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Mini Lessons and ShortcutsTo use in your responses to requests for Feedback via Email

This document contains some templates you can use in your responses for feedback via email. Please make sure to tailor your response to fit your writer’s needs and to replace examples (typically highlighted here) with the right information for your writer. Also, but sure you don’t copy and paste the red shortcut titles… Hey thanks!

PS: If you have things you want to add to this document, send ‘em to Katie (katieelliott@ku.edu) and she’ll update it.

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ContentsThe basics of a note to a writer................................................................................................3

Basic opening of a note to a writer:...............................................................................................3

Opening (for a writer seeking a grammar check).......................................................................3

Opening (for a writer who has submitted more than 8 pages)................................................3

Basic closing of a note to a writer..................................................................................................4

Citation Matters and Documentation Styles............................................................................5

“Citation Proofing” Requests:.........................................................................................................5

APA........................................................................................................................................................5

MLA........................................................................................................................................................5

AAA........................................................................................................................................................6

Formatting Papers in Different Documentation Styles and Disciplines................................6

Research, Sources, Quotations................................................................................................7

“Credible” sources or Questionable references.........................................................................7

Over-reliance on Wikipedia.............................................................................................................7

Analyzing Sources and Connecting Evidence to an Argument..............................................7

Modeling How to Analyze a Quotation...........................................................................................7

Direct Quotes – too few.....................................................................................................................8

Direct Quotes – too many or awkward..........................................................................................8

Grammar and Syntax...............................................................................................................9

Proofreading and Reading Aloud...................................................................................................9

Reading Aloud (Alternate Version).................................................................................................9

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Article Use............................................................................................................................................9

Subject-verb agreement..................................................................................................................10

Verb Tense consistency..................................................................................................................10

Verb tenses in Literature Reviews................................................................................................10

Sentence Variety (or lack thereof)................................................................................................11

Passive Voice....................................................................................................................................11

Vocabulary Problems: Incorrect Prepositions, Phrases, or Pairings of Words................11

Incorrect Word Forms (nouns instead of verb or vice versa)................................................12

Revising for Content, Organization, and Argument................................................................13

Revising: General Language..........................................................................................................13

Revising for Organization and Order...........................................................................................13

Transitions and Signal Phrases....................................................................................................13

Revising Argument: Thesis statements......................................................................................14

When the thesis is in the conclusion............................................................................................14

Developing tension with “they say/I say” approach....................................................................15

Revising for Argument and Organization: Paragraph Claims...............................................15

Conclusions.......................................................................................................................................17

Introductions.....................................................................................................................................17

An example when the intro was the main concern.....................................................................17

Rhetorical Analysis: Explaining the Assignment + Summary (not analysis)....................19

Rhetorical Analysis: Logos, Ethos, Pathos................................................................................19

Analysis: Modeling what it means/how to do it.........................................................................19

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The basics of a note to a writer

Basic opening of a note to a writer:

Dear <writer’s name>,

Hi! My name is <your name>, and I’ll be responding to your online submission today. Thank you for sending your draft to the KU Writing Center for feedback. I enjoyed reading this. You specifically asked for help with with <genre of paper or writer’s specific concerns>, and I’ll do my best to advise you on those things today. I’m going to make two kinds of comments in my feedback. First, I’ll offer some overall suggestions for the piece here in this note. Second, I’ll also insert comments, questions, and suggestions as margin notes in the text of your paper. (Please be sure you have Microsoft Word set to show comments so you can see those too.) Now, let’s get to work!

Opening (for a writer seeking a grammar check)

Dear <writer’s name>,

Hi! My name is <your name>, and I’ll be responding to your online submission today. Thank you for sending your draft to the KU Writing Center for feedback. I understand that this is <genre of paper> and that you would like me to check for grammatical errors. I can certainly mark any glaring issues, but we, at the KU Writing Center, are not solely an editing service and we strive to help to resolve global issues. This is to say that I will try to look for ways that you might improve your paper beyond surface-level grammatical mistakes and also focus on other concerns that affect your paper at the word, sentence and paragraph levels. In either case, it was a pleasure for me to read your submission, so thanks for sharing it. I will make some summative comments/questions on this page as well as more specific comments/questions in your text below.

While I am unable to correct and identify every grammar error that occurs throughout the text, I did note several patterns of grammatical errors, which you can use as a model when revising your writing. The main patterns I noticed were _______________.

