John Stevens, Temple College, "Lecture 16: Steps for Writing a Paper, a Unit Test Essay, and a Post-Assessment Essay"

The purpose of this lecture is to give you a set of requirements for your Fiction Paper, Research Paper, the essay portions of Unit Tests, and the Post-Assessment Essay. These are the absolute basics, and no one will do well unless they follow these requirements.

In this course students must demonstrate that they have grasped the concept of using literary devices to explain theme.

Begin by using devices and theme in the thesis:

Whether you are writing the Fiction Paper, the Research Paper, an essay portion of a Unit Test, or the essay portion of the Post-Assessment, your paper must include a thesis statement as the final sentence of your introductory paragraph; the thesis must actually name all the devices (plot, setting, symbols, and so on) that the paper will use to analyze your primary text, and the thesis must state that the devices are being used to better understand a particular theme.

Example of a possible thesis:

This paper will show that Shakespeare uses symbols, allegory, and character development to illustrate the theme of deception in Macbeth.

The example of a thesis above leaves no doubt that the reader of your paper will understand exactly the literary devices that will be used to explain a particular theme in your primary text. Your thesis should be equally as clear as the example thesis.

STEP 1:

An introductory paragraph of biographical information on your author; this paragraph must fall between 125 - 150 words; if the word count does not fall between 125 - 150 words, a minimum of 10% of the paper's grade will be deducted.

Remember that in this paragraph you will be using biographical facts that are all over the Internet, in our course book, and in various databases such as The Dictionary of Literary Biography, so BE CAREFUL NOT TO PLAGIARIZE IN THIS PARAGRAPH; plagiarism can be easily avoided by using short direct quotations, by paraphrasing effectively, and by citing your sources.

Do not treat lightly the possibility of committing plagiarism in this paragraph of your paper; you cannot simply change some words here and there and call it a paraphrase. Effective paraphrasing means putting the information entirely into your own words.

In short, your introductory paragraph should do the following:

Introduce the name of the author you are writing about along with the biographical information, totaling about 100 words.

Put most of the biographical information into your own words by paraphrasing your source, and make certain to include appropriate parenthetical citations. For the parts of the biographical information that are not in your own words, you must use some VERY SHORT direct quotations from your source as necessary, and of course, parenthetical citations are required here too.

Next, include a transitional sentence that names your primary text. An example is something to the effect of "One of Flannery O'Connor's most widely studies short stories is "Everything That Rises Must Converge."

Finish the paragraph with the thesis statement, which must specifically name all the literary devices the paper will use to analyze the theme of the primary text. The specific theme must also be named in the thesis statement. All of this should put the paragraph at a word count of 125 - 150words.

STEP 2:

This section can be a single paragraph or more than one paragraph that is an analysis driven by one of the following: irony, symbols, allegory, point of view, or conflict.

For example, if you have chosen to analyze symbols in "The Things They Carried," then you could claim that Martha's letters are a symbol for whatever you believe the letters symbolize. Include a reference to or quotation from a point in the primary text where the letters are the focus, and cite your reference or quotation. Follow this with your analysis that explains how/why the letters symbolize whatever you have claimed they symbolize.

Following this procedure would demonstrate adequacy; however, a superior effort would take one addtional step, which would be to explain how your analysis of the symbol illustrates the theme that you identified in your thesis statement. If you have more than one symbol to analyze in this section, repeat this procedure for each symbol analyzed. Place much importance throughout your paper on how the devices illustrate theme, for this is an critically important element in determining the grade your paper can receive.

STEP 3:

This section can be a single paragraph or more than one paragraph that is an analysis driven by one of the following: character development, setting, or foreshadowing.

For example, if you have chosen to analyze setting in "Young Goodman Brown," then you could claim that the forest as a setting . . . (whatever you believe the forest as setting helps readers to understand). Include a reference or quotation to a point in the primary text where the forest (whatever you believe the forest as setting helps readers to understand), and cite your reference or quotation. Follow this with your analysis that explains how/why the forest (whatever you believe the forest as setting helps readers to understand).

Following this procedure would demonstrate adequacy; however, a superior effort would take one addtional step, which would be to explain how your analysis of the symbol illustrates the theme that you identified in your thesis statement. If you have more than one symbol to analyze in this section, repeat this procedure for each symbol analyzed. Place much importance throughout your paper on how the devices illustrate theme, for this is an critically important element in determining the grade your paper can receive.

STEP 4:

This section can be a single paragraph or more than one paragraph that is an analysis of theme using plot; this section should be between 200 - 225 words. If this section does not fall between a word count of 200 - 225, a minimum of 10% of the paper's grade will be deducted. Conclude this section with two or three sentences that serve as a conclusion to the overall paper, and avoid the phrase, "in conclusion," or anything of the like.

Adequacy versus Superiority: More about devices, theme, and references to and quotations from your primary text:

Devices and Theme:

When writing papers that are driven by an analysis that uses literary devices to illustrate a theme, students often make the fundamental error of doing too little to explain theme.

For example, using a device to illustrate the theme of lonliness is an acceptable approach, but if your analysis does little more than state that the forest is a lonely place, then theme has not been illustrated well.

Remember that a device is simply a tool through which the more important issue of theme is understood better.

References and Quotations From Your Primary Text:

By "references to your primary text," I mean that if you are writing about "The Things They Carried," and you state that Jimmy Cross burned Martha's letters, you should include a parenthetical citation that gives the page number from our course book, which allows the reader of your paper to reference that event in the story by going to the exact page where it occurs. These types of references to your primary text should certainly be a part of this section.

By "quotations from your primary text," I mean that if you are writing about "The Things They Carried," and you state that Jimmy Cross feels guilty about the death of Ted Lavendar, you must locate the place in the primary text where the narrator or Cross states this, and then include the quotation and cite it parenthetically. These types of quotations from your primary text should certainly be a part of this section.

MLA Style Guidelines are a critically important aspect of this course, and your written works are an opportunity to demonstrate your skill level, so paraphrase and quote from your primary text and from scholarly sources.