Introduction to Language and Literature - Lecture notes - Module 2 PDF

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Module 2: Reading and Analyzing Essays Objectives Throughout the course, you will be asked to read essays and analyze them for different purposes in order to incorporate them within your assignments. To do this effectively, you need to understand what an essay is and be able to apply the skills involved in critical analysis.

Learning Outcomes This module will enable you to gain skills to apply the rules and conventions of correct writing. Upon completion of this module, you will be able to do the following: 1. Explain what an essay is and the different purposes authors have for writing essays. 2. Identify the key defining characteristics of all essays. 3. Describe how to analyze an essay. 4. Read an essay and depict its thesis and other key characteristics.

Readings for the Module:

At the end of this module, you will need to read “The Pain of Animals,” by David Suzuki. You can access the essay by clicking the eReserves menu option on the menu of the home page for our course.

What Is an Essay? The term essay refers to a type of non-fiction writing on a wide range of subjects. The essays you will read in this course represent many different styles and address a variety of social issues in different times and places.

Informal essays are loosely structured, whereas academic essays are tightly organized. Please remember that the essays you are asked to read will not typically be structured academically. However, you will be asked to write academically structured essays for your assignments.

Key Characteristics of Essays An essay is a short piece of writing, usually from an author’s point of view and generally written in first or third person. It is a tool used by an author to convey information about a particular subject and is meant to be read at a single sitting. Reading and analyzing essays will help you to develop systematic, analytic thinking. By studying essays, you will develop greater awareness of how other writers use language to create meaning. All essays centre around a thesis that provides a focus for the content of the essay. To read and analyze an essay effectively, you must understand what distinguishes essays from other types of writing. The following table illustrates the main characteristics of all essays.

Non-fiction

Essays are classified as a non-fiction prose. Other types of non-fiction literature include biographies, autobiographies, travel writing, reports, scientific articles, and newspaper and magazine articles.

No created narrative perspective

The pronoun “I” in an essay usually refers to the writer. However, sometimes the writer creates a persona or mask to state opinions that are not his or her personal views.

No characters

The people in essays are real people. They are not imaginary people created by the author.

No plot

There is no made-up plot in an essay. The sequence of events in an essay represents what the author really experienced.

Context

Essays have context—the circumstances of time and place that relate to the subject.

Tone

An essay will have a tone associated with it. This is the writer’s attitude toward the subject and audience (readers of the essay). Tone can involve a wide range of emotions such as indignation, amusement, anger, love, and humour. It is created by stylistic choices such as 

level of formality in diction and structure, and



figurative language.

The thesis refers to the writer’s overall main idea, or main point, about the subject of the essay. Depending on the type of essay, the thesis can be presented in an inductive or deductive way: Thesis



Informal essays are inductively organized, with the thesis stated or implied in the conclusion.



Academic essays are deductively organized, with the thesis explicitly stated in the introduction.



For informal essays, examples and details emerge from personal experience and common knowledge.



For academic essays, examples and

Documentation

details reflect written works and expert opinion (common knowledge and, or, research sources). Also, careful attention to documentation (e.g., APA, MLA) is evident.

_________________ Table 2.1: Main Characteristics of Essays

Key Characteristics of Essays An essay is a short piece of writing, usually from an author’s point of view and generally written in first or third person. It is a tool used by an author to convey information about a particular subject and is meant to be read at a single sitting. Reading and analyzing essays will help you to develop systematic, analytic thinking. By studying essays, you will develop greater awareness of how other writers use language to create meaning. All essays centre around a thesis that provides a focus for the content of the essay. To read and analyze an essay effectively, you must understand what distinguishes essays from other types of writing. The following table illustrates the main characteristics of all essays.

Non-fiction

Essays are classified as a non-fiction prose. Other types of non-fiction literature include biographies, autobiographies, travel writing, reports, scientific articles, and newspaper and magazine articles.

No created narrative perspective

The pronoun “I” in an essay usually refers to the writer. However, sometimes the writer creates a persona or mask to state

opinions that are not his or her personal views.

No characters

The people in essays are real people. They are not imaginary people created by the author.

No plot

There is no made-up plot in an essay. The sequence of events in an essay represents what the author really experienced.

Context

Essays have context—the circumstances of time and place that relate to the subject.

Tone

An essay will have a tone associated with it. This is the writer’s attitude toward the subject and audience (readers of the essay). Tone can involve a wide range of emotions such as indignation, amusement, anger, love, and humour. It is created by stylistic choices such as 

level of formality in diction and structure, and



figurative language.

The thesis refers to the writer’s overall main idea, or main point, about the subject of the essay. Depending on the type of essay, the thesis can be presented in an inductive or deductive way: Thesis



Informal essays are inductively organized, with the thesis stated or implied in the conclusion.



Academic essays are deductively organized, with the thesis explicitly stated in the introduction.



