A General Description of "A" and "C" Papers
The following is a list of key aspects of the craft of fine essay writing. An “A” paper gives close attention to each of these aspects, working all of them into the essay with a determination to carry them ever deeper and further, until the subject has been thoroughly explored and the text shaped and developed to perfection. A “C” paper usually will keep most, sometimes all, of these aspects in mind, but will fall short of staying with the writing until each aspect has been fully perfected and realized. As part of this handout, you will be given an example of a “C” paper. The paper is greatly underdeveloped. It's structure reflects both a lack of care and a dearth of inspiration. The train of logic in several paragraphs is shaky, at best. Worst of all, the points made by the student reflect a shallow engagement with the subject of the essay. After studying the aspects of fine essay writing listed below, see if you can write out a list of “instructions” for the imagined author of the essay, pointing out ways the essay could be improved in revision, and possibly brought up to the standard of a grade of “A.”
THE PARAGRAPH. A paragraph is a closely-knit bundle of thoughts, focusing to a large extent on a single idea or subject. The central idea of a paragraph ought to relate to the paragraphs that immediately precede and follow it, as well as to the central thrust of the essay as a whole. When a new central idea is introduced into the essay, it will require its own new paragraph. The paragraph is the most important unit of your essay in it's contribution to the work as a whole.
CONTENT OF THE ESSAY. The ideas, arguments, quotes, excerpts, examples used, and, at times, narrative illustrations presented in an essay comprise its content. A good essay presents an interesting array of these building blocks, structured logically and inventively. However, the most important aspect of an essay's content is its substantiveness. The substantiveness of your essay will be directly related to how interested and invested you are in your subject. The more you care about your subject, the more substantive your writing will be.
STRUCTURE OF THE ESSAY. Structure, in an essay, becomes a consideration with every sentence and paragraph you write. Structuring is also something you want to consider carefully in regard to the essay as a whole. A sentence, as a unit, has a form and shape - a beginning, middle, and end. So does a paragraph. So does your essay as a whole.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ESSAY. The development, in revision, of each paragraph and building block in your essay should comprise most of the writing energy that goes into the work. New writers tend to write very sketchy and under-developed essays in which very little energy is given to revision. The development of the paragraphs and building blocks of your essay involves building into them all the interesting and pertinent new thoughts, examples, illustrations, etc., that come to you as they relate to the core ideas. Your essay as a whole is developed by presenting a rich array of well developed building blocks – ideas, illustrations, examples, and substantiating passages of text, all of which relate to (and present some new window into) the central topic of the essay.
ATTENTION TO LOGIC. From the beginning to end of a paragraph, the thread of your logic must (a) have no breaks, and (b) hold true. The same can be said for your essay as a whole.
ATTENTION TO COHERENCE. Examine each sentence, paragraph, and section in your essay. Does every sentence, paragraph, and section make perfect sense? Word of advise: Write your essay in language that feels natural and comfortable to you. Trying to write in fancy language, or language that is not natural to you, will trip you up every time
FOCUS OF THE ESSAY. Is your essay built around one clearly-defined topic some aspect of which is clearly perceivable all the way through?
ATTENTION TO UNITY. Does every sentence and paragraph, example and illustration in your essay relate to your core topic in some central and fundamental way?
STAYING SPECIFIC. Inexperienced writers often write in abstract-sounding generalities. (Example: Going to college was a fulfillment of a life-long dream. I set my priorities and established my goals. Now I'm so happy, and life is so beautiful, because I feel like I'm on my way.) Generalities (which are dead-easy to write - and therefore reached for late at night by exhausted students with a mountain of assignment to get through) sound good, but lack meaning. Like sand castles, they disintegrate when touched. They lack substantiveness. They give us nothing solid to take hold of and think about, or even care about in any real way. By contrast, developing the central idea of each of your paragraphs with specific thoughts, ideas, examples, and illustrations, will create a solid intellectual landscape for us to enter and move around in, dialogue with, debate, and take further with ideas and insights of our own. (Example: I had to work as a ticket taker in a cinema for two years to save money to go to college. Doing that toughened me up (just barely in time) for the wild life going on in the hallways of my dorm, for the heaps of homework assigned to us every night, for the mind-jarring swing of having too much social life to deal with one week and not enough the next, and for surviving on junk food in place of what our cafeteria euphemistically calls meals. I encountered all of this during my first week of school. I am learning things, though – like the make up of a single, living cell, and how to write a well-constructed paragraph, and why the Louis and Clark Expedition in the early part of the Nineteenth Century actually has bearing on what this country is all about now, a year and a half post September 11th. I guess college is worth all those hours of taking movie tickets. I'm glad I'm here.)
USING QUOTES, ILLUSTRATIONS, AND EXAMPLES AS SUBSTANTIATION. Your personal opinion on a given subject is important to you, but you should not assume that it's automatically and immediately important to the readers of your essay. If you simply state an opinion (however emphatically or passionately), the response from your reader is likely to be, “Hey! We're at a dead end here, because I disagree,” or, “Give me one good reason why I should I buy that?” or, “No offence, but why should I care how you feel about that?” If you substantiate your opinion on a given subject with quotes from other sources, with examples of how and why something is wrong, or right, and with illustrations making your meaning even more clear, you're likely to solicit a much more energetic response from your readers. You'll get them to think in new channels and engage them in debate – two of the reasons we write essays in the first place.