CHAPTER
ONE
CORRECTNESS The ability to write a correct, formal essay is a requirement of academic achievement. Most academic work is submitted as formal writing, and there are standards of correct word usage, sentence structure, punctuation, paragraphing, and essay elements (including the structure of the essay, the quality of the reasoning, the merit of the thesis, and the presentation and documentation of quoted evidence). These standards are expected in advanced school work, in colleges and universities, in graduate schools, and in the professions. Do we see published works that do not adhere to correct standards? Yes, sometimes, but those works are of an informal genre ( pronounced JON-ruh, kind) where casual words, colloquial sentences, and conversational tone is permitted. We might see informal writing in novels, short stories, trendy magazines, or journals. We should not imagine from the informal sentences in a novel that the novelist is incapable of formal writing or could not adhere to formal standards. Furthermore, a knowledge of correct standards is not less necessary for a creative writer. If you know how to write correctly, know how to use words properly, know how to punctuate, know how to organize paragraphs and longer works, this makes you more—not less—capable of excellent creative writing. Ignorance is never a creative advantage. In this book we will explore the elements of the correct, formal essay—the kind of essay that will be expected and graded in English classes, history classes, science classes, and all other classes where we are expected to write essay exams, research papers, critical responses, and other correct, formal analyses of academic subjects. Correct writing involves knowing and thinking about the correct use of words, sentences, paragraphs, and essay elements. word - sentence - paragraph - essay 5
A CORRECT ESSAY Scholarly essays have important elements in common, and as we gain experience writing essays, they become a powerful way of thinking. 1. The essay is a three-part exploration of one subject, called the thesis. This thesis is the focus of the essay, and nothing not about it may enter the essay. The thesis is expressed in the title, it is introduced in the introduction, developed in the body, and brought to its highest expression in the conclusion. Everything points to the thesis. 2. The essay has three sections. First, the introduction explains what the essay is about and the purpose, goal, or question of the essay. The introduction of a short essay may only be one paragraph, but longer essays may use more than one paragraph to suggest the complexities and problems of the subject. Second, the body of the essay usually contains three or more (sometimes many more) paragraphs. In the body the different parts of the argument are arranged; the different areas of evidence are presented; the reader is informed by all of the facts, and the case is made. Third, the conclusion brings all of the facts and ideas of the body together and assesses the meaning of the total evidence. The conclusion is the first moment that the reader is finally in possession of all of the facts, so it must tie the loose threads of the argument into a coherent meaning. 3. The essay is meaningful; it has a worthwhile thesis. If the reader is going to devote time to reading the essay, it must be worth reading. An essay communicates a truth that we care about. 4. We often teach the essay with a five-paragraph model. Students can learn the principles of the essay from this little model and then advance to more complicated essays that have more paragraphs but are still organized into the same three sections. The actual size of an essay is a function of the size and complexity of the subject; a tiny essay—five paragraphs, for example—can only address a tiny topic.
18
Quis Mihi Dabit Adquiescere in Te Quis mihi dabit adquiescere in te? quis dabit mihi, ut venias in cor meum et inebries illud, ut obliviscar mala
INTRODUCE THESIS mea et unum bonum meum amplectar, te? quid mihi es? miserere, ut loquar. quid tibi sum ipse, ut amari te iubeas
