Before Submitting Your Final Draft

This is a checklist of sorts.  Walk through it, step-by-step, fixing your own paper.  You're going to college next year so begin learning how to do your own quality checks.

Proofreading & Polishing Checklist

1.       MLA heading—is it correct?  Is it four lines of info in the right order?  Is the date in MLA format?

2.      Your title—do you have one?  Is it actually your title rather than the title of the literature?  If it includes the title of the literature, is that punctuated correctly?  Does your title have the word “essay” in it?  Get rid of it.  Make sure your title informs the content of your analysis rather than a label of the rhetorical mode.  Is it capitalized correctly?  Remember you capitalize first and last words and all words in between EXCEPT a, an, the, and, but, for, nor, or, yet, and all little prepositions under five letters.

3.      Title and author—included?  Capitalized and spelled correctly…every time?  Use the Find feature to check.  Punctuated correctly?  Remember that full-length works (novels, plays, anthologies) are italicized while smaller works (short stories, poems, one-act plays) are in quotation marks.  Use Find to make sure you did this every time.

4.      MLA format—correctly indented paragraphs?  Did you use the tab rather than space bar?  Double-spaced?

5.      Spacing and margins—all the same?  Nothing funky?

6.      MLA citations—included?  At the end of the sentence unless there is more than one citation in the sentence?  Is the citation part of a sentence (meaning there is end punctuation AFTER the citation)?

7.      Check each quote—did you copy it EXACTLY as the author wrote it?  If you made alterations for flow and clarity, did you denote the SUBSTITUTIONS with brackets?  Is the quote itself a complete sentence? If not, is it PART of a complete sentence with your own commentary?  Does the punctuation you use to intro the quote or transition out of the quote work to make the sentence complete and correct?

8.     Quote within a quote—do you have any of these?  If so, did you alternate double and single quotation marks:  Some people “believed this idea too ‘McLuhanesque’ for their taste” (Postman 43).

9.      Long quotes—do you have any of these? A quote that is more than four normally typed lines in your paper?  You should avoid these BUT if you do include one, did you use long quote format?  Look up the proper way to do it on the Purdue OWL or in the MLA Handbook.

10.  Hamburger method—did you use it?  Is every quote in your body introduced and explained?
11.   Commas—use the Find feature to search and check that you have followed the basic rules correctly.  I’ve listed them below.  If you need more info than I’ve provided, see the Purdue OWL for help.

a.      Use commas to separate independent clauses when they are joined by any of these seven coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet.

b.      Use commas after introductory a) clauses, b) phrases, or c) words that come before the main clause.

c.       Use a pair of commas in the middle of a sentence to set off clauses, phrases, and words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Use one comma before to indicate the beginning of the pause and one at the end to indicate the end of the pause.

d.      Do not use commas to set off essential elements of the sentence, such as clauses beginning with that (relative clauses). That clauses after nouns are always essential. That clauses following a verb expressing mental action are always essential.

e.      Use commas to separate three or more words, phrases, or clauses written in a series.

f.        Use commas to set off phrases at the end of the sentence that refer to the beginning or middle of the sentence. Such phrases are free modifiers that can be placed anywhere in the sentence without causing confusion. (If the placement of the modifier causes confusion, then it is not "free" and must remain "bound" to the word it modifies.)

g.       Use a comma to shift between the main discourse and a quotation.

12.  Hypen vs. dash—use the Find feature to search for a hyphen (-).  Are you using it correctly?  Is it making multiple words into one? With no spaces on either side?  Or are you using it as a dash (--) that interrupts a thought or denotes a long pause?

13.  Read the entire piece out loud to yourself—listen for places you get tripped up.  Revise those areas for better transition, flow, or clarity by looking at punctuation, sentence structure, and word choice.  If the sentence goes on for two or three lines, it’s likely a run-on that could be revised.  If your flow is choppy, you probably have a lot of simple sentences or compound sentences.  Use the Find feature to search for “and” or “but”—these are places you could revise for better flow.

14.  Semicolon—did you use any?  Do you need to use fewer “and”s?  A semicolon is used to connect two complete sentences WITHOUT a conjunction.

Use the Find feature to search for and double-check these commonly misused words:

a.      It’s (it is)
b.      Its (possessive)
c.       Your (possessive
d.      You’re (you are)
e.      Here (place)
f.        Hear (to listen)
g.      There (place)
h.     Their (possessive
i.        They’re (they are)
j.        To
k.      Too (also or excessive amount)
l.        Two (number)
m.   Witch (on a broom)
n.     Which (which one—this or that)
o.      Where (place)
p.      Wear (on your person)
q.      Were (past tense passive verb)
r.       We’re (we are)

Writing Conclusions

Consider this:

Your conclusion is the only place you have a chance to argue your thesis as a whole.  Your entire paper argues pieces or aspects of your thesis, but never has a chance to really argue it all together.  It's the only place you REALLY get to argue your actual theme.  Now that you've offered all of the reasoning and backed up everything with evidence, now pull it all together and really argue your theme overall.

