Compare and Contrast issues of race in “Desiree’s Baby” and/or “A Worn Path
Construct a well-organized, clearly supported, unified, grammatically correct critical essay of 1 ½ -2 typed pages.
NOTE: Submitting an outline with the final draft will earn you five bonus points. (The outline form is at the end of this document and in Canvas). Type it into essay document as the first page of your essay (but this does not count as part of the length of your essay). It must be detailed. Outline needs to be typed and submitted on the same document as the essay.
Reminders: * Hint: Learning from your mistakes and understanding them is the only way to improve your writing and grammar skills. You may ask me questions about your previous essay, and this can help you as you write the next essay. Also, print out your essay on paper and read it and edit it carefully (not on a screen). For whatever reason, this usually helps you catch some mistakes that you wouldn’t otherwise see on a screen. Trust me on this.
Use MLA format—size 12 standard font, double-spaced, 1in. margins.
Never use first or second person, announcements, or informal language in a formal critical paper. This especially includes statements such as “I think,” “I believe,” “In my opinion,” “We can see,” “In this paper I will show,” “You can see,” … You get the idea.
Give your paper a title. It should not be the title of the story, but it may include the story title.
Create a clear thesis, and use it as a guide for your body paragraphs, citing evidence from the text to support your points of discussion. Develop each point of discussion in a separate paragraph with a clear topic sentence that relates to the thesis. (Use the outline guide from Unit 1.)
You must use at least 4 direct quotes (can use more) from the primary source. Be sure to include correct documentation. Do not use long quotations, but make your point and be concise. Do not use over 3 lines of the paper for a quotation.
See handouts in How to Write a Good Essay module for reference.
You are to use direct quotes- writing word for word what the source says. summarizing/paraphrasing – taking your source’s information and putting it completely in your own words. None of the paraphrased words should come from the source unless they are terms, names, dates, or places that can’t be reworded. Most of the information you use from a source should be put in your own words. But even this material needs to be cited with the author and page number.
Composing a draft –
Writing the introduction
Open your essay by giving the author’s name, the title of the story, and a brief overview of the storyline of no more than 2 sentences. (Ex: John Updike’s story “A & P” reveals to readers the inner thoughts of a young man, Sammy, who works in a local grocery story. What makes the story intriguing is that Sammy’s reaction to the other characters is, ultimately, what leads to the story’s climax….). The last sentence will be your Thesis statement.
Writing the body paragraphs
When you get to the body paragraphs, be careful not to summarize (retell) the story. The brief plot summary that you include in the introduction should be the only summary of the story. In each body paragraph, you will develop a specific point related to your thesis. (Ex: The first role Elisa Allen plays is that of the nurturing caregiver.) The sentences that follow should cite evidence, including quotations and paragraph/page references, from the text to support your point. Everything you say about the story and characters should be in PRESENT tense (as if it is happening now). When you include your secondary source, make sure you have an attributive tag to introduce the source the first time you use it.
Use an attributive tag the first time you use a source/author with his or her first and last name:
Example: Julia Wilson asserts in her article “Grassroots of Literature” that Phoenix Jackson knows the entire journey “is filled with grief and turmoil, yet her love drags her on” (8).
Writing the conclusion
The conclusion should express to the reader why what you have discussed is significant. (What point were you trying to make in your argument? What does the story reveal about human nature? How can readers relate to the story?) Do not simply write, “These are the symbols that represent Miss Brill’s character” as this is redundant and boring. Instead, write something along these lines: By examining Miss Brill’s inner thoughts as they are reflected in the images and symbols in the story, readers develop a sense of empathy for her. It is human nature to want to feel…. (Do not write: I learned a lot from this story or The author did a good job of writing this story. Blah blah blah). Do NOT use “in conclusion” or “in summary.”
Preparing the Work Cited page
Your Work(s) Cited should list the story you are analyzing (and any additional sources referenced in your paper). Within your essay, there should be specific references to the story with in-text documentation for each reference. Follow MLA format for arranging the source information. Note also the requirements for spacing, indenting, etc.
More Know –How’s:
Title of your paper: not in bold, not underlined, not in quotations.
Present tense means it is ALWAYS in present tense. You do not switch from past to present and back again. If it happened in the story, it is happening as you talk about it: Brown exits the forest with only his pride and leaves behind his wife, his God, and his town. Not: Brown exited the forest with only his pride and left behind… 2 pts every single time.
No “ing” verbs or “is” or “had/had” before every verb. You need action verbs, not passive.
wrong example: He is trying to help. He has helped me.
Correct in present tense: He tries to help. He helps me.
Writer vs. speaker- The writer cannot say. The writer writes.
You would not say: Hughes says to his instructor that they are alike. Hughes is the writer of the poem, but he is not necessarily the speaker. The speaker is the one who says he and the instructor are the same. Same thing with a story: the writer is not the narrator or a character.
Do not say: Faulkner says that Emily is a fallen monument.
