Literature – Professor Tips

Interview with Professor Barnaby, December 4, 2012.

Conducted by Erik Wallenberg, Graduate Research Assistant, Writing in the Disciplines.

What is one thing that students must never forget about writing papers about literature for English classes?

A lot depends on the assignment. Be clear about what the assignment is. A typical course assignment will involve some analysis of literary text; maybe not the meaning of a literary text, but the meaningfulness of a literary text. (It could ask what does this poem by Shakespeare mean or what does it make me feel, but it could also be about what the historical context of the writing is. An example could be a student in American Poetry, reading Robert Frost. It doesn’t come with a rule book. Unlike history that looks at questions of why things came into being, using the example of the poem by Frost, it’s not clear what you are supposed to do with it. You don’t need to summarize it. That doesn’t get you any closer to the meaning of it. The main thing to look for is if the essay has an argument. What is the course I’m in? What is the knowledge base that I should be engaging with? Am I dealing with secondary literature, looking at and comparing others arguments.) A lot of students aren’t aware that there is an argument guiding their work. The most important thing is, “Do I have an argument? What constitutes a literary argument? How do I generate an argument?” Students need to know what the assignment is asking. What sort of assignment is this? If you’re not sure you should clarify that with the instructor.

What makes you go “Wow” when reading papers? -in a good way?

My courses are mostly the study of literature. My assignments will involve some attempt to include a critical analysis of the text; explain it, break it down, put it back together. What impresses me is 3 things, taken from Quintilian, the famous Roman rhetorician of expository writing, or argumentative writing:

• First, from the Latin is inventio, or discovery, the argument that is really interesting.
• Second, dispositio, the ordering of things or construction of the argument. It’s the hardest part of writing. What is going to count as evidence for the argument? What do you look at? How do you break it down?
• Third, elocutio, the writing mechanics or nice writing. Not too many passive verbs, an interesting blending of complex and simple sentences, weave together paragraphs in interesting ways with clear transitions between ideas and paragraphs.

What would wow me is when all these parts are done really well. When I’m evaluating a piece, I’m often seeing the core idea as really great, and maybe the writing of sentences was really great. But the way you arranged it didn’t really make your case very well. You sort of jumped around, you didn’t work in order, you said this on page one and it should have been said on page 6, and you said this on page 6 when it should have been on page one. Obviously if you had infinite amount of time to revise, you could get at that, but functioning on each of those levels to some extent.

What makes you go “Wow” when reading papers? -in a bad way?

English majors that I see rarely come to a paper where they don’t have an idea at all. Maybe they come see me and we chat about it or we talk about it in class. But students usually have ideas that are intriguing. Students usually have the hardest time organizing their argument in a paper. It’s the hardest part of writing, generally. It’s hard work outlining, keeping notecards, keeping notes on-line. You don’t just plop down the argument. You have to develop it. In some ways it’s the least fun. It’s hard work. They have a great idea, but are not sure how to get from point a, to point b, to point z. As a teacher, I don’t want to just tell you how to get there. It might be a lot of hard work and frustration, and that’s where people tend to have writers block because they wonder ‘where am I going to go now in the argument. I want to talk about this part, but I haven’t yet talked about this other part, and that’s confusing.’ So that’s a problem and the most difficult part generally.

At the elocutio level, at the sentence level, a lot of students are really good writers, even if they’re not sure what they want to say in terms of the structure of the argument. Less good writers you see passive voice, sentence run-ons, sentence fragments, paragraphs without clear transitions. Most English majors are decent writers. Many are fantastic. And very few I see struggling at the most basic level. Getting students to be great writers is a lot of work. Most universities aren’t set up to help students become great writers. I personally wish we were more set up to do that. Few writing classes are able to help students’ at the most basic level. We have English 1, but we should have English 2. That would be something like, ‘Writing with Style’ or ‘The Mechanics of Writing,’ but we don’t have that. And it’s so time consuming to work on that, so it’s hard for instructors to work on that with students.

