April 27, 2011

Essay Writing

A Few Quick Reminders:

1. Do NOT refer to yourself! No I! NOBODY cares about you in the terms of your paper. They care about your points!

Why don’t you have to say “I think” or “in my opinion”? – redundancy = bad

Just write down the point or the thought or the opinion

2. The Five Part Essay is a good beginning point.

What is the Five Part Essay?

a) Intro – state thesis – briefly suggest how you will prove this thesis with a brief reference to your main areas of discussion

b) Body (three Areas of Discussion for a simple, easy essay)

Areas of discussion in Lobb Talk = your “units: of body in the body of your essay – could be paragraphs, could just be sections

Eg – Thesis was “If not for a few blatant errors of leadership, Hitler’s Germany could have won WWII.”

Areas of Discussion would be the blatant errors of leadership

Area of Discussion 1 – Operation Barbarosa – the bifurcation of the Nazi armies to jointly invade Russian AND defend France whilst attacking Britain by air.

In my AoD 1, I would then go on to prove that this Operation was detrimental to the Nazi war effort in a number of ways.

Mr. Lobb, can you apply this to Macbeth? Yes, children. Watch!

Macbeth is not directly influenced by supernatural forces, and is not being controlled by his wife. He is, in fact, completely and utterly, INSANE!

A0D 1 – the dagger scene is good, but it is very specific and rather than an AoD, it is more of a point of proof within an AoD –

AoD1 might be better to say – HALLUCINATIONS!

Within that area of discussion may come a number of hallucinations to discuss

Body -> Area of Discussion -> Points of Proof -> thinking “out loud” about what the point of proof means -> references and links back to the thesis

How do we actually prove something in an essay?

Anything you state as a given or as a fact or an assertion or a point, you must try to show why, how, and say where it comes from. Explain WHY

Eg – Macbeth is schizophrenic – this cannot be stated without:

Defining schizophrenic

Linking those symptoms to Macbeth

Showing how he “does” them in the play – quotation

c) Conclusion – restate thesis and proven and perhaps end with some little capper or spin off comment

CRUCIAL – you MUST make a good rough skeleton of your essay BEFORE you write it – handing it to Mr. The Lobb will net you awesome karma, free advice and marks

Essay Skeleton structure

Intro – write it out – write out a brief overview of your three Areas of Discussion

Area of Discussion 1 – (jot it out)

-       Point – general ideas – page, act, sc, refs

-       Point - etc

-       Point – etc

Area of Discussion 2 -

Area of Discussion 3 –

Conclusion - restate