Opening (for a writer who has submitted more than 8 pages)

Dear <writer’s name>,

Hi! My name is <your name>, and I’ll be responding to your online submission today. Thank you for sending your draft to the KU Writing Center for feedback. I enjoyed

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reading this. You specifically asked for help with with <genre of paper or writer’s specific concerns>, and I’ll do my best to advise you on those things today.

I’m going to make two kinds of comments in my feedback. First, I’ll offer some overall suggestions for the piece here in this note. Second, I’ll also insert comments, questions, and suggestions as margin notes in the text of your paper. (Please be sure you have Microsoft Word set to show comments so you can see those too.) I also want to let you know that, due to time constraints and Writing Center policy, I am only able to review approximately eight pages of writing per online submission. I will have to stop providing commentary at that point. You are welcome to send the next section for feedback as a separate submission. I suggest you incorporate these suggestions outlined below into the remaining pages, then submit another section for feedback.Now, let’s get to work!

Basic closing of a note to a writer

Thank you again for submitting your draft to the KU Writing Center’s feedback via email service. It was a pleasure to read your ideas today, <writer’s name>, and I hope this feedback helps you finish revising your paper.

We look forward to working with you again in the future. In addition to feedback via email, the KU Writing Center offers individual appointments with consultants in person or by videoconference. You can schedule those at www.writing.ku.edu

Thanks again, <writer’s name>. Good luck with your revisions!

Best,<Your name>, Writing Center ConsultantKU Writing Centerwww.writing.ku.edu

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Citation Matters and Documentation Styles“Citation Proofing” Requests:(Some language for writers who request we “proof their citations”)

You specifically expressed concerns with your works cited page and in-text citations. I will do my best to h elp you with that, but I am not able to correct and identify every error or mistake with the use of <citation style>. While I am unable to correct and identify every citation error that occurs, I will note several patterns of grammatical errors, which you can use as a model when revising your writing. I will also provide some additional resources to help you double-check your citations according to <citation style> format.

<Insert specific resources for different formats, as detailed below.> You may also want to check out the Writing Guides on our website at http://www.writing.ku.edu/writing-guides. If you click on the tab called “Citing/Documenting Your Sources,” you will see a variety of resources on <citation style>, including an overview of the citation styles are different from each other and example works cited pages.

APA

I’m concerned that you have not properly cited the sources you used, nor do you have a works cited page. Since this is a paper for a <insert course or dept>, I would guess that it should follow APA formatting. Here is a link on how to do that:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ .

On that website, there are a variety of resources (follow the links on the left) that explain how to do your citations both in the text and for your works cited. For example, “when you use a quote in your text it would often be followed by” (Author, year). You will also be able to check how to properly do things like “block quotes” in this section. The APA website (http://apastyle.org/) and blog (http://blog.apastyle.org/) are also great resources for additional and more advanced questions.

MLA

First let’s address the citation issues. Here is a link to the MLA formatting and style guide: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ . You will notice that on the left side of the page there are tabs for both in-text and works cited pages. This site is a great resource for figuring out how to do these properly. I suggest that you focus on your works cited page first, as that is the key to how to properly do your in-text citations. For example, “when you use a quote in your text it would often be followed by” (Author page#).

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AAA

You also need to make sure to format your works are cited according to AAA style guide. Here is a link to help you with that: http://www.aaanet.org/publications/style_guide.pdf

Formatting Papers in Different Documentation Styles and Disciplines

Since you are almost ready to submit this, you will want to make sure you have it formatted properly. Each documentation style has slightly different guidelines for formatting—such as having a running head, where your page numbers should go, the margin size, etc. Since you are using <insert documentation style>, you’ll want to be sure you have the draft formatted appropriately. Take a look at this website to see a sample paper in <insert documentation style>: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/index.htm Click on <insert discipline> to see an an example paper done in <insert style: APA/MLA/Chicago/CSE, etc.> style so you can set this up properly. For example; (in APA you should be using a running head, etc.)

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Research, Sources, Quotations

“Credible” sources or Questionable references

I also am concerned about the credibility of your sources. Academic research is concerned with how credible—reliable and trustworthy—a source is. Though what counts as credible can differ depending on the kind of paper, level, and subject area, a good rule of thumb is to look for peer reviewed sources (typically found in academic journals), which are written by experts in a field and reviewed and approved by other experts. Check out this resource (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/02/) to learn more about what counts as credible (and what doesn’t!) in an academic paper. This resource (http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/tips-for-evaluating-sources.htm) is also helpful to determine if a source—especially a website—is worth using or if you would be better off looking elsewhere for your information.

