways that make no logical sense.
• Point of view *
  There is still a lot of creeping second person in many papers, which is a flawed attempt at establishing a conversational tone and warm voice. It is simply bad form. Additionally, occasional use of first person continues to appear. This is a more subtle problem and may be linked to the switching of writing modes that we have been doing, writing both personal responses and more formal academic essay drafts. Everyone needs to begin determining what is appropriate in a given context. That alone is an important skill to start cultivating.
• Forget “the reader”
  Who is this mysterious reader? In most cases, use of the “reader” is a weak substitute for “you” (second person) or only minutely better “one.” As mentioned, using “you” is poor form, and “one” is stiff and often awkward. Thus, the “reader” is used as a well intentioned substitute. It isn’t. Generally, keep the writing about the text and occasionally the author. Focusing on the text will help eliminate the need to employ weaker substitutes.
• Referencing
  When making reference to a text, particularly when using quotes, it is customary to annotate the source. With some of the readings there are different possible points of reference. For example, passages and excerpts are often provided with line numbers, such as in a closer reading. Others contain paragraph numbering. Longer texts, like books have the convention of numbered pages. When referencing material, one of these should be used parenthetically after the evidence. Use whatever one will locate the evidence as close as possible. So, in this paper a quote like, “This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history,” needs to include the line number at the end of the sentence (line 37-38). Generally, the page number will appear in the parentheses alone, but if you have the line or paragraph numbers for an assignment use them.
• Order
  Remember an essay should build and gain momentum as it is read. Thus, the typical setup for a five paragraph kind of essay has a body arrangement of good-better-best. This may require some paragraphs rearrangement from the original plan or prewriting. Regardless, the essay builds towards a conclusion. So, each body paragraph should have better evidence, as well as commentary and analysis, than the previous paragraph.
• Handling evidence
  This is a new wrinkle. It is bad form to simply drop a quote into a paragraph without any “handles.” By “handle” I mean some brief commentary that integrates the quoted material more smoothly into the prose. Typically, the handles are used before or after the quote, sometimes in both places. “For example” might be the most simplistic handle to use before a quote, as it is weak and not generally helpful. A piece of short commentary can do the trick quite nicely however. Her is an example with handles before and after the quote, colored for clarity: 

  A flower blooms in the most unlikely of places, “A rosebush, in this month of June, with it’s delicate gems,” contrasting starkly against the ominously thick oak and threatening pikes of the prison door. (lines 31-32)

As is most often the case, all of these issues were pretty pervasive, enough for me to make note of them. The items with asterisks are repeated and things that should begin to addressed automatically as you compose. Ultimately, no one person likely has issues with all of the items listed, but just about everyone has one or more of them. So look at the comments on your paper and begin revising based on those and the more general items listed here. Also make sure to use the new checklist to help with common issues associated with editing and revision.