English 2100H (Nordquist)

Project #1

Date submitted

Title of Your Critical Essay

     Begin your essay here, immediately following the title you’ve fashioned for your essay. In other words,

do not provide a separate cover page. A good introduction conventionally identifies (by title and author) the

work(s) that you will be examining in the body of your essay, suggests the basic approaches that you will be

taking in your analysis, and offers some indication of the purpose of this analysis. Remember always to

underline (or italicize) the titles of novels, plays, and films (A Thousand Acres, The Tragedy of King Lear,

Ran); put the titles of stories and poems in quotation marks ("The Seven Ravens" and "Wages"); and put

commas and periods (where needed) inside quotation marks as follows: In his allegorical story "Young

Goodman Brown," Hawthorne . . . , unlike Ralph Ellison’s portrayal of a depression-era Southern town in

"Battle Royal."

     Indent each new paragraph five spaces. Double-space all lines of text in your essay, and maintain

one-inch margins on all four sides of the paper. Use a standard font (such as Times Roman or Courier) and

a font size of twelve. Make sure that the cartridge in your printer has sufficient ink, and use standard white

paper (8.5" x 11"). Print on only one side of the paper. Please don’t wait until the last minute to print out

your essay: reserve enough time so that if you experience problems with a computer or a printer at home

you can still visit the Armstrong computing lab or Writing Center for help in printing your essay before the

assigned deadline.

     When you edit the final version of your essay, try reading it aloud: you may be able to hear problems

with the writing that you haven’t been able to see. In a critical essay, make sure that you maintain a

balance--sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph–of "show me" (i.e., provide supporting details)

and "so what?" (i.e., discuss the particular effects or implications of those details). Never re-tell or

paraphrase a story or poem for its own sake: you are writing for someone who has already read the

work(s). When analyzing a story, poem, film, or play, make sure that you keep consistently to the present

tense. Heed the project guidelines regarding the Honor Code and doing your own work: lifting ideas from a

mate is as much a violation of the code as lifting ideas (without attribution) from a journal article or a web

site. Quite simply, do your own work. If you have any questions regarding Honor Code policies, please

send me an e-mail before the project due date.

     Never quote without commenting on the quotation. Keep your quotations as short as necessary: often, a

single word or phrase will work just fine. Quotations that run more than four lines long should be "blocked"

(i.e., indented twice), but, then, if you have a quotation that runs more than four lines long, it is very likely

needlessly long and should be cut down. Because, for the most part, we are using the same editions for all

assigned works, it is not necessary (for this assignment, at least) to put the page numbers for your

quotations in parentheses. (This guideline will change when we get to a research project.)

     Avoid the vague use of "this." You can avoid this problem by making sure that a noun always follows

the word this: NOT "This means that the hero . . .," BUT INSTEAD "This remark [or whatever] means

that the hero . . .."  And be guided by the grading checklist posted online.