Comparative Essay Recommendations

2013

You are in charge of your own writing.By 12th grade, you need to start taking responsibility for your own growth as a writer. This involves: Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses Being aware of where the bar is set:

knowing the rubric Taking steps to improve your writing:

setting goals, working to achieve those goals, reflecting based on feedback, and setting new goals

putting in the time

I can coach you, but only you can do it.

My Main Recommendations: Plan a structured argument: organize your

ideas with an outline before writing. Each section of your paper MUST begin with a clear sub-argument helping prove your main argument.

Thesis must be a strong argument answering how and why/so what? Think deep and narrow, not broad and undefined.

Put the author in your argument. Be aware of the works as crafted by an author throughout your essay

My Main Recommendations Provide clear context for every piece of

support. Introduce characters the first time you mention them; explain what is happening and when. Have clear lead-ins for every quotation providing context.

Transitions: Use meaningful and natural (not formulaic) transitions to guide the reader through your argument. Otherwise you are left with a collection of fragmented thoughts, not a persuasive well-crafted argument.

USE your support. Don’t support drop. You’ve chosen these quotations for a reason. Explore them/interpret them/analyze them fully.

My Main Recommendations Introductions: Use your introduction to clearly

and concisely…introduce the work(s); define terms; state your thesis. Avoid opening with 3 vague and general sentences not clearly connected to the works or your argument.

Use proper terms when discussing conventions. Don’t be careless. Understand what you are writing about.

Use active voice rather than passive. Edit your writing to achieve conciseness…cut,

cut, cut!! Read aloud. Does it sound clear? If not, revise until it does.

Essay Structure Main Thesis: must be making a strong argument…

not just a statement. Paragraph after intro begins with the first point you

will argue to prove your main thesis. Lead-in (providing context) + quotation, then ANALYZE/DISCUSS the quotation (not just paraphrase) to prove this point. Continue until finished.

If you change topics, begin a new paragraph. When finished arguing point one, begin a paragraph

with your NEXT point you’ll argue to prove your main thesis. Lead-in (context) + quotation, then ANALYZE/DISCUSS the quotation to prove this point. Continue until finished.

Thesis Examples Strong: Sophocles and Marquez both use blood imagery to highlight the conflict between their protagonists’ interests and the society’s values.

A statement or observation, not an argument: Chekhov chooses to use the private setting of the cherry orchard to portray a personal financial crisis for Liubov’s family, in contrast to Marquez’s choice to use a public setting of the marketplace to depict the events that led up to Santiago’s murder. So what? Not yet an argument…

More Thesis Examples Relatively strong:Anton Chekhov and Gabriel Garcia Marquez both use symbolism to emphasize traits of their characters that are imperative to the central conflicts, thus heightening the fundamental tension in their works.

Statement, not argument:While different in setting, Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Gabrial Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold are strikingly similar in their development and exploration of the motif of family honor.

Use the active voice. (Elements of Style)   Active voice is… more direct and vigorous than the passive:   I shall always remember my first visit to Boston.   Much better than…   My first visit to Boston will always be remembered

by me.  …Less direct, less bold, and less concise. If you try to make it more concise by omitting "by

me,"   My first visit to Boston will always be remembered,   it becomes indefinite and thus unclear: is it the writer, or some undisclosed person, or the world at large, that will always remember this visit? By whom?

May I ever use passive voice? You don’t have to entirely discard the passive voice.It is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary.   The dramatists of the Restoration are little esteemed

to-day. Modern readers have little esteem for the dramatists of

the Restoration.   Even though the first uses passive voice, it would be

the right form in a paragraph on the dramatists of the Restoration; the second, in active voice, would be correct in a paragraph on the tastes of modern readers.

The need of making a particular word the subject of the sentence will often determine which voice is to be used.  

Make it a habit to use Active Voice   Habitual use of the active voice makes for

forcible writing, which is a good thing. You can make boring sentences lively and

emphatic by using the active voice instead of perfunctory expressions such as there is, or could be heard.  

There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground.

Dead leaves covered the ground.

The sound of the falls could still be heard. The sound of the falls still reached our ears.

The reason that he left college was that his health became impaired.

Failing health compelled him to leave college.

It was not long before he was very sorry that he had said what he had.

He soon repented his words.  

Passive voice, besides leading to wordiness, takes the authors out of your argument. Through Liubov’s tone when talking about the

orchard, the audience is provided with an insight into ….

Better (active voice):Chekhov uses Liubov’s tone when talking about the orchard to provide the audience with an insight into…

The Vicario house is depicted as a typical Latin American home…

Better (active voice):Marquez depicts the Vicario house as a typical Latin American home…

If the IB gods can flip through an essay and see that you are regularly using the authors’ names, you are on track, because you are making an argument about the author’s choices.