a me et, nisi faciam, irascaris mihi et mineris ingentes miserias? parvane ipsa est, si non amem te? ei mihi! dic mihi per miserationes tuas, domine deus meus,INTRODUCTION quid sis mihi. dic animae meae: salus tua ego sum. sic dic, ut audiam. ecce aures cordis mei ante te, domine; aperi eas et dic animae meae: salus tua ego sum. curram post vocem hanc et adprehendam te. noli abscondere a me faciem tuam: moriar, ne moriar, ut eam videam. Magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde: magna virtus tua, et sapientiae tuae non est numerus. et laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae, et homo circumferens mortalitem suam, circumferens testimonium peccati sui et testimonium, quia superbis resistis: et tamen laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae.tu excitas, ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te. da mihi, domine, scire et intellegere, utrum sit prius invocareBODY te an laudare te, et scire te prius sit an invocare te. sed quis te invocat nesciens te? aliud enim pro alio potest invocare nesciens. an potius invocaris, ut sciaris? quomodo autem invocabunt, in quem non crediderunt? aut quomodo credent sine praedicante? et laudabunt dominum qui requirunt eum. quaerentes enim inveniunt eum et invenientes laudabunt eum. quaeram te, domine, invocans te, et invocem te credens in te: praedicatus enim es nobis. invocat te, domine, fides mea, quam dedisti mihi, quam inspirasti mihi per humanitatem filii tui, per ministerium praedicatoris tui. Quid est ergo deus meus? quid, rogo, nisi dominus deus? quis enim dominus praeter dominum? aut quis deus praeter deum nostrum? summe, optime, potentissime, omnipotentissime, misericordissime et iustissime, secretissime et praesentissime, pulcherrime et fortissime,stabilis et inconprehensibilis, inmutabilis, mutans omnia, numquam novus, numquam vetus, innovans omnia; in vetustatem perducens superboset nesciunt; semper agens, semper quietus, colligens et non egens, portans et implens et protegens, creans et nutriens, perficiens, quaerens, BODY DEVELOP THESIS cum nihil desit tibi. amas nec aestuas, zelas et securus es; paenitet te et non doles, irasceris et tranquillus es, opera mutasnec mutas consilium; recipis quod invenis et numquam amisisti; numquaminops et gaudes lucris, numquam avarus et usuras exigis. supererogaturtibi, ut debeas, et quis habet quicquam non tuum? reddens debita nullidebens, donans debita nihil perdens. et quid diximus, deus meus, vita mea, dulcedo mea sancta, aut quid dicit aliquis, cum de te dicit? et vae tacentibus de te, quoniam loquaces muti sunt. Sed tamen sine me loqui apud misericordiam tuam, me terram et cinerem,sine tamen loqui, quoniam ecce misericordia tua est, non homo, inrisormeus, cui loquor. et tu fortasse inrides me, sed conversus misereberismei. quid enim est quod volo dicere, domine, nisi quia nescio, unde venerim huc, in istam, dico vitam mortalem, an mortalem vitalem? nescio. et susceperunt me consolationes miserationum tuarum, sicut audivi a parentibus carnis meae, ex quo et in qua me formasti in tempore; non enim ego memini. exceperunt ergo me consolationes tactis BODY humani, nec mater mea vel nutrices meae sibi ubera implebant, sed ut mihi per eas dabes alimentum infantiae, secundum institutionem tuam, et divitias usque ad fundum rerum dispositas. tu etiam mihi dabas nolle amplius, quam dabas, et nutrientibus me dare mihi velle quod eisdabas: dare enim mihi per ordinatum affectum volebant quo abundabant ex te. nam bonum erat eis bonum meum ex eis, quod ex eis non, sed per eas erat: ex te quippe bona omnia, deus, et ex deo meo salus mihi universa. quod animadverti postmodum clamante te mihi per haec ipsa, quae tribuis intus et fori. Vel potius ipsa in me venit et successit infantiae? nec discessit illa: quo enim abiit? et tamen iam non erat. non enim eram infans, qui non farer, sed iam puer loquens eram. et memini hoc, et unde loqui didiceram, post adverti. non enim docebant me maiores homines, praebentes mihi verba certo aliquo ordine doctrinae sicut paulo post litteras, sed ego ipse mente, quam dedisti mihi, deus meus, cum gemitibus et vocibus variis et variis membrorum motibus edere vellem sensa cordis mei, ut voluntati pareretur, nec valerem quae volebam omnia nec quibus volebam omnibus. pensebam memoria: cumCONCLUSION ipsi appellabant rem aliquam et cum secundum eam vocem corpus CONCLUDE ad aliquidTHESIS movebant, videbam et tenebam hoc ab eis vocari rem illam, quod sonabant, cum eam vellent ostendere. hoc autem eos velle, ex motu corporis aperiebatur, tamquam verbis naturalibus omnium gentium, quae fiunt vultu et nutu oculorum certerorumque membrorum actu et sonitu vocis indicante affectionem anim in petendis, habendis, reiciendis fugiendisve rebus. ita verba in variis sententiis locis suis posita et crebro audita quarum rerum signa essent paulatim colligebam measque iam voluntates, edomito in eis signis ore, per haec enuntiabam. sic cum his, inter quos eram, voluntatum enuntiandarum signa conmunicavi; et vitae humanae procellosam societatem altius ingressus sum, pendens ex parentum auctoritate nutuque maiorum hominum.
