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Mapping an Essay

Well, it’s happened to you yet again. You have to write an essay. Here are some ways to make the process less difficult:

Start early, finish early! The worst writing happens in the dead of night, in the zone of panic. That’s when evil spirits overtake printers and computers inexplicably crash. No need to be so hard on yourself.

Save yourself a lot of wasted writing and make life interesting – define your thesis before you start writing.

- Find a quiet place.

- Get comfortable.

- Relax.

- Think about something that seems unusual or strange about the text. Decide (provisionally) on a topic.

- List specifics from the essay that relate to that topic.

- Play with the list. Group and order.

- Flip back through the essay, underline passages that you might use.

- Refine your topic.

- Think of something surprising to say about that topic (‘it might seem that…, but actually…’).

- That decided, ask yourself, "So what?" The answer is your thesis.

- Map out the argument. that will best back up that thesis. That means listing the main points that you’ll be making and the specifics that you’ll use to back them up. You could regard this as an ‘outline’ –but don’t spend a lot of time making it formal. It’s just to help you keep on track.

- How should the argument ‘flow’? That depends on you and your thesis. An effective way to start is by actually arguing against yourself. Spend a paragraph substantiating the "it might seem that" side. Then demolish that superficial reading with a step-by-step proof of what is "actually" the case.

Ok, ladies & gentlemen – start your computers! You’ve done most of the hard part: thinking. Now it’s a matter of presentation. Your main concern from now on is laying out your points as clearly and vividly as you can for your friend, the reader.

All of the writing advice I gave you earlier applies. But what are the specific ingredients of essays?

All essays should have three sections:

INTRODUCTION

Don’t make it a mystery, front-load the argument! Get right into the topic; don’t waste space circling around the topic or clearing your throat. The introduction is a map for your reader – it should clearly state the thesis, and give a summary of how you’ll be defending that thesis.

BODY

The body of the paper should proceed step by step. Use paragraphs to order your points; make sure they’re not too short or too long. Use the opening of paragraphs to connect a new step to what happened in the previous paragraph; don’t be shy about pointing out the flow to your reader. Use quotes—as proof, not as filler or description. 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. #).

As you’re filling out the body, keep in mind all that general advice we went over on the first week. 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. Stay in the present tense. Weave back and forth from well-chosen pieces of specific evidence to general assessment of the pattern they uncover.

CONCLUSION

This is where you loosen up. Don’t disappoint in the conclusion by repeating yourself. Instead, use this space as a platform to push your idea one step further. The best conclusions often read like beginnings of new papers.