Feedback on Paper Proposals

1. Feedback on Paper Proposals ENGL 305 Dr. Fike

2. How You Got Graded • Did you have 2 FULL pages? • Did you show me that you had read your play? • Did you present a focused topic? • Did you start chipping away at that topic?

3. Frequency of Topics • We’re okay on this. The proposals were not concentrated on any one play.

4. Focus • Area of inquiry: The Tempest • Topic: Caliban as a native American • Focus: Caliban and alcohol • Thesis: The way Stefano and Trinculo give Caliban alcohol illustrates the dark side of Europeans’ colonization of North America.

5. Avoid Plot Summary • You do not have to retell the story. • Narrative details should appear in your papers to support critical points. • Such details do not belong in your papers for their own sake.

6. Things To Remember To Do • Italicize or underline play titles. • Print only on one side of the page. • Quotations longer than 3 lines of verse must be set off with double indentation but without quotation marks . • Quotations 3 lines or fewer may be woven into your text, as follows.

7. How To Quote Helena • She says, “Things base and vile, holding no quality, / Love can transpose to form and dignity” (1.1.232-33). • Also acceptable: “…dignity” (I.i.232-33). • Notes: • Use a forward slash mark to indicate the line break. Put a space on either side of the slash mark. • Put a space after the closing quotation mark, then the citation, then the period. • In the citation, use periods, not commas or spaces.

8. Correct This • “Through Athens I am thought as fair as she,” (Shakespeare, 153). • The line comes from act one, scene one, line 227.

9. Corrected Version • “Through Athens I am thought as fair as she” (MSND 1.1.227). OR: • “Through Athens I am thought as fair as she” (MSND I.i.227). • Note, however, that you can omit MSND or Dream if it is obvious that you’re quoting from that specific play.

10. This Citation Is NOT Acceptable • He says, “The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.” (173) • POINTS: • Give act, scene, and line numbers. • Do not give page numbers. • Put the period after the citation.

11. Stuff To Remember, continued • Minimize the use of “this” as a transitional device. • Put closing quotation marks outside the period “like this.” • Do not split infinitives. For example, do not say “to later fulfill” something. • Do not use yucky phrases like “it may be argued that” something is the case. Wordy.

12. More Stuff • Do not use “quote” as a noun in ENGL 305. Use “quotation.” • Do not say “as” when you mean “because” or “since.” • Write about literature in PRESENT tense. • Do not talk about “society,” especially “today’s society.” • Do not use contractions. • Say “toward” rather than “towards.”

13. Spelling Test • Which is the correct spelling? • Playright • Playwrite • Playwright

14. Answer • PlayWRIGHT, like shipWRIGHT.

15. Still More Stuff • Use “that” after verbs of cognition like think, believe, feel, and know. Also use it wherever clarity will benefit. • Get straight on “that” vs. “which”: the latter requires a preceding comma and introduces nonessential information. With “that,” do not use a preceding comma because the word introduces essential information. • Also use “that” to introduce independent clauses. • Examples: • “I thought THAT Bottom was a stronger and much deeper character than his role…allowed him to be.” • “Bottom’s main problem is THAT he is overly charismatic about everything….”

16. Pronoun Agreement • “Each” takes a singular pronoun. • Example: “The group project will consist of four students, each assigned his/her own task….” Not THEIR own task.

17. How To Use “Like” • “Like” does not introduce a clause (i.e., a group of words having a subject and a verb). • “Like” introduces nouns. • Examples: • Incorrect: I feel like it was essential. • Correct: I feel THAT it was essential. • Correct: I feel AS IF it were essential. • Correct: I feel like a freshman right now.

18. Do Not “Feel” in Your Papers • What to say instead: “think.”

19. Avoid Passive Constructions • “It is a depiction of passion in its extremity and the hazards posed by such unbridled passion. The passion of the lovers in the main play is reflected in the inner work.” • Revise this. • Advice: Make the subject the subject.

20. Revision: • Unbridled passion is hazardous to the lovers. OR: • The play depicts the hazards of the lovers’ unbridled passion.

21. Oxford English Dictionary • Use definitions that are historically accurate. • I don’t want anybody to cite Webster’s.

22. Works Cited List • Every proposal was supposed to have one: it was in the directions. • Every assignment from now on MUST have a W.C. list. • Of those who DID have a W.C. list, not one of you did it correctly.

23. Fix This Shakespeare, William. “Macbeth” The Complete Works of Shakespeare 5 (2004): 1255- 1292. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Pearson Education Inc.

24. Corrected Version Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Education, 2004. 1255-92. Print.

25. Fix This (paper is on MSND and Macbeth) Bevington, David. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. 5. Chicago, IL. The University of Chicago. 2004. 1005-1050.

26. Corrected Version Bevington, David, ed. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Education, 2004. Print. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Bevington 1005-50. ---. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bevington 148-79.

27. What I Expect • If your W.C. list has glitches that you do not understand, come see me. • If your citations and/or W.C. list are incorrect on subsequent assignments, I will deduct up to 1 point. • On your analysis paper, you should have at least your play on the W.C. list.

28. What About Criticism? • Do not read criticism yet—it will poison the well. • Depending on your topic, it is okay to read primary or secondary sources that provide background information. • Example: Someone is writing about Feste, the fool in Twelfth Night. I suggested Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly. Thus she would have her play and Erasmus’s book on her W.C. list.

29. Analysis Papers • The assignment will work best if you zero in on a substantial passage related to your topic. • Example: Someone is writing about the animal imagery—snake and lion—in AYLI. For the analysis paper, she will look really closely at the details in this scene. • Why a snake and a lion? • Why a maternal lion? • What is the significance of Orlando’s actions? • What are the antecedents/interpretations of snake and lion in mythology, psychology, and the Bible? • What connections can be made between the key passage and other details in the play? Example: Orlando as Hercules, Hercules’s fight with the Nemean lion. • What do the snake and the lion suggest about Orlando’s relationship with Rosalind?