Sentence Combining

A follow up to the second writing project and to our editing focus on sentence variation: take a look at the discussion of Sentence Combining in the Guide to Grammar and Writing. I mentioned this as a way to move from lots of shorter sentences toward more variation of longer and shorter. It will also give you some ways to be thinking about using commas (and introductory phrases such as participial and absolute phrases) to greater effect in your writing.

As one example, notice the opening sentence of the second paragraph in Katie’s essay. She uses what is technically called an absolute phrase. Forget the terminology, just consider how it provides some variety, how it sets up the focus of the sentence, and how it is more engaging than having 2 or more shorter sentences. I also find in Katie’s essay a good example of an introductory paragraph that establishes its thesis right away, strongly, and effectively incorporates context and summary quickly so that the rest of the essay can focus on interpretation and elaboration.

First Project Follow Up

As part of my attempt to move us all away from a traditional model of  writing in schools (where you write only to the teacher, an audience of one; then throw away your thinking and work put into the essay, if not the essay itself, when you get it back), I plan to have us follow up each writing project in a couple ways.

1. I will be posting here some reflections on what I am seeing and noticing–strengths as well as some collective weaknesses we can add to our to-do lists. For this first time, I saw strengths throughout in how writers introduced the theses/focal points of their essays using a basic ‘template’ of some sort. To get right away to the ’so what’ and the ‘why you should care about this essay and my perspective on reading/writing.
   1. To consider just two examples (there were many more): Max effectively uses a version of the I used to think this/now I think this–complete with the template from the Graff’s (“Although my old self would disagree…”). I think it works very well and in fact allows him to be creative in his voice and style while still offering a clear thesis; Carolyn effectively uses Birkerts on the privacy of reading to set up and highlight her contrasting vision.
   2. One presentation (mechanics/punctuation) issue I saw frequently concerns run-on or fused sentences: basically, when a sentence has more than one sentence in it, incorrectly joined by a comma when it should be a period. This is one of the hangovers from the transition from oral to print: a sentence that in our head or in conversation can fit lots into it, but in print comes out sounding hurried, rushed, confusing. The page on run-on sentences at the Guide to Grammar and Writing is very good–includes strategies for repairing them and some self-quizzes. Take a look. This is a basic use of commas that you need to get control of so we can move on to some more complicated ways of putting commas (and other punctuation) to work for us in more stylistic ways.
2. A second way we will follow up on the projects you have completed: on the Wednesday following each project publication date (this Wednesday, for example), I will assign you to read through the essays of the writers from one of the writing groups. After reading, I will ask you to comment, briefly, directly on the writer’s blog (at the bottom of the essay posting). Your comment should respond to the following: Good writers are never fully satisfied; in the case of this class, each of the four projects could lead to something larger, different, hopefully stronger (namely, the final project in which one or more of these essays will be revised, expanded). If the writer were to go back to this essay at the end of the course, what might they do, where might they go further? What is here that you would encourage them to stay with, develop, build upon?
   1. You will be reading the writers from group #1
      1. 1.2.30 class: alex a., mike, tyler, kat cohen
      2. 1.30 class: cbevans., mallory, jcragle, claire

Editing: introduction

Revision focuses on getting a handle on what your writing is about, where you want it to go. Generally speaking, revision is when you are still dealing with changes that could be as large as entire paragraphs, possibly your overall focus.

Revision and editing can sometime blend. But for the sake of our efforts in this course, I will suggest that editing is what you do toward the end of a project. Editing concerns how your essay communicates to a different set of eyes and ears than the ones which wrote it.

A good practice for editing: be more self-conscious about the sound and shape of your writing–something we take for granted. In order not to take it for granted (since you have been working on this essay and it probably makes sense to you), we need to defamiliarize it.

• Read it aloud–hear the writing. Have a peer read it aloud or read it aloud yourself. Read it backwards, paragraph by paragraph or sentence by sentence: listening for places where the expression/communication (the how of the writing, the mechanics, the style) is not matching up with the idea. Usage errors would be one way expression and ideas get crossed.

in writing pair: select a paragraph you want to focus on for editing–want to improve/revise. Have partner read your paragraph aloud. Then discuss for 1-2 minutes what you hear and see–suggestions for what you might need to do or want to do with the paragraph.

• More active than passive. Richard Lanham’s Paramedic Method (from Revising Prose, 5th edition, Pearson 2007)): one strategy to pay better attention to the way your “voice” is informed by the machinery of sentence length, verb (active vs passive), prepositions. These are not ‘errors’ but choices you make in presentation. We will be returning to this in later editing workshops. For today, let’s focus on the issue of crafting and clarifying the action of our sentences.

1]Circle the prepositions

2]Circle the “is” forms.

3]Find the action

4]Put this action in a simple (not compound) active verb.