Instead say: Faulkner uses the narrator to reveal that the town views Emily as a “fallen monument.” And do not write that the story says. A story cannot say or write itself.
Comma Rule: Place commas around words that interrupt the flow of a sentence (nonrestrictive elements). Do not use comas when the information is important.
Fill in the punctuation:
1). “The Chrysanthemums,” by John Steinbeck, is about a woman who
2). Elisa Allen, the protagonist, shares an intimate moment with a complete
stranger: ” I wish a woman could do such things” (634).
3). In John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums,” Elisa Allen’s flowers allow her
a sense of motherhood: “It’s the budding that takes the most care” (633).
4). In the short story “I Stand Here Ironing,” by Tillie Olsen, and the poem “The Negro Mother,” by Langston Hughes, the mothers are both hard working.
Topic Sentences – A topic sentence is the first sentence of your paragraphs and (like the thesis does for the entire essay) it should reflect what the entire paragraph is about. It should not begin with a quote or a detail.
Wrong Example: Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Hunger games. (This is a detail, not a topic sen).
Correct Topic Sen: Katniss is the very definition of a hero because of her self-sacrifice. She courageously volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Hunger games, with no regards to her own safety. (The first sentence sets up that I will be writing about Katniss as a hero and that self-sacrifice is a trait of a hero throughout this paragraph. The second sentence is a detail from the book that proves my point- a detail sentence. )
2) Textual evidence (quotes from your reading) and commentary (explanation) and Secondary Source quotes.
3) A concluding sentence. Do not end a paragraph with a quotation.
Citation:
Wrong: The slave mother still has hope for her children: “God put a dream like steel in my soul.” (Hughes 15).
Correct: The slave mother still has hope for her children: “God put a dream like steel in my soul” (Hughes 15).
The period does not go inside the quotation marks. It belongs after the parenthesis of the citation.
A Drop Quote (don’t do this)
A “dropped quotation” is when you do not integrate quoted material into your own work but leave the quote to stand alone between sentences, thereby disrupting the flow of the essay. You cannot begin a sentence with a quote. It must have a lead in.
Wrong: The slave mother still has hope for her children. “God put a dream like steel in my soul” (Hughes 15).
Correct: The slave mother still has hope for her children: “God put a dream like steel in my soul” (Hughes 15). (You needed to lead into the quote and have a colon before the quote begins.)
Or The slave mother exclaims, “God put a dream like steel in my soul” (Hughes 15).
Poetry:
With poetry, you need to separate the lines with “/” slashes. You also cite line numbers instead of page numbers with poetry.
Example: The speaker reflects, “What did I know, what did I know / of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (lines 13-14). The slash appears after “know” because that is the end of the line and the next line begins with the word “of.”
Works Cited (centered)
Author last name, Author first name. “Title of Poem.” Title
(this line indented) of Textbook, edited by Editor’s
(indented) Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.
The first line of the works cited entry (author’s name) is not indented. The second line and third ect… should be indented.Make sure you have a period at the end of the entry.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” Compact Literature, edited by Kirszner and
Mandell, Cengage, 2016, pp. 448-57.
EBSCO article (from MCC’s database system, which all your secondary sources will need to be from).
Folks, Jeffrey. “Crowd and Self in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.” Southern Literary Journal, vol. 34, no. 2, 2002, pp. 301-306, EBSCO, Access No: 6970238.
A Word or PDF file in Canvas:
Bradbury, Ray. “The Veldt.” 2022, PDF file.
Who vs. That
This is Relative Pronoun error. Usually this means you have used “that” when referring to a person or people while “who” is correct.
Wrong: “I am a person that values honesty.”
Correction: “I am a person who values honesty.”
Sentence Structure
If you’re sentence structure is weak: Your sentence are short and choppy. This is a college essay, and the sentence structure needs to reflect that in both structure, variety, and word choice.
Wrong: The husband wants to control his wife. The husband will not let her drive. The husband is mean. He is a bully. (These are very basic sentences and need to be combined, cleaned up, and revamped).
Correct: Because the husband seeks control in every area of his life, including the bedroom, he tries to control his own wife by not letting her drive, forcing her into sex, and becoming his own worst enemy by destroying his family from the inside out.
How to lead-in to a quotation (Do not begin a sentence with a quotation).
Use a colon to introduce a quote when the lead-in is a complete sentence.
In the beginning of “The Lottery,” the crowd begins to feel very uncomfortable: “The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between them and the stool” (Jackson 217).
Try to avoid using “the author writes, the narrator says, Jackson says,” -this is overused and not as strong.
Use your own sentences to introduce the quote. Example: Miss Brill believes she is an important part of the performance, for “[n]o doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there” (Mansfield 243).
You can also use brackets to change the grammar or tense of the quote to fit your sentence.