Addendum: Over-reliance on Wikipedia

I noticed that you quoted Wikipedia quite often. Unfortunately, since anyone can edit those pages, Wikipedia is not considered a “credible” source. If you’d like, you can follow the links on the Wikipedia page to find the original source and then decide if the information is credible or not. However, you will definitely want to check each source carefully since many of them are not reliable or appropriate for your paper. (This site can help you decide: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/tips-for-evaluating-sources.htm).

Analyzing Sources and Connecting Evidence to an Argument

In any kind of academic paper—whether you are simply displaying knowledge or arguing for a particular point of view—you need to use outside sources and research to bolster your own argument. As a reader, I felt like your sources and quotations sometimes overwhelmed or replaced your argument, or even felt disconnected from it.

I think that’s because you often leave it largely to the reader to figure out what this research means and how it relates to and supports your argument. For instance, you sometimes drop in a quotation, for instance, but then move on immediately, leaving the reader to try to puzzle out its meaning, significance, and relevance to your argument. Instead, try to follow every piece of evidence—every reference, quotation, etc—by exploring and explaining to the reader its significance: what does it mean? What does it suggest? Why does it matter? How does it support or further my argument? What should the reader think about, ask, or consider? Those are the kinds of questions you should answer.

Addendum: Modeling How to Analyze a Quotation

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For instance, look at the highlighted passage on page <PAGE #>, for instance. You write:

“While “It was Kroeber who shepherded Ishi’s occasional public appearances; who prevented the merely curious or the bad-intentioned from getting to him” (Kroeber 150). Kroeber felt as if he had a duty to protect Ishi from the eyes of the malicious, and even the innocent curious individuals, but it is Kroeber’s sense of power and duty to protect Ishi that reflects the colonial power

Notice how you bring in this great important quotation—but then immediately move on? Try idling on that quotation for a sentence or two and really unpacking it, analyzing its meaning and exploring its implications. You might, for instance, call attention to that word “shepherd” and unpack that in particular, writing a sentence like this after that quote:

“The use of “shepherd” here is interesting, suggesting as it does that Ishi needed protection, aid, and guidance and that he was dependent on the paternalistic Kroeber. Even more troubling is the implication that Ishi was like an animal, not human in some way and so without the right to autonomy”….

I’m just imagining what that could sound like, of course, but I want to show you how much more you can get out of those quotations if you take the time to unpack and analyze them. Doing this for every quotations will really help strengthen your overall argument and your control of your sources.

Direct Quotes – too few

I noticed that you paraphrase a lot but that you do not use direct quotes very often. Appropriate direct quotes can help to strengthen your argument. Here are two guides that can help you with doing this: http://www.aims.edu/student/online-writing-lab/sources/quotations and http://writing.ku.edu/incorporating-references

Direct Quotes – too many or awkward

I noticed that you use a lot of direct quotes. As the reader, I sometimes felt if I was simply reading about what other people have to say, and I wanted to know what you think about this. Appropriate direct quotes can help to strengthen your argument, but it should still be your argument. Here are two guides that can help you with doing this: http://www.aims.edu/student/online-writing-lab/sources/quotations and http://writing.ku.edu/incorporating-references

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Grammar and SyntaxProofreading and Reading Aloud

I have made some specific comments in your text, but overall, the main problem seems to be a lack of proofreading. I am sure you would catch these kinds of errors if you would read your paper out loud – or ask someone else to read it out loud for you. Here is a link to one of the writing guides that can help you: http://writing.ku.edu/editing-and-proofreading. Take a look at the “proofreading” section and then give it a try. In the text below I have pointed out a few of the kinds of things you will find if you try this method (but look for others as well!).

Reading Aloud (Alternate Version)

My last suggestion is a process suggestion, not an observation on the draft: read aloud, pen in hand. I noticed a couple of small errors and snafus—not big deals, just little mistakes. As a writer, it’s really hard to pick up on these, simply because you no longer notice them: you have looked at this draft for so long that you can hardly see it, I’m guessing. (That certainly happens to me!) A strategy I find extremely helpful is reading aloud. You can do this on the computer screen, but I actually find it more helpful to do it with a paper copy. Specifically, I suggest you print out a copy, grab a pencil, and read slowly aloud to yourself. Listen to the places you pause or struggle or find awkward and mark those. Notice any and every time you say something different aloud than on the page, and mark those too. Often we “hear” it better than we see it (at least after we’ve been seeing it and working on it at length), and reading aloud forces us to slow down enough to turn off the odd mental autocorrect function we all seem to have in our minds. I think that using this strategy would really yield good results for you. Even though you may feel silly reading aloud to yourself, I strongly suggest you try it.

