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Imposters Spring 1998 UC Berkeley

General Essay Advice

 

Imposters Syllabus


Treat your reader well. Regard such a person as an equal, who would be as bored as you would be by pretentiousness, inexplicable leaps, clichés, or any other attempt to smudge communication. Assume this reader to be familiar with the text(s) you're writing about, but unaware of the web of details and implications you're convincingly pointing out.


Approach the text as if it were laid out before you, like a body or a painting; your thesis should describe how it works, not just restate what it said. Avoid plot summary by casting your argument in the present tense.


Specifics convince. Cloudy abstractions do not: watch out for exhausted and undefined words like "society," "nature," "culture," or "people". Keep the focus on the text itself. Weave back and forth from well-chosen pieces of specific evidence to general assessment of the pattern they uncover.
Make sure your introductory paragraph clearly states the main thesis. Get right into the issue at hand; don't waste space circling around the topic. One promising formula you might want to try is the following opening: "It may seem but actually." Once you've jumped right into your subject in this way, you're well on your way to a good thesis: after establishing the "actually," ask yourself, "So what?"


The body of the paper should proceed step by step. Use the opening of paragraphs to connect a new step to the previous paragraph. Label quotes as you go, either by page number or, in the case of poems, by line number. Punctuate as follows: "Quoting in the middle of a sentence," (p. #) or "quoting at the end" (p. #).

 

Don't disappoint in the conclusion by repeating yourself. Instead, use this space as a platform to pushyour idea one step further. The best conclusions often read like beginnings of new papers.