5]Start fast–no slow windups. [the passive construction is often connected with too-conversational kinds of beginnings: 'One of the things that I think about reading is that reading is engaging for the mind.'  in contrast: "Reading engages the mind."

focus today on 1-5: the issue of using active verbs and active voice [also discussed effectively in Hacker, p. 140]

• Some formal/presentational features to consider and not neglect:

–title? I will be crushed to see an essay titled ‘paper #1′

–introduction/conclusion: how do you bring the reader into your story? where do you leave the reader? A strategy to consider: start in with the narrative, or in the middle of an experience, before pulling back to more general set-up. And conclude by circling back to your beginning. [these are tricky--will continue to work on this in later workshops]

• Have in mind a few of the mechanical/surface errors you tend to make and will need to clean up.

You can use this list of the 20 most common formal errors that can be edited–list provided by the Writing Center.

Editing: introduction and conclusion

Some strategies and variations on dealing with introductions and conclusions–ways of making them seem less hideous and monstrous.

1. Introduction: in media res (in the middle). Can be effective, particularly to establish a story or narrative for your essay. Since you are dealing with film, think about starting with a close-up, in one moment from one scene, then pulling back to get the larger view of the essay, ask questions, indicate where you are going.
2. Conclusion: circle back to beginning. Can tie in with the strategy above. End by circling back to a moment from your text that you opened with, but now go back to that with greater insight. Films do this when we begin at an end, and the film is showing us how we got there.
3. Keywords: set-up some keywords that your reader will look for throughout the essay (think of them as the hyperlinks that your reader will be following); then reiterate those keywords in the conclusion. This can help you avoid merely re-stating or repeating in your conclusion. See Jen’s example.
4. Start with a vivid image or line from the text: both catches attention, but also a key image/idea that you will go on to reflect upon in the essay, get back to, look at from different angles. See Erin’s example.
5. Conclusion: raise some larger implications. Can be tricky, since a conclusion can’t start a brand new argument or offer a new thesis. But a good essay will leave your reader thinking and (we hope) will have them begin to think about other places where they could take your thesis and make further applications. One way to do this with a text (print or film): suggest a passage at the end that you didn’t deal with, but that would be interesting to view from the perspective of your thesis. How your critical vision might help readers re-think or re-vise our understanding of other aspects of this author’s work, related questions and topics. Leave your reader not just with a good understanding of what you focused on, but what the larger stake or implication of that focus is.
6. Introduction: two-step thesis set up. Something we have seen Hayles and others do: an initial set up of the focus in one paragraph, perhaps raising a key question; then a refined, and more complicated statement of your thesis, or how you plan to answer that question in a second paragraph. 
7. Meta-commentary: don’t be afraid to speak directly to your reader at key points in your introduction and conclusion, to signal a point of emphasis. “In other words”; “What I mean by this”; “As I have said, my thesis is”; “Let me clarify this point”; “This is an important point, worth emphasizing”. These are effective signals; they can enable you to repeat without being too repetitive.

Examples to consider from our Writing Center consultants:

Jen Malat: excerpt from a thesis chapter (introduction and conclusion) about film versions of Pride and Prejudice.

Strategy: Don't try to cram every important idea into one thesis
statement. Use a few sentences that set up the work and broad ideas of the
paper, then use your actual thesis statement to present the most specific
and interesting point made by your paper.

Here, I started with a broad statement that sets up the modern context I
want the paper to address because the paper is examining a contemporary
film and the aspects of our culture that it reflects. By spreading a
thesis statement into several sentences, the layers of the argument
(culture, film, and text) can be clearly established.
The conclusion also acknowledges the multiple media of the paper and
extends that cultural context to a statement about how the themes of the
film relate to each other.

The countless self-help guides lining bookstore shelves highlight the modern confusion over how romance is structured and how to navigate through turbulent emotional waters. This confusion is especially true during early romances while one is growing up, a theme that is explored in countless novels, songs, and movie. It follows, then, that recent adaptations of Pride and Prejudice would be eager to explore these modern themes with beloved characters and a well-known title. The most recent big-screen adaptation of Austen’s novel, director Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew Macfayden as Fitzwilliam Darcy, consistently highlights physicality, nature, and romance. By constructing the adaptation as romance rather than social commentary, the filmmakers track the maturation of Elizabeth. The very setting and visual aesthetic of the film highlight Elizabeth’s uncertainties about her body and reflects her emotional vacillations regarding the movement into adulthood, as the film depicts romance as the catalyst for her coming of age.

 

….