Article Use

One of the grammar errors I noticed is with your use of articles. You often use <specify error: too many, too few, wrong article>. You can decide whether a noun needs an article and which article to use by answering these three questions:

Is the noun countable or uncountable? Is it singular or plural? Is it definite or indefinite?

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary or “OALD” (http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/) is very helpful for answering all of those questions. You can use it to find out:

whether a particular noun is countable or uncountable whether it can be plural or only singular

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whether it needs an article.

Here is the basic rule for articles in English:1. Every singular countable noun requires an article (a, and, or the) or a determiner

like this or that.2. Plural countable nouns and uncountable nouns do not.

So, for example, in the last paragraph of your paper you wrote: <The investors should do more research before moving business to India.> I looked at business in the OALD and found that when business means "company," is countable. Therefore, you need to either use the singular form with an article (a business) or the plural form without an article (businesses).

Articles can be very difficult to master, so I recommend you use the OALD frequently. You may also want to look at these two resources to learn more about article usage in English: http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/english-as-a-second-language/articles and https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/541/

Subject-verb agreement

I noticed that your writing had some problems with subject-verb agreement. That means plural subjects must have the plural form of the verb, and singular subjects must have to singular form of the verb. Look at this example from <page #>:

The most important advantages includesAdvantages is plural, so the verb form must agree with it: Advantages include...When I am not sure, I use this website to help me double check I am doing it properly, http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/599/01/.

Verb Tense consistency

As I was reading, I noticed that you switched verb tenses frequently. It can be confusing for the reader when writing switches tenses (kind of like a time warp!) and can make it more difficult to understand what you are trying to say. The general rule is “pick a tense and stick with it”, but that is only a general rule. When I am not sure, I go to http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/04/ which helps me figure it out.

Addendum: Verb tenses in Literature Reviews

Verb tenses in literature reviews can be especially difficult to navigate as a writer. The PDF linked here (http://writing.ucdavis.edu/docs/graduate/Lit_review_hum-ss.pdf)) is a great resource for deciding what tense to use when. I highly recommend it.

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Sentence Variety (or lack thereof)

As a reader, I found a few places in your paper that felt a bit monotonous. This wasn’t because your ideas were boring or repetitive though. Instead, it was due to a repetition of the same sentence structure over and over again. You can improve this by adding more sentence variation to your paper. Here is a great site that can assist you with this (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/573/1/ ). For me, it is very helpful in finding ways to liven things up and make it feel less repetitive for the reader.

Passive Voice

I noticed that you relied pretty heavily on what’s called the “passive voice” in your paper. Though this is not a matter of grammatical correctness, using too many passive verbs can weaken your writing and your argument. Here’s the general rule of thumb: Generally speaking, any time you have “there is” or “there are” as your subject and verb, you’ve got a passive sentence—because the REAL subject, the REAL actor has been demoted down to the object, later in the sentence.

Look at this sentence on <PAGE #>:

Looking back at my speeches this semester, there are two strengths that stick out to me the most.

Here, for instance, the real subject is “strengths.” To make this active voice, rewrite that sentence so that “strengths” is the subject:

Looking back at my speeches this semester, two strengths stick out.Make sense? Any time you have a passive sentence, you can follow that same pattern: look for the real subject (in hiding somewhere) and lead with that. I have marked a couple of places in your text where you use passive voice, but I suggest you look for others as you revise. Here are three great guides with more info on identifying and fixing passive voice and a bunch of good examples:

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/7-examples-of-passive-voice/ http://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Passive_Voice.pdf http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/passive-voice/ .

Vocabulary Problems: Incorrect Prepositions, Phrases, or Pairings of Words

I noticed several places that sounded awkward because of an incorrect or unusual preposition. This kind of vocabulary knowledge can be particularly challenging; knowing which prepositions go with a word or what phrasing is most common is tough even for native speakers. I find this resource really helpful for learning what words go along with certain prepositions and other words: the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

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(OALD) at http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/. You can look up the key word in the OALD and read the the entries and examples to find out what prepositions or phrases are best to use with that word. Here’s an example from <PAGE #>:

Despite of software development…

In this case, in this clause, “despite” is used incorrectly. If you look up the word “despite” in the OALD, you’ll find this sample sentence:

She was good at physics despite the fact that she found it boring.You can rewrite your sentence using this phrase as a model. Try using the OALD to look up the other places I marked as having vocabulary problems.

