For both Project 2 and the midterm, many of you wasted time summarizing a work we all had read or seen. This is not good practice for academic writing about literature or film. To help you do better with the remaining coursework, let us consider two examples I wrote:
Heat-Moon drives down the blue highways of America in search of an elusive harmony in forgotten places. The author stops to talk to those he meets along the away, and he finds what he calls "the fecundity of the unexpected" (108) in chance encounters with people like Kendrick Fritz, a Hopi college student who plans to return to the reservation to help his people. He also finds people like a man he calls "The Boss of the Plains" who only annoys Heat-Moon with his complaints and bad attitude.
Not a bad summary, but it really fails the "so what?" test. It shows a professor the writer read the material, but that is simply not enough. Now look at the example that follows, with summary and transitions in black but analysis by the writer in red:
Heat-Moon drives down the blue highways of America in search of an elusive harmony in forgotten places, and often he finds it. The author stops to talk to those he meets along the away, encountering what he calls "the fecundity of the unexpected" (108) in chance meetings with people like Kendrick Fritz. This Hopi medical student teaches him an important lesson that the author discusses in detail, the idea that all of the tribes share "the idea of harmony" (183), a sense of connection to the land. This lesson proves useful as Heat-Moon continues his journey, pondering how "a man looks not deeper within -- he reaches further out" (241) on the road to fulfillment. The road has traps, too, namely individuals who are stuck inside their own problems, just as the author himself was when he first stepped into Ghost Dancing. A man labeled "The Boss of the Plains," for example, interrupts a moment when Heat-Moon enjoys the natural world around him and senses great tranquility. The intruder, however, can only complain about his miserable life until Heat-Moon senses that the harmony of the moment has been lost. The Boss does teach Heat-Moon one thing about the value of looking outward for harmony, as the author comes to understand that this miserable traveler "never quit thinking of himself long enough to listen" (163). Heat-Moon, in contrast, has many inner troubles, yet throughout Blue Highways, he remains an excellent listener.
Note how the analytical points form a linked series of reasonable claims that arise from the data of summary, paraphrase, and direct quotation. Note, too, how the quotations are not "hit and runs" but instead get smoothly integrated into the writer's prose. When read aloud, the sentences simply flow from author's words to Heat-Moon's without any jumps or stops.
Writing like this, work that goes beyond the "see, Prof, I read the book!", lies within the reach of every student in this class. The language is rather informal, such as "stuck inside their own problems," and that is fine for academic work at this level. Too many of my writers reached for big words they could not control, at the expense of clearly expressed ideas.
Max helped most of you improve your work, but there are limits to what any Consultant (or I) can do. It will take practice and, most importantly, a willingness to re-read the text and re-think a draft that mostly repeats what the book or film tells us already.
To do this sort of analysis in Project 4 and for the final exam's take-home portion, you must slow down, re-read, and take careful notes. There's no magic involved, just planning and quiet time to think through one's one claims and evidence. Organization makes for better analysis; note in the second example how the first sentence of the paragraph makes a claim that unifies what follows. The stories about Kendrick Fritz and The Boss provide more than summary; they state why both men provide lessons to Heat-Moon about harmony or its absence. The final sentence might serve as a good bridge to a following paragraph about, guess what! The value of paying attention to the outside world.
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