  The filmmakers have capitalized on the power of the visual imagery of film to achieve their ends and reinvent the period piece for the modern audience, as “youth-oriented filmmaking techniques balances with the visual pleasures of the heritage film” (Dole). The difficulties of navigating the body highlight emotional uncertainty and the always-relevant theme of coming of age. The changes, both textual and visual, drastically manipulate the social focus of Austen’s satiric writing into a more intimate story. Though many of the alterations in the film can be attributed to time constraints or a conscious appeal to female and teen demographics, there still remains the profound cultural desire for a strong female lead who manages to gain self-empowerment while achieving a fairy-tale ending as a material reward. Marriage is portrayed as the end point for socially approved sexual desire, which leads to greater self-knowledge and helps a modern woman fulfill her demands for adulthood. 

 

Erin O’Hare: from her thesis work on Shakespeare.

Strategy:            Use a vivid image (quote from the text or a supporting source, specific visual image from a scene, etc.) to immediately capture your reader’s interest.  If one has stuck out to you in your reading, it might be an interesting starting point for your essay. 

Here, instead of using a typical “In this play…” introduction, I use a quote that mirrors the issues I highlight throughout the essay (and this is a long essay).  The idea of “cause” present in the chosen quote and the other issues addressed in the described scene introduce and support the complex argument formed within the paper.

            I use this technique again in the conclusion, much to the same effect—I have chosen to end the essay just as it began, with a vivid image enhanced by quote (and a quote from that very same scene, nonetheless) that the reader will see over and over each time he or she thinks about the essay.

 

Introduction:

“It is the cause,” the deteriorated Othello moans in the final scene of Shakespeare’s Othello:  The Moor of Venice.  “…[It] is the cause, my soul;/ Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars,/ It is the cause” (5.2.1-3).  “It” is the image of his wife Desdemona, her white skin “smooth as monumental alabaster,” an image the Moor cannot bring himself to deface despite the fact that it has already destructed his own sense of self.  It is the last scene in a tragedy that, through iconography (the creation of images), idolatry (a worship of image), and iconoclasm (destruction of image), explores “the disruptions, conflicts, and radical changes wrought by the Protestant Reformation.”           

 

 

Conclusion:

 

Shakespeare’s movement through acts of iconography, idolatry, and iconoclasm in rehearsal of the audience’s own fears, instructs his audience on the proper way of looking at images.  He places a play within a play for eyes to gaze upon without becoming enthralled by the immediate spectacle before them, using the tragic genre to evoke the most human of emotions rooted firstly in fear, as they become aware of rather than part of Iago’s revenge tragedy.  Though he employs Protestant rhetoric and works to attack a certain form in order to build another, Shakespeare cannot completely destruct the dramatic form, much as Othello cannot bring himself to “shed [Desdemona’s] blood,/ Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow” (5.2.3-4).  And yet it is the cause, and theater, at least in its idolatrous Catholic form, “must die, else she’ll betray more men” (5.2.6).

 

---

Huston Diehl, Staging Reform, Reforming the Stage: Protestantism and Popular Theater in Early Modern England  (Ithaca:  Cornell University Press, 1997): 2.

Editing: stitching a more fluid essay

In addition to being a poor reader, Victor Frankenstein (Shelley’s stand-in for the creative artist, the writer, the one who toils in the workshop of filthy creation) appears to be a bad editor. Think of it: if he had taken a bit more time to consider the presentation of his creation, the work that he had stitched together from parts (as any creative work is), might he have saved himself some heartache?

This editing workshop focuses on how we control and create the fluidity (often called ‘flow’ by you) of an essay that is not naturally or originally there. It is made, not born. And one key place we control and create this fluidity is through control of our sentences. 

• Sentence Variation: 

1.  
   1. look at your sentence length: hit return at the end of each sentence in one or more paragraphs: turn your prose into poetry; the point is to bring out the buried voiced (the origins of poetry, of writing) of your sentences.
   2. we are after variation: not all long/complex; not all short and sharp–a fluid movement between the two.

• Close-Up
  • Experiment with using the power of shifting to a short, sharply focused sentence as a way to highlight your thesis statement. It is like moving in for a dramatic close-up on your critical vision
• Transitions
  • between sentences within a paragraph (the point from above), and between paragraphs. Look at the transition sentence (the first sentence of the next paragraph). Work on weaving the reader’s path (or the thread of your thesis) into the next paragraph.
    • use transition signals (think of the way we need to do this with a speech or public presentation): “Yet another example of this irony of dark creation is evident in the creation scene.”  Or by contrast: “Unlike the darkness of creation we see with Victor, the creature presents a vision of light…”
• Weave your quotation into the paragraph: quotations need to be effective, not just accurate. 
  • consult the close-reading template (don’t throw quotations at the reader)
  • leave the page number for the parenthetical citation; don’t introduce the quotation with the page number.
• Meta-Commentary.
  • We will be returning to this in later workshops. For now, think about places where you can add in a sentence that will help clarify things for your reader by letting the reader know what you are thinking.
    • “in other words”; “By irony of dark creation I mean…”; “Let me repeat my thesis:….”; “What do I mean by …?”