Incorrect Word Forms (nouns instead of verb or vice versa)

Sometimes you select the correct vocabulary item but use the incorrect grammatical form of the word. For example, in your paper:

Forth, when companies marketing, they need to understand that people in rural areas are usually less educated… Marketing is a noun. You need the verb form, which is market. Use the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/, to make sure you are using the correct form of the word.

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Revising for Content, Organization, and ArgumentRevising: General Language (Aim to tailor this to the particular student’s needs)While your paper makes some very interesting points, I would still recommend that you read about revising and try some of the methods: http://writing.ku.edu/revising-content and http://writing.ku.edu/revising-organization. Remember, revising is a major component of the writing process. Nothing comes out perfect the first time around. It may help if you open a new document, copy and paste each topic sentence onto that document and have a look at it. Does it make sense to you? Are you happy with the order it is in? Then revise as you see fit. After that look at each sentence in each paragraph – do they all belong where they are? And so on.

Revising for Organization and Order

As I read through your draft, I felt like you had some great ideas but that the order and organization seemed a little all over the place. (I find this happens to me frequently when I’m just writing it down as it occurs to me: the order in which I think of ideas isn’t always the order in which they make the most sense to read!) I suggest you plan to revise the organization of your draft so that your ideas are presented in the most logical order. By the way, it’s much easier to revise for order and organization than to get it perfect the first time—so it’s really good to get in the habit of having this as a revision task.

Take a look at this writing guide: http://writing.ku.edu/revising-organization, specifically the section on Reverse Outlining. (Here’s another great resource that’s goes into more detail on this technique: http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/ReverseOutlines.html) I find reverse outlining to be the most helpful way of “seeing” my organization: To do this, you’re basically hashtagging each paragraph: write one-word or short-phrase descriptors in the margin next to each paragraph or using Microsoft Word’s Track Changes feature. Then look at the list of words/phrases (not the whole draft) and see what the order looks like. This helps you step back and decide if the paragraphs move in a logical order or gives you and easy way to rearrange them until you are satisfied. (For a larger work, you can also simply write your descriptions of the paragraphs on a separate piece of paper—outline style—and see if it makes sense to you.) After you’ve changed the order around, remember to go back and check out your transitions too.

Transitions and Signal Phrases

I found that some of the transitions between topics were a little abrupt and awkward for me as the reader. As the writer, you want to be sure you build bridges for the reader to get from one idea to the next. Sometimes this means writing transition sentences that help a reader understand how one paragraph relates to another; other times, you’ll use transition phrases to indicate where you’re going and how that relates to where you’ve

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been. (Sometimes English teachers like to call those “signal phrases”—like a turn signal in a car.) This website is a pretty awesome resource for figuring out which signal phrases to use: www.msu.edu/~jdowell/135/transw.html . I use it when I’m writing to get direction (and figure out what I’m trying to accomplish!), then see a variety of options so I can accomplish that. Check it out! Also, know that it’s often a lot easier to add these signal phrases and transitions in after you’ve written a draft; that way you already know where you’ve been and where you’re going—and then you can just help make sure the readers gets there too. For me and for a lot of writers, strengthening transitions is just a necessary step of revision.

Revising Argument: Thesis statements

A thesis statement is one of the most important pieces of academic writing, and many people struggle with them. Often, writers will use a “purpose statement” instead of a real thesis. (This happens especially often when you write the introduction first and don’t revise it after you’ve writing the draft. It’s tough to know what you’re going to argue until you’ve argued it!) You did that here. Take a look at what you have as your current thesis: This paper is about the use of humor in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Basically a statement of purpose, right, not a claim or argument. While stating the purpose or topic of the paper is an important element of a thesis statement, it is not enough; your reader also needs you to articulate the argument you are going to make in the paper. So now you need to add to this statement and allow it to serve as a guide to what you will be writing about the significance of Shakespeare’s use of humor throughout your essay. For example, you might argue,

“Shakespeare’s use of double entendre and puns in his comedy Twelfth Night was revolutionary in the history of English literature.”

