1) Thesis presentation in your first paragraph

The paper should go well beyond summarizing, though a little summarizing may be necessary as context for quotations and (in your first paragraph) just to explain what kind of story you are dealing with. The last several sentences of your first paragraph should explain what specific, manageable section of the text you will write about and why you are going to write about it. The “why” part should be more specific than “I want to explore certain characters’ actions and relationships, and later on I’ll tell you what the point of doing that was.” Your reader wants to know what you have already discovered and what you will, therefore, be explaining in detail later. That’s deductive structure, as illustrated in the Dante paper online: here’s my argument / now I’m citing and analyzing key passages to show how I arrived at it / now I am wrapping up the argument and reflecting on it.

2) Argument structure and handling of quotations in the main essay

The aim here is to offer reasonably sustained analysis of substantive quotations for which you’ve provided sufficient context, and a conclusion that develops logically from the middle section without simply repeating your thesis. Ideally, there should not be only extremely brief quotations; as in our Dante sample paper, it improves a paper’s emphasis and structure to showcase a few longer passages and stay with them.

3) Grammar and Style

Grammar and style—key things are consistent verb tense use (present tense is usually best), active voice, and straightforward (not wordy or contorted) sentence structure. A Works Cited page should be included even if you only cite the assigned text/s, and MLA quotation formatting should be correct—see the sample Dante essay online. Failure to proofread and edit carefully in the final stages is a major factor in poor grades.

More thoughts on style: Avoid vague introductory language or empty praise of the author in question. A statement like “Throughout history so-and-so has been considered a great author” is padding if it shows up in a final draft. Get rid of such sentences that function only as “warm-up” for specific analysis, somewhat like filler in everyday conversation. Try speaking your paper out loud, and you will get rid of many filler phrases and wordy constructions. Sure, we make mistakes in everyday speech, but at least we don’t say things like “objective consideration of contemporary phenomena necessitates the inevitable conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity….”

GRADES FOR THE FINAL DRAFT:

If you earn a B+, an A—, or an A, that’s great. The A range grades mean that I really didn’t see major problems in your thesis, your handling of quotations and organization of the essay, or your grammar and style. I found your paper sophisticated and well written. If you earn a B+ or A—, that generally means your thesis was good but that the grammar and style issues kept the paper from being an outright “A.” I have marked up a few pages of your essay to indicate any problems with grammar and style, and possibly with minor thesis/content issues if I found any.

If you get a B, that’s good, too. A “B” is solid work, with some room for improvement both in terms of content (i.e. thesis presentation and inclusion/handling of quotations), and style/grammar. The paper markup should indicate some areas in need of work.

If you earn a B— or C+, that’s no catastrophe, but you can do better. Invariably what this range of grades means is that grammar/style problems slowed me down when I was reading your paper, even if they didn’t keep me from understanding the basic argument. Often additional problems were that the thesis remained somewhat general and that the paper didn’t make its case mainly through analysis of specific quotations.

If you do not get at least a C, the grade means that I saw some serious problems with both content/organization and with grammar/style, or that you simply didn’t meet the requirements for the paper – i.e. you turned in a one-pager with no textual analysis, or some such thing.