The Excellence Essay

1. The Excellence Essay A Mandatory Revision

2. Principles of Revision • If you were to “renovate” your living room, what would you do? • Revision is not paint. • Revision is knocking out a wall and putting in hardwood floors. • Do not, DO NOT, look for the easy fixes. Think about every comment and seek to fix errors in a way that works for your essay and your argument. Often, it is through this revision that you must face the fact: Do you really, REALLY know what you are saying? • The more big changes you make, the better your revision grade will be. Essay writing is hard. It is a challenging process. Writing an essay once, quickly, will not normally get you an “A.” And if it has in high school, you might be shocked to find it doesn’t in college.

3. Grammar Notables • Numbers under 100 need to be written out: one, twenty-eight, ninety-seven, etc. • He went shopping, and then he ate. He went shopping and ate. (Commas). • Italicize for emphasis, do not use all-caps. • Run-ons. Avoid long winded sentences. Shorter sentences convey more meaning. Vary syntax. (We will discuss this more with 20 Sentence Patterns). • Word choice, awkward wording, too wordy. Want to make clear as possible for the reader.

4. Formatting Notables • Date: 9 September 2013 • TNR12 = Times New Roman 12 • Spacing should be double space all the way through. • Last Name and Page (also TNR12) should be on all pages but the first. • Works Cited should have it’s own page. • In-text citations look like this: “Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit” (“Inspirational”). • Works Cited Entries look like this: • "How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. • 2009. (Notice the half inch indention here. And the first word should be alphabetically ordered down the page. • Quotes longer than four lines get block quoted. It stays double spaced but each line gets half inch indention.

5. Transition Paragraphs • Use syntax to do it: • Julius Caesar is a perfect example of excellence. • Another perfect example of excellence, Julius Caesar found power and success in Rome. • Don’t put transition sentence at the end of the paragraph before…

6. More on Organization • Avoid reliance on five paragraph format. • If you do not use subtitles, need to transition paragraphs and be explicit about what you are doing in your paper • When switching to the problems/action plan, a small paragraph introducing this change might be helpful for your reader. Here you can roadmap your three areas. • Need a conclusion. To end on your last area to work on is not a conclusion. You need to reintroduce your belief and focus on excellence. Then you want to go over your main ideas. Lastly, you want to end with why this was significant for your reader—connect it to them somehow.

7. Paragraph Organization: 3-X • Exposition: This is the transition into the paragraph’s topic. If your paragraph is about how Heath Ledger demonstrates a version of what you find excellent because he risked everything to be an actor, then by golly you better say just that in your first sentence or two. • Example: This is the quote or specific example that shows what you are talking about. Perhaps it is a quoted example of how Ledger and his parents were at odds because he had to borrow money for acting classes. • Explanation: Ah, the brain of your paper. This is where you reflect on how your example relates to the topic (exposition) of the paragraph. How does Ledger’s tension with his parents show that he risked everything for excellence? Connect the dots and convince your reader. Push it further and relate it back to your thesis, the main idea of your paper overall. What does Ledger’s experience have to do about your definition of excellence overall. You could be simple about this, but the more witty and smart you are, the more your reader will be wowed and agree. Remember: everything’s an argument.

8. Quoting and Credibility • Which adds more to your paper? • Aristotle said, “Greatness comes from habit” (“Excellence Quotes”). • Jean Twenge, a psychologist who conducted a study on teenage laziness at San Dieago State University said, “Compared to previous generations, recent high-school graduates are more likely to want lots of money and nice things, but less likely to say they’re willing to work hard to earn them” (Ghose). • You want to quote with a purpose to add to what you are saying, not to just quote for the sake of quoting. • Also, extra caution, if you don’t know who the person is, might not want to use their quote… Who is Ralph Marston?

9. Titles to Increase Focus • Which of the following give you an idea of the paper’s main idea/thesis? • “Excellence Essay” • “To Be or Not to Be” • “Don’t Just Say So, Be So” • Also, you can utilize a colon and have a subtitle • “Climbing the Mountain: An Essay on Excellence” • Or use a Quote: • “Not an Act, But a Habit”: Aristotle Taught Me Excellence [This is how it would look on the page]

10. Developing Personal Examples • My dad really represents excellence he had a rough life, and he does a lot today. • My dog, Spot, really represents excellence he had a rough life, and he does a lot today. • My table lamp really represents excellence he had a rough life, and he does a lot today. • How do you prove any of these? A scene, a specific thing that showed you excellence and stuck with you. The lamp won’t have this. The dog probably won’t. But your dad probably will. He was working on the car late one night. Your mom needed it for work early the next morning he stayed up late. In the morning he was up before you were. You said, “Geesh, dad, you should take the day off.” He said, “Nope, you gotta help the one’s you love, but you got to keep doing what you need to do too, son. They’re both priorities and both equally important.”

11. 3 Areas & Action Plan • Many did not pay much attention to this part, but it was half of the assignment. Also, it was the personal part of the assignment, which is crucial. • When organizing this part, think about three paragraphs that focus around each area. If procrastination is the area: Identify the problem. Give an example of the problem in your life and why it is keeping you from excellence. Next, show research that shows how to get rid of the problem, and then explain how that research can be enacted in your life to rid yourself of said problem. • This should be believable. Many said: I procrastinate. I will stop procrastinating. Is this a believable, or even interesting, fix to the problem.

12. The Elusive 100% • How does one get a perfect score? How does one get to the peak of Mt. Everest: hard work, time & dedication, help, and the most elusive—luck. • The paper has to be perfect. Organizationally, grammatically and syntactically. All should be clear. Formatting should be correct by MLA 7 standards. • The conclusion must argue the significance of why a reader should care. And this should be convincing. • All examples should be developed with specifics and explained thoughtfully and rationally. • The paper’s ideas should be original and compelling. The AGOS in the introduction should be unique, not typical. The quotes should be credible and interesting.

13. Questions & Due Date • Any Questions you may have? • The Due Date for the revision is next Friday, September 20th. • IMPORTANT: You must turn in with old copy & rubric. New copy must have tracked or highlighted changes.