Secondly, your conclusion should answer the "So what?" question.  Why does any of this matter?  Why does it matter that Gatsby's miserable or Santiago learned something about himself or Austen is criticizing class structure?  What does that mean for us today?  Why is the book still relevant? Powerful? Significant?  Make sure you address that in your conclusion.

People get worried about "not adding in something new" to their conclusion.  Yes, it's true that you should NOT make any more unsubstantiated claims.  This is not a place to continue arguing your thesis.  Your body should sufficiently make and back up all of those points.  This is a place to bring it together, connect everything, and show why we should care.  Please DON'T only repeat things you've already said.  That sounds horrible and unnecessary. =)  No, don't make new points of argument but DO certainly do what a conclusion needs done:  tie up any loose ends and leave us with the parting message of what we are to do with this information.

Lastly, your conclusion (and your intro) should be about the same length as your body paragraphs.  If they look wimpy or weak...they are.  Develop them.  USE them to help make your analysis make more sense and come together.

Body Revision Work

Revision Checklist

You have your thoughts on paper now.  You've got a start on your evidence and explanation. However, in my experience, most of you will either need more evidence, more explanation, less saying-the-same-thing-different-ways, or all of the above.  Also, you'll likely need better coherence, efficiency, and style before we're done here.

Walking through this checklist will help you address whatever concerns your paper might have.  Go through each step in order, working through it at your own pace.  Don't worry about your neighbor's paper--just stay focused on your own and what you need to do.  This is work time with me here and available for help, but not class discussion or peer review time.  Spend some dedicated time with your paper!

Add

• Highlight your claims—anything that is a statement of interpretation.  Add evidence of some type to support every one of those claims.
• Next, highlight the good stuff—places where the points you make and the evidence you use is excellent, strong, well-put.  Look at the places not highlighted—what do they need?
• Look at paragraph lengths.  In a well-written academic essay, your paragraphs should all be roughly the same length.  Where are your short points?  Further develop them.  Go deeper in your analysis and add more evidence.

Subtract

• Subtract the junk—in every sentence, experiment with pulling out words you don’t need.  Begin with words like “which” and “that.”
• Read one sentence at a time—get rid of repetition:  words, phrases, ideas.  Use the Find feature to help you find repeated words.
• Look at paragraph lengths again.  Where are your long paragraphs?  Is there content you don’t need?  Repetition?  Fluff?  Stuff that doesn’t support your thesis or topic sentence?  If so, get rid of it or change it so it works.

Substitute and Rearrange

• Look at your long paragraphs again.  Could you split them into two separate paragraphs?  Each making its own part of the larger point?
• Notice where you tend to use passive vs. active verbs.  Find “am,” “is,” “are,” “was,” “were.”  Rewrite those sentences with action verbs.
• Find “you.”  Do you mean something else?
• Find “I.”  Is first person effective for your purpose and audience or would 3^rd person be better?
• Where can you combine and condense?  Where do you have a point made in two or three sentences that could be made in one or two?  Where do you have simple sentences that could be combined into complex sentences?
• Where could your word choice be more precise and specific?  More interesting?  More fresh?  Don’t replace using the thesaurus—actually rewrite your sentences.

Poetry Reading for Wednesday

For Wednesday, I really want you to spend some time practicing your own interpretation AND how you would back it up.

1. Begin by reading the brief bio on Emily Dickinson on p. 1042-1051 in the textbook.
2. Then spend some time on each of the following poems:  "I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--" p.1065, "Because I could not stop for Death--" p.1066, and "Wild Nights--Wild Nights!" p.1058.
3. For each poem, note details and interpretation in your journal--not just a vague "I think it's about this"--but rather a clearly stated interpretation and some support for why you think that with details from the poem as evidence.
4. Next, read the criticism at the end of the chapter that discusses these three poems p.1077-1082.  Note in your journal how it impacts your interpretation.  Does it support your thoughts?  Give you additional details to consider?  Change your mind about some things?  Point out details you've overlooked or even misinterpreted?

The goal of this activity is to help you get more practice on actually arguing your interpretation...and forcing some of you to actually come to clearly defined interpretations BEFORE I make you do it on the test. =)

When you come to class, you'll practice on a couple of other Dickinson poems. The background with her poetry should help you with the class task.