For informal essays, examples and details emerge from personal experience and common knowledge.



For academic essays, examples and details reflect written works and expert opinion (common knowledge and, or, research sources). Also, careful attention to documentation (e.g., APA, MLA) is evident.

Documentation

_________________ Table 2.1: Main Characteristics of Essays

Read and Analyze an Essay Please go to the eReserves for our course and read “The Pain of Animals,” by David Suzuki. After you have read it, analyze and take notes on the essay for the following elements: 

subject



thesis



purpose



target audience



method of development

Note: You will use this essay again in Module 3 (Summary Writing)

Module 4: Writing a Summary of an Essay Objectives In this module, you will summarize an essay and learn what to include in the summary. You will also demonstrate your ability to write the summary without judgment or personal opinion.

Learning Outcomes Upon completion of this module, you will be able to do the following: 1. Describe the essential characteristics of a summary. 2. Discuss the distinctions between a summary and an essay. 3. Identify the key steps in summarizing the ideas of other writers. 4. Analyze an essay and decipher essential content. 5. Succinctly and accurately paraphrase another writer’s main ideas. 6. Produce an effective summary of an essay.

Readings for the Module You should have read “The Pain of Animals,” by David Suzuki, at the end of Module 2. Later in this module, we will go through a step-by-step analysis of Suzuki’s essay. Also, your instructor will base the summary assignment options on the following essays, which are located in the eReserves for the course: “What’s Eating America” (by Michael Pollan) “Kid Kustomers” (by Eric Schlosser) “The Tipping Point” (by Malcolm Gladwell) “Bitten by the Space Bug” (by Elizabeth Wilson)

What a Summary Is and What a Summary Is Not A summary is a short, concentrated version of a longer piece of writing. A summary is approximately one quarter to one third the size of the original essay. However, as described in the table below, a summary should not be confused with (a) an outline, (b) an essay, (c) a paraphrase, or (d) notetaking. A summary is NOT… 

an outline o







a summary is written using sentences and paragraphs

an essay o

a summary should not present or support your views on the subject

o

a summary does not contain research

a paraphrase o

paraphrasing focuses on restating something in its entirety

o

a paraphrase does not focus on reducing an original text

Note-taking o

summarizing is a process that requires many steps and requires you to 

expose main ideas of a larger piece of text,



reduce the word count, and



re-express the ideas into complete thoughts in your own original work.

_______________ Table 4.1: What a Summary Is NOT We use summarizing skills in many situations: reviewing a movie, taking notes in class, writing lab reports, writing a research paper, etc. In university, an important writing skill is learning the steps in summarizing the ideas of other writers. Instructors often ask students to summarize book chapters, articles, and essays to assess students’ ability to (a) read a text carefully and critically, (b) identify key ideas and important supporting information, and (c) paraphrase this information effectively. To do this, you must bring together reading, analyzing, and writing skills, as described below.

Key Tasks in Writing a Summary Summarizing an essay requires you to do the following: 

reread the original essay carefully



decipher the original author’s subject, thesis, purpose, and method of development



analyze the original essay and recognize the main ideas from it



paraphrase the main ideas using your own words

Each of these key tasks is discussed in more detail in the table below.

Read the original essay carefully: Summarizing takes time because you need to read the original essay several times. Because the goal is to restate essential ideas of the original, you must know the content of the original essay thoroughly. Thus, you may want to make several copies of an essay, download it, or print it. Then you can highlight important ideas, omit repetition or examples, make notes, and so on, as you reread the essay. After your first read, you should make note of any unfamiliar vocabulary and, or, key terms and find their meanings to fully comprehend the entire content of the essay.

Decipher the original author’s subject, thesis, purpose, and method of development: Subject: Take a few minutes to preview the work and read the title. The title will often summarize what the article is about. However, at other times, a title may just be a means of getting and retaining the reader’s attention. Therefore, it is a good idea to also read the introductory paragraph(s) and, or, the concluding paragraph to confirm or correct your sense of the writer’s subject. In addition, note any special typography. Notice if any words or phrases are italicized, boldfaced, or underlined. Writers use these techniques to emphasize important points in an essay. Then, read the entire essay and write down what the entire essay is about (as a whole unit). Thesis: Every essay has a thesis, which is the overall, main idea of the entire essay. The thesis answers two questions: (a) What is the subject of the entire essay? (b) What is the main point that the writer makes about this subject? The thesis can be explicitly stated (in one or two sentences either in the introduction or conclusion or sometimes in the middle of the essay) or it can be implied (the thesis is not stated in the essay and you have to figure it out). Once you know what the thesis is, write it down in your own words in one or two sentences. Purpose: The purpose refers to the intention of the writer (why he or she wrote the essay). The following are the three main types of purposes for essay writing and some words that you can use to convey that purpose in your summary: Purpose

Words that convey purpose

To share experience

Tells the story, reflects upon, describes

To inform

Explains, discusses, examines analyzes

To persuade

Argues, claims, makes the point, criticizes

Method of development: Method of development refers to the type(s) of information that the writer uses to develop the thesis. A writer can use more than one method of development. The common methods of development employed by writers include (a) causal analysis, (b) defining characteristics, (c) process analysis, (d) expert opinion, (e) research, (f) personal experience, and (g) comparison/contrast relationships. Deciphering the method of development will allow you to assess how the writer organizes material. It will also allow you to understand the relationship between the main points and supporting details in the essay.