19
1
2
3
CHAPTER
TWO
STRUCTURE Everything has parts, and the parts have parts. What is significant is that the parts are not unconnected or randomly heaped; they are correctly connected where they belong. If the parts were not connected in correct places, they would not construct their object. It is the sequence of parts, the relationship of parts, the effect one part has on another, that creates the functioning object. A pile of car parts is not a car. Building materials are not a house. The parts must be correctly constructed. An essay is a constructed structure. Its parts have names, and it follows rules for what each part does, for what sequence the parts must be in, and for how the parts must be connected. The first and most essential part of an academic essay is the main idea, the thesis. Sometimes this thesis is stated in a separate line before the essay even begins; other times the thesis is expressed in the introduction. The entire essay is devoted to making a case for the thesis. The essay itself has three parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. The introduction announces the thesis in a way that captures the reader’s interest; the body provides several paragraphs or more of organized information and evidence; the conclusion surveys all of the data and explains their meaning. Within the sections of the essay, there are parts also. The sections contain paragraphs, the paragraphs contain sentences, the sentences contain words and punctuation. We could look at the essay as a three-level entity: Level One: The Thesis Level Two: The Essay Structure: Introduction, Body, Conclusion Level Three: Paragraph, Sentence, Word, Punctuation
27
PRACTICE
Here is a sentence from Charles Dickens’s classic novel, David Copperfield. See how much of it you can analyze, and then your teacher can help you with any elements that you do not understand. From Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, 1850 I
had
no
peace
of
my
life
until
he
was
expatriated.
pron.
v.
adj.
n.
prep.
adj.
n.
conj.
pron.
v.
v.
PARTS OF SPEECH
______________________________________________________________________________ subj. AVP
PARTS OF
SENTENCE
D.O.
subj.
---------AVP----------
______________________________________________________________________________
PHRASES
CLAUSES
-----prep. phrase---______________________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------independent clause----------------------------------------------------independent clause--------------------------------dependent clause-------------an ID complex declarative sentence ______________________________________________________________________________
Comment: The structure of this sentence is correct. It is an ID complex sentence ______________________________________________________________________ that has two clauses. The first clause I had no peace of my life is independent, containing an action verb had and a direct object peace. The second clause until he ______________________________________________________________________ was expatriated is dependent, beginning with a subordinating conjunction until. The ______________________________________________________________________ action verb in the dependent clause, was expatriated, is in the passive voice. Active voice would be: They expatriated him. No comma should separate the clauses. ______________________________________________________________________
There will be a subject and predicate side of every clause.
32
PUNCTUATION One key to academic writing is to view punctuation not as a little thing but as a big thing. It is easy to be fooled by the physical smallness of a period or comma and to associate the importance of the rules with the size of the marks. In fact, little punctuation marks define big parts of sentences. A bad comma can destroy a sentence. Here are five more comma punctuation rules. 1. Put a comma before the coordinating conjunction that joins two independent clauses into a compound sentence. The rule could be expressed I,ccI. The patriarch revitalized the area, and the city grew.
2. Put a comma after a long introductory prepositional phrase. Before the speakerʼs introductory remarks, the symposium clapped.
3. Put a comma after an introductory dependent clause. The rule is D,I. Until he was expatriated, I had no peace of my life.
4. Do not put an unnecessary comma between a subject and its verb. Correct: Incorrect:
The indisputable masterpiece was her poem. The indisputable masterpiece, was her poem.
5. Do not put a comma after a short introductory prepositional phrase unless a comma is required to avoid a confusing meaning. At the trial the video provided indisputable evidence.
33
CLASSIC ESSAYS: EMERSON Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American poet, abolitionist, lecturer, and essayist who was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father called him a “rather dull scholar,” but he became one of the most famous orators in American history. His essay “Nature” gave national importance to the movement known as transcendentalism.
On August 31, 1837, Emerson gave an address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the subject of “The American Scholar.” Emerson began by fearing that we sink into the narrow limitations of our lives: Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship. In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking. 42
CHAPTER
THREE
UNITY Some essays are painful to read. Even if the essay is organized in the writer’s mind, the reader cannot find the thread. Is this last paragraph on page one another example of the idea in the paragraph above it, or is it the beginning of a new idea? What does this paragraph on page two have to do with the thesis? Why might a reader have difficulty with a well-organized essay? The problem is unity. Somehow, the words, sentences, and paragraphs of the essay do not project themselves as a unity. Even though they are about one thing, they do not seem to be. Essays do not have to be confusing. There are two writers’ secrets for creating unity: 1. Connecting words. The pieces of a ship are not a ship, and the pieces of an essay are only pieces. Each paragraph must have a word, phrase, sentence, or group of sentences that connect it to the previous paragraph and to the thesis. Sometimes an entire paragraph must be written just to bridge from one section of the essay to another. Every piece must be connected. 2. Micro-language. We sometimes say that you should not repeat a word over and over, that you should use different synonyms to avoid being repetitious. In an essay there is an exception to that good advice because if you keep switching synonyms, the reader might think you are now talking about different things. In an essay there should be two or three key words that do not change, that are always used to unify the essay: in the thesis, in the title, in the introduction, in the paragraphs of the body, and in the conclusion. These key words are a micro-langauge that ties everything together.