This sentence identifies the topic and purpose of your essay but also indicates an argument about the originality and influence of Shakespeare’s comedic style. Look at these two resources for more ideas on how to develop basic thesis statements and tailor them to your writing style: http://writing.ku.edu/thesis-statements and http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements/ .

Addendum: When the thesis is in the conclusion

After reading your draft, I actually this you’re arguing a more complex point than the one that’s currently stated as your thesis. Take a look at your current thesis. You write: “Not only were there a wide variety of reasons for why African Americans travelled to France, but the outcomes of their travels were both positive and negative and varied for each individual.” While that’s a fine starting place, I think you’ve actually made a lot more complex argument in this paper. Check out this passage from your conclusion:“Some black Americans found Paris to be a place of refuge from the discrimination in America and Johnson as well as the hope that Douglass found

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in the French museums are both examples of how Paris was positive for African Americans. But the vast majority of their experiences revealed that Paris, contrary to previous beliefs, was not so perfect for black Americans after all.” That passage does a much better job of articulating your argument, which—as I understand it—is basically that, although these black American writers went to Paris expecting to find refuge from the discrimination of America, their experiences there revealed that it wasn’t the accepting haven they’d hoped for. I suggest that, now that you’ve written out your whole argument, you go back to your thesis and refine it to match the (really good!) argument you actually made. (This is a totally normal thing to do, by the way; I have to do it for pretty much every draft. Most writers figure out what they want to say by saying it and writing it—so you end up with your thesis in your conclusion. Then you just have to go back and write it in the intro later in the writing process so the reader has it up front! Remember that, just because the reader reads your intro first, there’s no reason you have to write it first!)

Addendum: Developing tension with “they say/I say” approach A good trick to writing a strong thesis is to look for the tension in your topic: what specific parts of the research conversation get people talking? How can you pair one against another? You can build that right into the structure of the sentence by incorporating words like “although” or “however” to help you cultivate that tension. Try saying something like “Although such and such may seem to be the case, this and this is actually the result” or “While people may claim blah and blah, that and that is the real result.” So, for instance, you might come up with something like:

Although some proponents of beauty pageants claim that the competitions are empowering and help young women bond with each other, in reality beauty pageants actually serve to idealize a Westernized, Caucasian standard of beauty and undermine bonding and friendships by pitting young women against each other in competition for male approval and favor.

This is a totally made-up example (I just made it up it based on the introduction draft you sent), but it shows you the structure. Consider using that basic structure (basically: “though some say THIS, THIS is actually the case”) to help identify the tension in your topic and craft a stronger and more sophisticated thesis statement.

Revising for Argument and Organization: Paragraph Claims

My first suggestion for you is a strategy for how to strengthen your organization and take control of your argument and structure. The thing is, you DO have a good argument there; it’s just that it’s getting buried in all your ideas and discussions and research. And all of that ideas and discussion and research is awesome and shouldn’t be removed or discounted at all—but you do need, at this point in revision, to go back

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and take control of the argumentative skeleton of the paper. The simplest and most effective way to do that is to work on your paragraph claims. Right no, most of your paragraphs begin with a fact or piece of information—and you write your way to your point. This means your claim (the thing you’re trying to prove) doesn’t appear until the end—so the reader is left not knowing what all this evidence and information means, how it relates to your argument, or even what your argument is. Let’s look at an example, like this one on page 3:

“Before the Europeans settled in America, the Native Americans made North America their homeland.”

While that’s a fine sentence and piece of information, it’s only information; it doesn’t help locate the reader in your argument. This means the reader is left trying to figure out what point you’re making in this paragraph; without a clear claim at the beginning, the reader really doesn’t know WHY you’re writing about what you’re writing about. (One way to think about this is like a jigsaw puzzle: the paragraph claim is like the picture on the front of the box. Without that, the reader’s left holding a bunch of pieces and not knowing what she’s supposed to do with them or what they’re supposed to add up to. But WITH the claim, it makes sense: she knows what picture the pieces are going to make.)

So for the reader, paragraphs that lead with a claim—an actual argument—function as arguments in miniature and as the building blocks to your overarching argument. Imagine, for instance, writing a sentence at the beginning of that paragraph that actually states your claim. (Here’s an example—I’m making it up based on your ideas, so feel free to rewrite to be more accurate!)

“Although Jackson and supporters of the removal policy focused on the idea that removing Native Americans was primarily about the safety of white settlements, economics and land ownership were the actual reasons behind the policy.”