Example: Miss Brill believes in her own importance and sincerely thinks “somebody would have noticed if [I] hadn’t been there” (Mansfield 243). (The “she” in the original quote can be changed to “I” to fit the meaning and grammar of the sentence by placing “I” in brackets to show that you changed a part of the quote.
You can also lead into a quotation with an attributive tag where you name the author and work.
Example: In the opening line of the poem “A Blessing from My Sixteen Years’ Son,” Mary Karr penetrates the heart of a mother: “I have this son who assembled inside me” (line 1). [This is a poem, so though it is found on page 729 in the book, poetry is cited with the line number.]
Analyzing – There is an issue with your analysis: Possibly you are telling me a lot of details from the story, but not making a point about them. Remember, a critical analysis essay does not summarize the plot. I’ve read it. I know. You have to tell me the “so what” or the “why.”
For example, in “The Disappearance,” if you say the husband controls her by not letting her drive or get a job. Ok. So what? I read that in the story. Your job is to analyze, which means to scrutinize, investigate, examine, and question. So you ask what does it reveal about the husband or their marriage or their culture that he had to control her this way and that she, in a sense, allows him to (until of course, she leaves). You have to ask what is the motivation of this character? What is the theme teaching us?
Plagiarism: “Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s writing without giving proper credit or perhaps without giving credit at all to the writer of the original. Whether plagiarism is intentional or unintentional, it represents a serious academic offence . . .” (McCrimmon 499).
You are to use direct quotes- writing word for word what the source says. Do not use over 4 lines or this is a block quote [look it up]. You may NOT use block quotes in your paper. You can also use summarizing/paraphrasing – taking your source’s information and putting it completely in your own words. None of the paraphrased words should come from the source unless they are terms, names, dates, or places that can’t be reworded. Most of the information you use from a source should be put in your own words. But even this material needs to be cited with the author and page number.
Ellipsis points are used within quotations from the text to indicate where one or more words have been omitted. Example: According to the narrator, “The sound of her whisper startled her. She . . . looked about to see whether anyone had been listening” (92). Original sentence: “She shook herself free and looked
Square brackets are used within quotations from the text to indicate that a letter, word, or phrase has been changed or added. Example: As she watches the stranger’s wagon leave the ranch, Elisa “[stands] in front of her wire fence watching the slow progress of the caravan. Her shoulders [are] straight, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed, so that the scene [comes] vaguely into them” (92).
Use an attributive tag the first time you use a source/author with his or her first and last name:
Example: Julia Wilson asserts in her article “Grassroots of Literature” that Phoenix Jackson knows the entire journey “is filled with grief and turmoil, yet her love drags her on” (44).
Essay Outline
(No title is needed until you complete an actual draft of your essay.)
NOTE: With the exception of the thesis, you do not have to write complete sentences in your outline.
Introduction (Fill in the boxes)
A. Story title, author, brief overview and/or background information
B. Transition/general statements leading to thesis
C. Thesis statement
Body Paragraph 1 –
A. First point of discussion
B. Specific support 1
1. Quote(s) and/or text reference(s) to support point one
2. Follow-up/explanation of support
C. Specific support 2
1. Quote(s) and/or text reference(s) to support point one
2. Follow-up/explanation of support
Body Paragraph 2 –
A. Second point of discussion
B. Specific support 1
1. Evidence – quote(s) and/or text reference(s)
2. Follow-up/explanation of evidence
C. Specific support 2
1. Evidence – quote(s) and/or text reference(s)
2. Follow-up/explanation of evidence
Body Paragraph 3 (optional) –
A. Third point of discussion
B. Specific support 1
1. Quote(s) and/or text reference(s) to support point one
2. Follow-up/explanation of evidence
C. Specific support 2
1. Evidence – quote(s) and/or text reference(s)
2. Follow-up/explanation of evidence
Conclusion
A. Reworded thesis
B. Concluding statements
C. Clincher (Give readers something to think about.)
It is okay if you cannot fit your points into this form exactly. This is just a general guide for organizing your paper.
Ellipsis points are used within quotations from the text to indicate where one or more words have been omitted.
Example: According to the narrator, “The sound of her whisper startled her. She . . . looked
About to see whether anyone had been listening” (92). Original sentence: “She shook herself free and looked
Square brackets are used within quotations from the text to indicate that a letter, word, or phrase has been changed or added.
Example: As she watches the stranger’s wagon leave the ranch, Elisa “[stands] in front of her
wire fence watching the slow progress of the caravan. Her shoulders [are] straight, her head
thrown back, her eyes half-closed, so that the scene [comes] vaguely into them” (92).
Use an attributive tag the first time you use a source/author with his or her first and last name:
Example: Julia Wilson asserts in her article “Grassroots of Literature” that Phoenix Jackson knows the entire journey “is filled with grief and turmoil, yet her love drags her on” (Wilson 8).
This tool needs to be loaded in a new browser window
Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers
Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.
Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS
Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?
Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.
We write plagiarism Free Content
Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.
Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.
