WRITING AN ARGUMENTATIVE PAPER

1. A Topic, A Topic, My Kingdom for a Topic

     An argumentative paper needs a thesis.  The topics are not formulas for writing the essay; they are simply points of departure to help you think about how your paper will set out to answer a particular question, or illuminate a particular difficulty, in the work.  As you go along, you'll need to narrow down the topic, with an awareness of your limitations: in less than ten pages, you can't claim to find the key to understanding the entire text, or the period in which is was written, or the life of the author.

     What makes for a strong thesis?  Let's start with a negative example of a weak thesis-  something that resembles a formal argument, but really isn't one:

"Dickinson's poems express a love of Nature."

To which any remotely intelligent reader can only answer: "yup, they sure do." The problem with this 'thesis' is that it doesn't require much, if anything, in the way of proof; it simply calls for an inventory of examples ("Here's one poem about Nature. Here's another.  And a third.  In conclusion, as we have seen, Dickinson's poems are full of Nature.")  The essay becomes essentially a plot summary, or a repetition of already well-established or self-evident ideas.

     There are many ways to salvage something from this idea, however, if you exercise your brain and push the concept a little further.  Define your parameters, re-examine your first assumptions: what do we mean by "Nature" here?  And what would constitute an expression of "love" on the part of a poetic speaker? Perhaps the speaker's attitude is more complex, more ambiguous, or less consistent than it seems at first glance. You might then formulate a thesis like this: "In poems x and y, Dickinson's speaker expresses a sense of closeness to Nature that, on further examination, proves to be false. Nature ultimately rejects her efforts to identify with it. Thus, these poems stress the distance between human beings and the rest of the natural universe."

     Another way to work outward from the weak thesis is to think about its progression over the course of the poem(s).  This might lead you to some insight about the formal properties of the text.  For instance: "At the beginning of the poem, Nature is unthreatening; by the end, however, it is described as an 'enemy.'" Be aware of tensions and contradictions within the text: they call attention to an important idea that the poem is trying to work out. (Read over past handouts on the close-reading assignments to remind yourself of some of the questions to begin asking of a text.)

     Avoid "begging the question": that is, using a term that assumes as proved the very thing you should be trying to prove.  For instance, in the example above, I'd want to know what, exactly, went into your understanding of "Nature." Plants, animals, rocks-- ? Humans, too? Since there has always been controversy over the topic, does this understanding of Nature correspond to any particular religious or scientific view? Remember that it is your job to suggest what Nature means in this particular context, as opposed to what it means in your private universe, or what it meant to Darwin.

     Bring large, abstract concepts down to earth. As you're thinking through a line of argument, you should be continually asking yourself, "If so, then what?  What are the implications of my claims?"

2. Why We Need Close Reading (and I Don't Mean Bifocals)

     A strong thesis-- because it goes beyond the obvious point that puts your imagined reader to sleep--  must draw upon evidence from the text for its proof.  This requires you to do what we call 'close reading': to take lines or passages from the text and tell us how individual words, lines, or metaphors work in relation to one another-- and what the whole of the work ultimately seems to suggest.

     But-- you may well ask-- what constitutes a legitimate act of interpretation, and when is a critic unfairly "reading in" something that isn't there (a charge frequently levelled against English professors)?  Readers often want to settle this question by retreating to authorial intent: "did Dickinson put that there, or are you just being perverse?" However, this line of inquiry can be woefully unsatisfying: perhaps, if the author left notebooks or letters in which she spelled out her intentions in detail, you might be able to conclude something from the concrete evidence.  But even when we do have access to such corroborating evidence, who's to say that authors are firmly in control of all the meanings their work might contain?  Modern psychological thinking tells us that people often do and say things they don't fully, consciously understand; indeed, psychologically-oriented literary criticism works from the premise that authors conceal their most significant thoughts.  Even if you think psychoanalysis is a crock, you must admit that such reliance on authorial intent cannot account for everything readers might find significant, suggestive, and meaningful.  Every reader brings something slightly different to the process; in a paper like this, you'll be trying to communicate your own 'reading' in a way that speaks to someone else's experience of the same text.

     So, does that mean interpretation is a free-for-all?  Not if you want to be convincing.  An interpretation should, ideally, be creative and original-- but that doesn't mean counterintuitive.  The claim, "The 'auction' in Dickinson's 'Publication is the Auction' recalls the context of slavery," invites a plausible defense. I might not agree with you that this is the most significant context, but with further evidence, you would be able to convince me that this was a useful, logically defensible way to read the poem. On the other hand, if you were to say, "This reminds me of auctioning movie rights to a novel. Dickinson is saying that she regrets that her works will not be published or filmed so that she could make a million," I would have to dismiss this as wholly unconvincing.

     But-- you may be thinking-- "That's how I read the poem; aren't my feelings legitimate?" Sure they are, and I affirm your right to have them. However, in this assignment I'm not asking you simply to confess your feelings but to convince me- or any other reader- to share them. You can accomplish this through a powerful, well- reasoned argument. (This does not mean, of course, that you should try to pander to what you imagine I think: I may completely disagree with the interpretation offered in an essay and still find it brilliant.)

3. Hey, You! Audience!

     Imagine that your reader is a particularly bright member of this class: someone who has read the text and has some knowledge about what its major concerns are, but who is ready and willing to glean new insights. 

     It takes some time to strike the right tone in an argumentative paper- to find a balance between intimacy and eloquence, appreciation and persuasion.  It's not illegal to use the first person, but keep in mind your charge to convince others to share your views: if you inject too much that's strictly individual, you risk making the reading seem idiosyncratic. Spouting "I believe" and "I think" at every juncture isn't necessary: we know that you are the guiding force behind your arguments.