49
CHAPTER
FOUR
FORMALITY Learning to write an academic essay is a challenge, but the challenge can be met because the essay consists of a few named, recognizable parts. Grammar helps us use academic words correctly and write correct, complete sentences. Paragraphs are logical; it makes sense to put sentences about the same thing together. All of these components are easy to understand. What is not so easy to understand is the correct voice, the serious formal voice, of academic writing. Students sometimes struggle to hear that sound; they do not realize that it is incorrect to express academic ideas in a casual voice. They cannot hear the difference. They are dismayed when their sentences are marked incorrect. The cause of the problem is the dominant informality of the world; students rarely encounter academic writing or have extended exposure to academic spoken language. Students may only see entertainment or fashion magazines, see network television shows or action films, hear popular lyrics, or read novels in conversational dialogue. Even textbooks may have low vocabularies, and novels assigned at school may contain no formal narration, but be filled with casual dialogue. Students are immersed in casual English. They never experience the formal language that is expected in an academic essay. They do not read histories, biographies, scientific or historical journals. Informal English is all they know. Then, suddenly, they are asked to write a formal essay and told that it will be a major grade. They want to comply, but you cannot imitate what you have not seen, and they have never seen the formal academic language that is expected. How can students learn to write formal English when academic demands require it? There are two strategies:
73
CHAPTER
FIVE
WORDINESS Wordiness is the use of needless—therefore boring—words. In good writing every word counts. If the meaning of an adjective is implied by its noun, the adjective should be removed. Why should we delete needless words? We should delete them for the same reason that we delete repetitive sentences or unnecessary paragraphs. Good readers know when something has already been said, or when it contributes nothing to an argument. Good readers know when we waste their time. When we remove unnecessary words, we tighten the sentence. We take out its rubbish. We remove every paragraph, every sentence, and every individual word that drags a sentence out. We replace long words with words of fewer syllables. A five-word idea should be written in five words. If we write a five-word idea in ten words, it takes twice as long to read and is half as interesting. Without needless words, we have the same thought in a smaller space. The idea is more compact; it has more burst. Common examples of wordiness are self-references, clichés, adjectives that only repeat things asserted by their nouns, adverbs, general instead of specific words, and an overuse of big words. There are stock phrases that increase wordiness without improving meaning: every single one, after all is said and done, in my opinion, both of these, in any way shape or form, at the present time, at this point in time, a basic necessity, totally obvious, in light of the fact, each individual, and in the not too distant future are examples. When do we eliminate wordiness? We cut wordiness at two times: during writing and after writing. 99
Eliminate wordiness as you write. The American poet Carl Sandburg once said you have to write a poem “one word at a time.” What did Sandburg mean? He was referring to how we think when we write. If we write a diary, we do not think about the writing itself. The diary flows out of us in whole sentences or paragraphs, and the words come out in unexamined batches. When we write for publication or for a grade, we cannot be so oblivious. Academic writing demands that in addition to thinking about the content, we think about the writing itself, and this scrutiny extends down to the individual words. Like a poem, an essay must be written one word at a time. During the writing process, we must have an internal writer’s defense that rejects wordy phrases, repetitions, and needless words of all kinds. This takes thinking. This is not bad. The detailed thinking that a writer does is a wonderful experience. The adventure of thinking about language—the love of words—is one reason people want to be writers. As you write, eliminate wordiness from each sentence. Be wary of clichés and already-known ways of saying things. Be suspicious of adjectives and adverbs because they are often wordy. Eliminate wordiness when you edit. Editing your writing is not something you do in addition to writing; it is a main part of writing. The proofreading may take longer than the rough draft; it is where you change the essay from a rough idea to a clear statement. In proofreading we fix spelling errors, punctuation errors, and vocabulary errors, but we also fix errors of style, including wordiness. The secret to good editing is that when we revise, we do not add words, we take words out, we replace long wordings with short wordings. Let us look at a passage before, during, and after the editing process.
100
WORDY Trilobites were very complicated ocean-dwelling arthropods with compound eyes; in the early eras of the Earth they swam in the earth’s oceans throughout the Paleozoic Era and became totally extinct 251 million years ago in the great Permian extinction that at that point in time completely wiped out 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates that walked on land. Trilobites are often extremely well-preserved as fossils in the rocks because they had very hard exoskeletons, and the fossil record shows that there were over 17,000 completely different species of trilobites. Trilobites’ bodies had three lobes, a central lobe and a pleural lobe on either side. Their bodies were divided into segments, and they had a pair of legs under each segment, which made them adept at crawling over the sea floor of the ancient seas in the Paleozoic Era.
