Moving From the Class Paper to the Publishable Piece

The Scholarly Essay

According to William Kupersmith:

• Is it True?• Is it New?• Is it Important?

We might ask if any of these are possible or even realistic?

The Bulletin of the Midwest Modern Language Association. 12(1), 1979

What Makes a Scholarly Article Publishable?

1. Write With a Purpose In Mind and Make that Purpose Explicit

• Purpose of essay is clear from beginning• This purpose should animate the entire essay• Make structure transparent by explicitly

explaining how each section connects with the purpose

2. Use Organizational Sections

I. IntroductionII. Living in a High-Tech America: “The

Networks, The Streams, the Circuits”III. The Tyrannies of TelevisionIV. Technosensibility and the Life in Routine

Things

Sections in Martins’ “Everyday Technologies”

Introductions and Conclusions

• Think of both as sections• Therefore; they may perhaps both be longer

than you are accustomed to writing

• Intros: setting up relevant background, defining terms, broadly situating your argument within the existing scholarship

• Conclusions: Synthesis Section• Looks to make final point(s) that could not

have been made without laying down foundation of essay

Benefits of Sections

• More Titles! (come on, titles are fun)• Sections operate as mini-essays within the essay that build

upon the master thesis• Force you (in a good way) to think about what points are

needed to make your organization and what order they should come in

• Give you tangible goals throughout the process of writing (finish a section, move closer to your goal)

• Mini theses, intros, and conclusions within the sections operate as guideposts for the reader

3. Operate With These General Assumptions

• Your audience has read the novel but not read your scholarly research• Skip long plot summaries but briefly summarize

pertinent portions of research• Use the eternal tense• Shakespeare “writes” he never “wrote” . . . Even if he’s

dead• Audience’s responsibility to know the basic tenets of a “big

name” drop• There is no need to explain all of Foucault, Heidegger,

Baudrillard, Nietzsche, etc. But a little relevant context is OK

Operate With These General Assumptions

• Author’s full names will be used upon first mention- last names with subsequent references

• USING “I” IS OK• There’s an old joke that you need a PhD to be a person;

I’m gonna give you honorary ones right now!• A fairly formal tone is expected; however• Contractions are OK• Slang is generally not OK (I insist contractions are not

slang)• Humor is not forbidden; however, you should be very

careful with it

4. Truly USE Your Research

• Make sure overall topic is situated in the research that exists

• Offer up a quotation only if you plan on doing something with it• If it supports you, explain why the author is

correct (in relation to your thesis)• If you disagree, explain why you disagree and

show how this relates to thesis• Point out how research relates to each other• Don’t just he says, she says, but show

connections between individual pieces of research and your own ideas

4. Use the Source Text Wisely

• Students have a tendency to over-quote the source text

• Since your own analysis is key, a well-chosen block quote can often do the work of a bunch of shorter quotes

• Look for a number of “key scenes” that illustrate your point versus going all over the novel

• Make sure to do something with any quoted material: do not quote for summary

• Break any of these rules if there’s a good reason for doing so!

5. Thou Shalt Use Meta-Commentary and Deep Transtions

• Transitions ideally do 3 things• Explain what the next paragraph/section is

going to do• Summarize what the last paragraph/section

just did• Explain the logical connection

Even though Jack experiences these new found feelings of respect for his son, the father/son remains tenuous as he realizes that he cannot walk over and share in the moment.

What happened in last paragraphThe connection to this new ideaWhat this new paragraph will be about

And I don’t care what anybody else has told you, transitions between paragraphs come at the beginning of the new paragraph – not at the end of the previous one.

. . . Though I’m open to hear the debate. A little bit.

Meta-Commentary

• Defined as the art of explaining and commenting upon your own writing/points within an essay

• It’s like the Greek chorus in a drama standing off-stage and narrating what is going on

• Think of your paper as having two functions working simultaneously• The making of your argument• The “working” of your argument that

anticipates objections, confusions, and connects ideas to one another.

Meta-Commentary

• Writers provoke actions they didn’t intend• Readers may fail to realize grander implications

or conclusions• Helps develop ideas and get a higher page count

(a very valid concern, right?)• In this class especially, with this novel, we should

realize how slippery and unreliable language is; therefore, we are tasked to comment on our language in the name of clarity and complexity