     You don't have to weigh down your prose with leaden, clunky words in order to make it sound authoritative and convincing. Precise language will serve your arguments well. If you don't know the meaning of a word, don't use it-- or, better yet, learn how. If you are experienced enough in literary criticism to adapt its vocabulary in order to pinpoint your meaning more exactly, that's terrific-- but avoid using jargon for its own sake. (I'm particularly annoyed when people use "deconstruct" as a synonym for "analyze": the term has specific meanings and connotations, and unless you're trying to evoke them, it just sounds pompous.)

     Use the present tense for analysis; essays read more fluidly that way.  Use the past tense for statements of fact set in the past: even though the author may only live in the past, the text itself still exists.  Thus, "Whitman was a harsh critic of commercialism. 'Song of Myself' is an anti-commercial work." [By the way, this is a bad stylistic example: try to avoid excessive use of the verb "to be"; find more active, precise substitutes whenever you can.]          

     Avoid passive constructions because they obscure cause and agency (i.e., "certain values are imposed upon the speaker": who's doing the imposing?).  The passive voice is to be strenuously avoided (!). Likewise, watch for common errors in usage that a spell-check program won't get: "it's" vs. "its"; "whose" and "who's," etc. Prune clichŽs and mixed metaphors.

     As discussed previously, don't speculate on the author's intentions unless you have significant documentation to back it up.  No one expects you to mind-read; if you've given us a convincing glimpse into the workings of a text, you will have achieved something significant.  Likewise, be very cautious in generalizing about "the reader"; your own experience may not be generalizable to all readers.  Keep in mind factors like audience expectations and previous reading experience, and couch your conclusions about the reading process in terms that are suggestive, rather than absolute (i.e., "this phrase encourages readers to question their faith in God").

4. The Fear of Setting Forth

     Knowing a little more about what kind of thesis will work for this paper, where do you begin?   Outlines work for some people but not for others; I advise using them as tools in the writing process, not as ends in themselves.  With a general idea in mind, you might start by assembling on a page a number of similar quotes from the work that struck you as particularly interesting, significant, and/or problematic; then you can formulate the question in a couple of different ways and see what happens. 

     Often, you may not know what your "solution" will be until you've waded deeply into the paper itself.  That's why you need to give yourself more than an all-nighter to work on it: it may be that you write five or six pages before you hit upon the real center of the essay.  If that's the case, you can go back to the beginning with the "Eureka" moment in mind, and rearrange or rework your thoughts accordingly. 

     Paradoxically, for some literature students, the more their writing improves, the more difficult it becomes to complete papers. They feel overwhelmed by the body of criticism already in existence (particularly on the work of a canonized author) and worry that nothing they write will be "original."  If you are laboring under this burden, lay it down. Even if many other readers have gone down the same textual paths, none have done so in exactly the same way as you have.  The manner of your discovery of Whitman or Dickinson will always be news to me, even if the discovery itself is not; and if you are doing a comparative topic, or writing on a neglected writer, the odds are excellent that what you have to say will be original and surprising.

5. Order, Order

     As you continue to work through your initial insights, take advantage of the great technological innovation of the computer.  Because it allows you to delete and move text so easily, you have nothing to lose by simply free-writing: type in whatever comes to mind, and then refine and polish in stages.

     The order of language usually implies causality: when reading, we tend to assume that B

springs from A. Try to map out your leaps from point to point, and make sure there that the relationship between them is clear (particularly if A does not cause B). Beware of floating referents-- "this," "that," or "such" placed in such a way as to obscure their relationship to some previous idea.

     A sense of organization is essential to writing a convincing argument. Your paragraphs should be internally coherent, meaning that the points should all be roughly related to one another. The paragraph break should come as a natural breathing point: 'OK, enough of that..now onto something a little different.'  The transitions between paragraphs should give your reader an idea of the overall direction of movement of the paper. Common examples: "However [and here you mention an opposing view, or a contrasting point in the novel]," "In addition," "Later in the book, this idea is reinforced/challenged when..."

     Editing and revising are the most important stages in the writing process, as you'hh hear ad nauseum after you turn in the rough draft...

6. Where Will It All End?

     Introductions and conclusions are notoriously difficult to write, but there is one incontrovertible ground rule: don't simply repeat, in a neat order and using the same vocabulary, every point you are about to make or have just made. (This advice contradicts what many of you were taught in high school: that is, to list your points A, B, C, and conclude with something like, "I have just said A, B, C.  The End.") Use the introductory paragraph to lay out the problem: tell us what text you're dealing with, what's important about it, what sort of approach you want to take. You should hint at what your argument is going to be, but don't give it all away: make us intrigued enough to keep reading.

     If it has done its job, your essay should have led us somewhere in the course of your 7-10 pages.  Thus, your conclusion could briefly remind us of the path your essay has taken to get from point A to point Z; or you could use the final paragraph to suggest other lines of inquiry that your brilliant analysis has just opened up.  Tell us what the payoff of your analysis is: what have we learned here?  How might this new knowledge be usefully applied to the author's other work, or to the writings of other people?

7. Parting Shots

     The title of an individual poem is given within quotation marks ("Song of Myself"); the title of a book, in italics or underlined (Leaves of Grass).

     Short citations can be given within quotes in your main text, using a / to indicate a line break if necessary: "I celebrate myself, / And what I assume you shall assume." When you incorporate such citations within the text, you must keep to normal sentence structures. E.g.:

Dickinson writes about "a Liquor never brewed."

There is no need to use ellipses to indicate that you have taken out words or punctuation marks before or after the short citation; only within it.

     Longer citations from the text should be indented, without quotation marks, and should follow line breaks in the original:

Publication- is the Auction-

          Of the mind of Man [etc.]

And finally:

ALWAYS KEEP A BACK-UP VERSION OF EVERYTHING YOU WRITE!