Analyze the original essay and recognize the main ideas from it: Your summary should be comprehensive (conveying all the important information in the essay) but brief (that is, it conveys this information concisely). It should be 1/4 to 1/3 the length of the essay you are summarizing. Therefore, it is important to recognize the main ideas from the original essay. Your summary should not include details, examples, explanations, or specific information unless these are crucial to understanding one of the main ideas. A good trick is to break up the essay into large chunks (a few paragraphs per chunk). You can do this by crossing out unnecessary details, examples, etc. Make sure to convey all the main ideas but do not repeat anything, even if the author does. Do not add any new information, personal knowledge, or personal opinion to the summary; all you need to do here is state what the author of the essay stated (but in your own words). Therefore, everything in the summary should also be evident in the original essay, and you should not change the tone of the original essay.

Paraphrase the main ideas using your own words: Paraphrasing is an important step because the summary is your own

work, but it conveys another writer’s ideas. Thus, if you copy the writer’s work, it is considered plagiarism. You must re-express the writer’s material completely so that you retain the full content of the main ideas without altering the full meaning or tone. You can use many different techniques to paraphrase information. Here are some examples: 

use synonyms or synonymous phrases



change the grammar of a sentence o

change an active sentence to a passive sentence (or vice versa)

o

change the structure of the sentence



turn complex sentences into simple ones or vice versa



collate information in multiple sentences and convey it effectively into one concise sentence

_______________ Table 4.2: Key Tasks in Summarizing an Essay

MODULE 6: WRITE A POSITION PAPER WITH RESEARCH Objectives Your assignment in this module is to evaluate an author’s argument in an essay (non-fiction reading) and write a position paper by responding to the author’s essay and explaining its weaknesses and strengths. Thus, you will provide your own personal argument and opinion on the subject presented by the author by evaluating his or her arguments. In addition, you will be expected to validate your position by incorporating research from a primary source (the essay that you are responding to) and secondary sources. Your instructor will choose the essays that you are allowed to respond to in the assignment.

Learning Outcomes Upon completion of this module, you will be able to do the following: 1. Read an essay and analyze the strengths and weaknesses in the reasoning and evidence presented by the author of the essay. 2. Take a position on the topic of the essay you have read and develop a structured critical response for a non-fiction reading. 3. Identify the concepts of a critical response or position paper. 4. Locate information on the subject of the essay you have chosen. 5. Document information from research and integrate this with your own ideas. 6. Incorporate paraphrased and quoted evidence in the MLA style of documentation.

Readings for the Module In this module, we will analyze “Hunger,” by Maggie Helwig, and evaluate the essay’s strengths and weaknesses in order to plan a position paper based on Helwig’s argument. For your position paper assignment, your instructor will base the assignment options on the following essays (located in the course eReserves):

“In Defense of Graffiti” (by Alex Boyd) “Making Peace with the Pierced” (by Karen Romell) “We Want More Square Footage” (by Charles Montgomery) “Why Are We Dressing Our Daughters Like This?” (by Lianne George)

What Is a Position Paper? A position paper is like a debate in which you must provide a critical response to another author. It is a particular kind of persuasive essay where you take a clear stance on a debatable issue (discussed by another author) and present a rationale for that position using personal opinion and research. The main purpose is to convince readers to agree with your opinion on a subject. In order to persuade, you need to provide strong evidence and persuade your audience that you are knowledgeable about the topic being presented. Thus, you should use statistics, studies, expert opinion, facts, logical reasoning, observations, and arguments to validate why you agree or disagree with the material you have read. To gather such evidence, you must think deeply about your topic and do some research to find, evaluate, and incorporate information from sources to provide evidence for your argument and to acknowledge and refute counter-arguments. Some issues are complex and it is important to narrow the topic of your position paper to something manageable. Thus, before writing your essay, define and limit your issue carefully. Finally, keep in mind that you want to present a fair-minded assessment rather than an emotional response.

Forming a Critical Analysis

Once you have chosen the essay that you want to respond to, you need to analyze the strengths and weaknesses in the writer’s argument. When you are taking notes for your own essay, begin by answering the following questions: 1. What is the writer’s subject? Jot down as many possible subjects as seem useful to answer this question. 2. Is the essay organized inductivel...