What can turn a good paper into a great paper?

Revision! I have to work through multiple drafts, As a faculty member I have a lot of time to do that and I know the subject better, so it’s easy for me to recognize that ‘this argument is not doing what I want it to do’ or ‘I’m saying what this other person is saying and what’s the point in saying something that’s already been said. But we’re not demanding that students write things that can be published. It’s very hard, in any context, to write a really great paper in one draft. Some classes have multi-draft revisions built in, but many don’t. But to the extent that you can work through multiple drafts, you’ll almost always do better in your draft in the same way you’ll do better on your second SAT’s. Even if it’s just talking through the paper with the faculty member, you’ll almost always do better. I’m sympathetic to students who get essays back with some markings and you can go to the writing center or talk to the teacher, but Revision is not just correcting writing mistakes. Revision literally means to see again; to think about it in a different context. You might have three great paragraphs in the middle of the paper. That doesn’t mean just fix the mistakes in the other paragraphs. You might realize that the idea you thought was governing the paper, is in fact not governing the paper, so you need to use your three good paragraphs to rewrite your introduction, thesis statement, and conclusion. Revision is not just going to improve your essay. You will learn a lot more about writing by revising. You really learn how to write by revising. Computers make that so much easier. When I was in college we didn’t have computers. The reality is computers allow you to edit very efficiently. You can cut things out, move things around. Obviously we can lose our work. Computers can so simplify the revision process, on a technical level, that you should have more time to take the revision seriously.

What is your favorite database for online research?

It’s probably whatever Blackboard site I’ve created for the class. It’s not Wikipedia. I try to avoid assignments with a lot of stuff online because it encourages cheating way too easily. That said, there is a variety of places you might find online literary sources, like JSTOR, but I would link to this from Blackboard. I structure courses that are very difficult to do research on-line. I like students, if they are going to do research, to go to the library. There could be two films and a teleplay over at Media Resources, and you need to compare and contrast that.

Any last advice for writing papers about literature, whether for the intro courses or upper levels?

Students do not go to office hours nearly enough. Office hours are part of the course. They think of it as something you have to do if you aren’t getting the material. But talking to the teacher for 15 minutes, you understand the assignment so much better. If you’re confused about what the assignment is at all, don’t talk to other students, go to the teacher. Teachers always give more away than they think. Like, ‘If I were you I’d look at Act 3 scene 2 of Hamlet.’ Of course in a sense they are rewarding students for coming to office hours. Even if you haven’t written anything, but you have some ideas. You’ll gain a lot more by spending 30 minutes in office hours than spending time talking to other students about what they’re doing.

Proofreading is also a good idea. You have spellcheck, but grammarcheck does not work.

When teachers do write on papers, it’s meant to be useful feedback. Let’s say someone is constantly mistaking its for it’s or vice versa. If a teacher circles it or highlights it, don’t make that mistake again. Look at it, look at the comments; whether it’s about the particulars of your writing mechanics or the nature of your argument. Especially if you’re doing a revision, you should look at the comments. Going to the writing center is great but you might go to the teacher first.

Concluding paragraphs are not nearly as important as introductory paragraphs. There are a lot of really great essays that have pretty mediocre concluding paragraphs but almost always have killer introductory paragraphs. A lot of students have this weird vague sense from writing the five paragraph essay that their concluding paragraph should restate the argument. That usually leads to the worst concluding paragraphs. I think if the intro paragraph is really good then the structure of the essay is good. It often happens that what is really good shows up in their final paragraph but that should be in the opening paragraph. Most students sum up what they have done in their essay at the end, because they realize what their argument has been, but they should switch this to their intro…

Interview with Professor Fenton, December 10, 2012.

Conducted by Erik Wallenberg, Graduate Research Assistant, Writing in the Disciplines.

What is one thing that students must never forget about writing papers about literature for English classes?

For a literature paper, you have to have an argument. It’s not enough to describe or summarize a text. We are looking for a thesis statement that someone might take issue with, a claim that is supported by evidence, is clearly articulated. And not just an observation, but some account of why it’s important.