I’ve just made up that sentence, so it might not be perfectly accurate, but take a look at how differently the paragraph reads when it begins with a claim instead of a fact. Do you see the difference when you state that as a claim instead of a simple observation? When you lead with the paragraph’s claim—then follow it with your evidence and the discussion of what that evidence means—it recenters the reader in the flow of your argument and helps the reader navigate and comprehend the deep discussion that follows it.

My overall suggestion for you, then, is to look at every single paragraph and make sure it leads with a strong claim. Either rework the topic sentence you have into a claim or write a new sentence to start the paragraph. Here’s a good way to tell if you’ve done that successfully: in a well-controlled argument, the reader should be able to grasp the entire argument (not all the details, but the gist of the overall argument) by reading only the first sentence of each paragraph. So working on these paragraph claims will go such a long way towards taking control of the structure and argument—not to mention

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resolving that feeling that you ramble or don’t express yourself clearly/feeling like it doesn’t “flow”/however the writer phrased that concern. Paying attention to (and building in) this claim structure on the paragraph level also instills in the reader a sense of trust in you, the writer—in your ideas, your control over your material, and your attention to the reader’s needs—so it serves as an important persuasive technique too.

Conclusions

One suggestion I have for you is to strengthen your conclusion. As a reader, I felt like your conclusion just wasn’t as strong as the rest of your paper—which does you a big disservice. (Imagine it like this: it’s like having a really good conversation with someone and then, instead of saying goodbye, the person just… wanders away. It kind of undermines the whole conversation.) As a reader, it felt like the concluding paragraph wandered around your thesis instead of restating it and establishing why the thesis and paper is significant. Here are two helpful resources you can use to help write a strong conclusion:

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/conclusions/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/724/04

Take a look at those websites and consider how you can revise the conclusion to leave your reader with a stronger impression of your stance or controlling idea on this topic. I especially suggest you “Play the ‘So What?’ Game” that the first resource suggests; I find that to be a really helpful strategy when I’m struggling to end my papers strong.

Introductions

I have some concerns with the introduction to your paper. I found it confusing in some ways, and I think, from having read the body of your paper, that you could do a much better job of “introducing” your paper to your reader. There is not much of an introduction to the topic at all. As the reader, I felt like I had jumped in to the deep end of the pool without my floaties! In a formal academic research paper, there should be an introduction which helps set the stage for the reader for what is coming, why this is important, why the reader should care and so on. Usually we expect to find the thesis statement or main claim somewhere near the end of this. Check out this resource, especially the section on “Strategies for Writing an Effective Introduction”: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/introductions/ Take a look at it and consider revising so that your reader understands the topic and wants to read about it.

Addendum: An example when the intro was the main concern

My main concern, Meagan, is that your introduction is currently doing mostly summary of the text and not providing context to the argument or scholarship. Let’s look back at your instructor’s directions for that intro. In it, you should provide an “argumentative thesis, indicate the importance of your particular interpretation, and/or contextualize your argument within a larger scholarly

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conversation”. Right now, however, you’ve devoted almost the whole introduction to describing the book and its characters. While that’s important and necessary framework to provide, you need to do more here: don’t just introduce the characters and the book—also introduce your argument and research. Keep writing: add a few more sentences that provides an overview of the scholarly conversation (i.e. what researchers have said) and how your argument fits into that.

Check out this example of student writing (taken from this website) and pay attention to how the student positions himself within that scholarly conversation:

When it comes to analyzing the recent rise of hip-hop music in contemporary America, most scholars seem to focus on the contradiction between its role as a voice of protest and a voice of conformity. Robert Shopes has pointed to rap artists of the 1980s and early 90s as "using an innovative tone and vocabulary to speak of the class biases witnessed in inner-city communities" (73), while Julie Cade argues that those original messages have been watered down to reflecting a "celebrity lifestyle" that is both "misogynistic and self-aggrandizing" (17). Out of this debate, I aim to explore the following question....

Notice how the student summarizes the academic conversation (by which I mean, the research he’ll use throughout his paper) by saying “most scholars seem to focus on the contradiction between its role as a voice of protest and a voice of conformity.” Then he offers some specific voices, before moving towards his central question or, in your case, a thesis.