PROOFREADING Trilobites were very complicated ocean-dwelling arthropods with compound eyes; in the early eras of the Earth they swam in the earth’s oceans throughout the Paleozoic Era and became totally extinct 251 million years ago in the great Permian extinction that at that point in time completely wiped out 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates that walked on land. Trilobites are often extremely well-preserved as fossils in the rocks because they had very hard exoskeletons, and the fossil record shows that there were over 17,000 completely different species of trilobites. Trilobites’ bodies had three lobes, a central lobe and a pleural lobe on either side. Their bodies were divided into segments, and they had a pair of legs under each segment, which made them adept at crawling over the sea floor of the ancient seas in the Paleozoic Era.
CONCISE Trilobites were complex marine arthropods with compound eyes; they swam in the earth’s oceans throughout the Paleozoic Era and became extinct 251 million years ago in the Permian extinction that killed 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates. Trilobites are often well-preserved as fossils because they had hard exoskeletons, and the fossil record shows that there were 17,000 species of trilobites. Trilobites’ bodies had three lobes, a central lobe and a pleural lobe on each side. Their bodies were divided into segments with a pair of legs under each segment, which made them adept at crawling over the sea floor.
101
A CORRECT PARAGRAPH One of the best statements about writing is by George Orwell, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm. In 1946 Orwell wrote an essay entitled “Politics and the English Language,” deploring ugly, unclear writing with its clichés, wordiness, and pretentious diction. Orwell began some of his paragraphs with short titles: From George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth.
Orwell attacked wordiness that pads “each sentence with extra syllables,” such as saying render inoperative instead of break or militate against instead of stop. He objected to the replacement of sharp, concrete verbs such as break or kill by “generalpurpose” verbs such as serve, form, or render—bland verbs that do not suggest specific acts. He criticized passive voice and other devices (particularly the replacement of simple prepositions or conjunctions by wordy phrases), and he objected to ending sentences with tedious clichés, which he referred to as “commonplaces.” 111
CHAPTER
SIX
CONTENT Content differentiates academic essays from other forms of writing. There are genres of writing in which we write about ourselves, our feelings, our opinions, our responses, but most academic essays are not about ourselves. Academic essays are about academic knowledge: giant squids, new planets, William Shakespeare, gravitation, Socrates, the emergence of democracy in world history, the battle strategy of Alexander the Great at Gaugamela, or the iambic meter of a poem by Emily Dickinson. Academic essays are not about us; they are about it. Academic essays have to do with knowledge and the meaning of knowledge, and this means that writing an academic essay is not as easy as consulting our feelings; instead, we have to do time-consuming, intellectual work to learn facts and ideas. We read, take notes, and think. Academic essays report knowledge. In our electronic world of popular opinions and polls, it sometimes seems that there is no such thing as truth, that anything can be true to me, while its opposite is just as true to you. In academics, we rarely explore such relative thoughts, where opposite opinions are equal. We are looking for truths that are objective, where something can be right, and those who do not agree with it are wrong. In classical logic A equals A; if A is true, then its opposite not-A is false. A and not-A cannot both be true. In the academic essay we explore a subject and make a case about it by presenting checkable facts in a logical argument. The emphasis is not emotional or on what we prefer to believe, and the search is not only for facts that confirm what we already think. We keep our minds open. We let the facts make the conclusion. We learn.
123
CHAPTER
EIGHT
CONCLUSION As we have seen, a formal essay has three sections; the introduction and the body of the essay lead to the conclusion. Of the three the conclusion can be the most difficult to understand. Many a student says to a teacher, “I’m finished with my paper! All I have to do is write the conclusion.” The truth is, if you have not written the conclusion, you are not almost finished. The conclusion is not a brief summary sentence, a glorious utterance, after you have done all the real work in the body. Why not? It takes the entire body of the essay to deliver the facts. Until the body is finished, the reader is in no position to think about all of the facts together, nor are you able to discuss them. You cannot discuss what the reader does not yet know. The conclusion is your first opportunity to begin discussing all of the findings together. The conclusion is in many ways the most important section of an essay; it is where the meaning is assembled, where the main findings are related to one another, where reason is used to extract the clearest truth of the thesis. The conclusion uses the thesis words, the micro-language that has connected the essay from the beginning, and it shows how everything closes together around those words. This takes thought. Powerful conclusions require powerful thinking.
173
