Comparative Essay Recommendations

1. ComparativeEssay Recommendations Period 4

2. You are in charge of your own writing. By 12th grade, you need to start taking responsibility for your own growth as a writer. This involves: • Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses • Being aware of where the bar is set: • knowing the rubric • Taking steps to improve your writing: • setting goals, working to achieve those goals, reflecting based on feedback, and setting new goals • putting in the time I can coach you, but I can’t do it for you.

3. My Main Recommendations: • Plan a structured argument: organize your ideas with an outline before writing. Each section of your paper MUST begin with a clear argument. • Thesis must be a strong argument answering how and/or why and/or so what? • Put the author in your argument. Most of your ideas lack a literary argument because you have left the authors out. • Provide clear context for every piece of support

4. My Main Recommendations • You MUST be discussing literary techniques in your paper (Criterion C) such as imagery, metaphor, irony, tone, structure, etc. If the literary technique you are discussing is theme, you must make an argument about HOW the writers communicate this theme (hint: they are using literary techniques.) • You cannot earn higher than a 3 in Criterion B without making some evaluation of the works used in the relation to the question. • Use active voice rather than passive. • Be concise

5. Essay Structure • Main Thesis: must be making a strong argument…not just a statement. • Paragraph after intro begins with the first point you will argue to prove your main thesis. Lead-in (context) + quotation, then ANALYZE/DISCUSS the quotation to prove this point. Continue until finished. • If you change topics, begin a new paragraph. • When finished arguing point one, begin a paragraph with your NEXT point you’ll argue to prove your main thesis. Lead-in (context) + quotation, then ANALYZE/DISCUSS the quotation to prove this point. Continue until finished.

6. Thesis Examples • Strong: Sophocles and Gabriel Garcia Marquez emphasize a connection between coincidence and the downfalls of the characters Oedipus and Santiago to lead the reader to question the nature of fate. • Not an argument…a statement or observation: Both works include characters whose actions display that purity is an important value both societies have in common, despite the difference in setting.

7. More Thesis Examples • Strong: In Oedipus Rex and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Sophocles and Marquez reject the idea of chance as the cause of tragedy and instead respectively argue for the concepts of fate and collective responsibility. • Weak/vague…basically restates the prompt: Sophocles and Gabriel Garcia Marquez both use themes of coincidence, chance and accident to emphasize certain traits of characters or events.

8. Use the active voice. (Elements of Style) •   Active voice is… more direct and vigorous than the passive:   • I shall always remember my first visit to Boston. • Much better than…   My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me.  …Less direct, less bold, and less concise. • If you try to make it more concise by omitting "by me,"   My first visit to Boston will always be remembered,   it becomes indefinite and thus unclear: is it the writer, or some person undisclosed, or the world at large, that will always remember this visit? By whom?

9. May I ever use passive voice? • You don’t have to entirely discard the passive voice It is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary.   • The dramatists of the Restoration are little esteemed to-day. • Modern readers have little esteem for the dramatists of the Restoration. • Even though the first uses passive voice, it would be the right form in a paragraph on the dramatists of the Restoration; the second, in active voice, would be correct in a paragraph on the tastes of modern readers. • The need of making a particular word the subject of the sentence will often determine which voice is to be used.  

10. Make it a habit to use Active Voice •   Habitual use of the active voice makes for forcible writing, which is a good thing. • You can make boring sentences lively and emphatic by using the active voice instead of perfunctory expressions such as there is, or could be heard. • There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground. • Dead leaves covered the ground.

11. The sound of the falls could still be heard. • The sound of the falls still reached our ears. • The reason that he left college was that his health became impaired. • Failing health compelled him to leave college.

12. It was not long before he was very sorry that he had said what he had. • He soon repented his words.

13. Passive voice, besides leading to wordiness, takes the authors out of your argument. • This same idea is shown at the end of the play when Oedipus speaks to his people… Better (active voice): Sophocles stresses this idea again at the end of the play… • The illusion that Santiago has no chance to stop his death arises from the way the story is structured. Better (active voice): Marquez structures the story to create an illusion that Santiago has no chance to stop his death.

14. If the IB gods can flip through an essay and see that you are regularly using the authors’ names, you are on track, because you are making an argument about the author.

15. If you have trouble identifying passive voice, wordiness, or other style issues in your writing… • Use Word’s Grammar and Style function New Word: File: Options: Proofing: Writing Style: Grammar and Style: Options Older Word: Grammar and Style: Options • In both cases, check boxes for problems you are having (passive voice, wordiness, etc.)

16. Be Concise • Vigorous writing is concise. • A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. • Make every word count.

17. Wordy Concise • the question as to whethervs. whether • there is no doubt but that vs. no doubt • used for fuel purposes vs. used for fuel • he is a man who vs. he • in a hasty manner vs. hastily • this is a subject which vs. this subject • His story is a strange one. vs. His story is strange.

18. Grammar and Punctuation errors I should Not be Seeing by 12th grade… • Fragments • Comma splices • Incorrect apostrophe use (not knowing the difference between possessives and plurals) • Run-ons • If you are making these errors and one of your writing goals is to correct one of these errors, go to Purdue OWL or University of North Carolina Writing Center and learn how to correct them.

19. Other Common Problems to Work On • Incorrect semicolon use • Incorrect verb tense (use present tense in lit. papers)

20. Reflection and Goal Setting • What did I do well in this essay? • What was one weakness in this essay? • Set two specific, attainable goals you’d like to work towards in your next piece of writing. For example: 1. I want to remember to keep the authors in my argument throughout the essay. 2. I want to remove passive voice from my writing and remember to write in active voice.