I think that you could use this model in your own introduction: challenge yourself to write a few sentences about the scholarship on Housekeeping—perhaps something like: “Theorists focus on the themes of ______ and _______ in Housekeeping, suggesting the importance of ______________.” (I’m just making something up here, but that’s a possible model.) Then, after you give the summary of the main trends/ideas in the research, you could offer a quote or specific reference—and then you can give your thesis.

As you work on this introduction and on your thesis statement, I strongly recommend you review these helpful resources for more information:

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/introductions/ http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/writing/introductions http://www.writing.ku.edu/thesis-statements

I think that they will help you understand the moves an introduction should make and how to do them in your own work. I also (again) suggest that you work on the introduction at the end of your writing process, because it’s so much easier to do after you’ve written down your ideas. Remember that, even though the reader reads it first, you don’t have to write it first!

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Rhetorical Analysis: Explaining the Assignment + Summary (not analysis)

You have obviously done a lot of work on this paper, and you have a lot of information here. But I’m concerned that what you have is more summary than analysis—which is a problem in a rhetorical analysis paper. Let’s take a look at what “rhetorical analysis” means. Rhetorical means “relating to a style of speaking or writing that is effective or intended to influence people” and analysis means “a form of literary criticism in which the structure of a piece of writing is analyzed.” So rather than talking about this topic as a whole, you need to choose something that has been written and analyze it deeply—which means to pull apart the components and ask yourself why the author did what he did particular things in particular places and what the significance of those choices might be. Here is a really good reference for how to do this; http://writingcenter.tamu.edu/2010/types-communication/academic-writing/rhetorical-analysis/ Take a look at this guide and challenge yourself to really go deep in your analysis.

Rhetorical Analysis: Logos, Ethos, Pathos

One of the difficult parts of the rhetorical analysis assignment is just understanding those three rhetorical appeals. I think it might help you to check out some overviews of what exactly logos, pathos, and ethos mean. Here are two that really help me understand Aristotle’s terms: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/04/ and http://courses.durhamtech.edu/perkins/aris.html

Analysis: Modeling what it means/how to do it

My second main suggestion to you focuses on making the analysis of your evidence deep, explicit, and in service of your argument. Having read your draft, I think you can do a better job of controlling your evidence and discussion of research. Right now, you have have a great deal of interesting research, evidence, and scholarship—which is excellent!—but often you leave it largely to the reader to figure out what this scholarship means and how it relates to and supports your claims.

I know that this is probably because you’ve been thinking about this material for such a long time, but to me as a reader, it feels like you think that your quotations and evidence and references are self-evident and easily understood. You sometimes drop in a quotation, for instance, but then walk away from it immediately, leaving the reader to try to puzzle out its meaning, significance, and relevance to your argument. (This is a pretty normal thing for us to do as writers, unfortunately: You get it; you’ve been thinking about this for ages, and all the connections are clear in your head! But you’re both forgetting that the reader doesn’t know it or get it and doing a disservice to your important thinking and reasoning about this research.) But

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this means that much of your analysis and interpretation of the evidence and scholarship is still up in your head, not on the page—and the page is all the reader has to go on. So your next challenge is to look at every piece of evidence—every reference, quotation, theory, and so on—and make sure you follow it by exploring and explaining to the reader its significance: what does it mean? What does it suggest? Why does it matter? How does it support or further my argument? What should the reader think about, ask, or consider? Those are the kinds of questions you should answer. Let’s look at a passage from that same paragraph, on page 3, for instance. You write:

“Taking them out of Alabama and Mississippi, he said, would “enable those states to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power.”

That’s such a rich and important quotation and such an interesting piece of primary evidence—but it’s the last sentence of your paragraph. You immediately move on. Instead of moving on immediately (which puts all the work of figuring out what it means on the reader!), try idling on that quotation for a sentence or two and really unpacking it, analyzing its meaning and exploring its implications. You might, for instance, call attention to those words “population, wealth, and power” and unpack them in particular. Why would those be compelling arguments to make (to his particular audience, at that time and place, etc)? Or perhaps dwell on the idea of “advancement”. What does that mean? Why is that important and how does it relate to your ideas about Jackson’s role in the removal? For instance, you might write something like:

“In this passage, we can see Jackson addressing Congress in terms of their own self-interest: removing the Native Americans will help the congressmen—and their states and constituents--grow larger and richer. In this way, the discussion became about why the whites needed the land, not the Native Americans r

I’m totally just imagining something, of course, but I want to show you how much more you can get out of those quotations if you take the time to unpack and analyze them. Try to do this on every page of your paper.