What makes you go “Wow” when reading papers? -in a good way?

here are a few different things I find really exciting in student papers. A really clear argument, where the student is making a discernible claim about the text, and then they tell me why it’s so important, that I understand the observation they are making.

The other thing that really impresses me is when a student integrates their evidence into their own prose seamlessly. When they don’t just show me a citation, but set it up and explain it. When a student does a kind of brilliant, close analysis of the text and really explains to me why the evidence they are using is the best evidence for their claim and what the link is between the quote they are showing me and the argument they are making. That gets me happy!

I love a good introduction. Not one that is cleaver and flashy, but clearly articulates the argument, sets up the main claim, explains why it matters, and gives me a good sense of the organization and flow of the paper as a guide. An introduction that cleanly and cogently gets to the point tells me that the rest of the paper is going to be really clear. I do like a good beginning.

What makes you go “Wow” when reading papers? -in a bad way?

Plagiarism. Nothing makes me madder than plagiarism. And it’s not as hard to detect as students might imagine. We’ve read the Spark Notes for the things that we teach and we’re not fools and we know how to do Google searches.

Setting that aside, one of the biggest mistakes students make is to write a warm-up paragraph to get started, and then they leave it as the introduction. Writing two pages of irrelevant information about the author or historical context that doesn’t have anything to do with the argument the student is making is always disappointing. Writing factoids about the author creates distance between the reader, the argument, and the text the student is writing about.

I also dislike long block quotes without an explanation. If you are going to quote a paragraph of a novel and then write one sentence about it, then there is a real imbalance in the work. Letting the author of a text do more of the work than you do is a problem. Your analysis should always be longer than the text you’re citing; otherwise your reader could just read the primary material.

What can turn a good paper into a great paper?

There is no formula for writing a great paper. In the revision process, work on the thesis statement. Students often use placeholder language, like “This image or this device tells us something important about what the author is doing.” The part that tells us something important is the part that needs to be unpacked. A good paper will highlight an important part of the text or context; that is a good observation. The hard thing is to figure out what that important thing is; a great observation will tell us why it’s important.

Very close attention to the evidence. A great paper will show you examples in the text that are thoroughly analyzed.

A strong conclusion is important. A lot of students tend to write summery paragraphs for the conclusion, which for a long paper can actually be quite useful. In a 25-30 page paper you might need at the end of the paper to return to the main moves and take the reader back through them as a reminder. But for shorter undergraduate papers (8-15 pages), your reader does not need to be reminded where you have been. So either a strong conclusion that draws the argument to a logical close and finishes on a high note, or after all your hard intellectual work is done, to push the paper in a new direction that’s more speculative. Tell us what are the new questions raised and something more to think about. Having a last paragraph that begins, “In conclusion” can be really deflating as a reader, because it’s boring and unnecessary and feels like a placeholder. If you’re going to add meat to your paper add it in the middle as argument, not at the end as summary.

What is your favorite database for online research?

Hands down, the MLA International Bibliography. Many students like to use JSTOR and Project MUSE. But students don’t realize that the MLA database links to JSTOR and MUSE. In addition, MLA often includes book chapters as well as the oldest information to the newest available. It’s the broadest and deepest database for literary studies. I also think that sometimes checking out a physical book is the best thing you can do.

Any last advice for writing papers about literature, whether for the intro courses or upper levels?

The best advice is to start early. Make sure that you understand the assignment and be clear on what the expectations are. Talk to the professor if you are not sure. This can be especially true for paper assignments, because unlike an exam where the expectation is clear, paper assignments can feel more nebulous. Professors often leave room for a range of writing styles and approaches to be acceptable and that can leave students unmoored. So talk to the faculty. It takes time and thinking to craft a thesis statement and write an argument. Start with the evidence you want to use. It doesn’t work to come up with a thesis statement and then try and make the evidence fit the argument. Analyze the text first and see what it’s telling you. Evidence produces a thesis.