If you have trouble identifying passive voice, wordiness, or other style issues in your writing… Use Word’s Grammar and Style functionWord 2010: Click on "File" menu Select "Options" on left hand side of screen Select "Proofing" on left hand side of screen Under 3rd option, "When correcting spelling and

grammar in Word" , look for "Writing Style." Next to it is a dropdown box that says "Grammar Only." Change to "Grammar and Style". Then click  "Settings." (Look through list of style and grammar errors and check off those you want it to mark.)

Older Word: Grammar and Style: Options In both cases, check boxes for problems you are having

(passive voice, wordiness, etc.)

Transitions: The Glue That Holds Your Paper Together

And helps your reader follow the logic of your argument

Transitions Establish logical connections between

sentences, paragraphs, sections of paper Key to good transitions: they highlight

connections between corresponding paragraphs by referencing relevant material from previous ones

Often only takes a few words to draw these connections

Readers need stepping stones/sign posts to follow your logic

Weak transitions Do not clarify the logic of your argument Often these are formulaic:

Overall In conclusion For example On the other hand To summarize Therefore In this way Hence For instance In addition

Examples ORIGINAL: Love in this novel only fulfills social obligations, not

the needs of the lovers. “Contract of love” indicates love as a business transaction or legal entity rather than something emotional. With this phrase, Marquez emphasizes what this society lacks.In addition, as the narrator explains the relationship between Santiago and Maria Alejandrina Cervantes, he writes…

REVISED: Marquez presents another example of love as a

duty rather than a pleasure when the narrator explains the relationship….

ORIGINAL:Marquez reminds the reader that while humans may

be superior to other animals, it takes surprisingly little for one as powerful as Santiago to be gutted like a rabbit.

In The Cherry Orchard Chekhov incorporates money as a motif…

REVISED: Marquez reminds the reader that while humans may

be superior to other animals, it takes surprisingly little for one as powerful as Santiago to be gutted like a rabbit.

While Marquez uses entrails as a motif to demonstrate the frailty of the human body, Chekhov incorporates a different sort of motif, that of money, to focus specifically on the frailty of the Ranevsky family’s social status.

Types of Transitions Transition words or phrases: All the way from “and” and “but” to

“nevertheless” and “on the other hand”: but don’t just stick them in…make sure they clarify logic of argument

Repetition of key words and phrases: these can help the reader move from one paragraph to the next and one sentence to the next

Pronoun reference: pronouns naturally connect ideas because they refer to something earlier in the text.

BUT: it must always be VERY CLEAR what the pronoun refers to. Otherwise it is an UNCLEAR PRONOUN REFERENCE (U.P.R.)

Integrating Quotations Lead-ins MUST provide clear context and must

avoid run-ons and comma splices.CORRECT THE ERRORS

The twins consistently tell people about the murder but the town takes little action to alert Santiago ,“Those two aren’t about to kill anybody”(Marquez 55).

Trofimov, for example, looks intently towards the future: “It’s a big country and a beautiful one: it has lots of wonderful places in it” (Chekhov 360).

Support Dropping Not using or under-using your support. At the end of Act 4, Chekhov further creates a

sense of ambiguity in the last words and actions of the character Firs: “No strength left, nothing left, not a thing…Oh, you. You young flibbertigibbet. [Lies there, no longer moving]” (chekhov 385). (Where is your interpretation of the text? Missing.) The fate of First is left for the audience to interpret, leaving it wondering what happens….

Be Concise Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary

words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

Make every word count.

Wordy Concise the question as to whether vs. whether there is no doubt but that vs. no doubt used for fuel purposes vs. used for fuel he is a man who vs. he in a hasty manner vs. hastily this is a subject which vs. this subject His story is a strange one. vs. His story is

strange.

Grammar and Punctuation errors I should Not be Seeing by 12th grade… Fragments Comma splices Incorrect apostrophe use (not knowing the

difference between possessives and plurals) Run-ons

If you are making these errors and one of your writing goals is to correct one of these errors, go to Purdue OWL or University of North Carolina Writing Center and learn how to correct them (linked to my web page).

Other Common Problems to Work On Incorrect semicolon use Incorrect verb tense (use present tense in lit.

papers)

Reflection and Goal Setting What did I do well in this essay? What was one weakness in this essay? Set two specific, attainable goals you’d like to

work towards in your next piece of writing. For example:

1. I want to remember to keep the authors in my argument throughout the essay. 2. I want to remove passive voice from my writing and remember to write in active voice.