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One thing to think about is what sorts of issues (positive and negative) your instructor identified on the last paper you turned in.

Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 19:23:01 -0500
To: writing@facstaff.wisc.edu
From: Jane Doe <janedoe@students.wisc.edu>
Subject: >E-Instr< Paper for English 162, due Oct 5

A request for email instruction from Jane Doe,
janedoe@students.wisc.edu, a(n) undergraduate student who is writing a paper of 250-350 words for English 162 (Shakespeare), due Oct 5 11:00 a.m.

The assignment is: Close reading of the last passage of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Paper should be 250-350 words long. I have to “make a brief but very specific argument as to the choices Shakespeare has made with regard to language, and how those choices relate to meaning.”

My major concerns about this paper are: Am I too specific? Is it repetitive? Does it even make sense? Could you help me in the order of my essay? How can I make my paper clarified?

The parts of my draft I think are working best and the ideas I find interesting are: I like my main points, it’s just that I don’t know how to clarify them.

My draft:

The denouncement of Midsummer Night’s Dream by Puck asks the question was it all a dream? Puck asks this question by his witty rhymes and his use of diction. Puck tells the audience that if anyone was offended, then it was all a dream, but if the actors were to have good luck to escape the hisses of the audience then we all should be friends. Puck was perceived as a playful, and a loyal servant, so by rhyming the very last passage Shakespeare may have wanted to have address the audience, in rhyme, as the still playful Puck. Puck ends the play happily and comically as he tells the audience that if the play bothered anyone to just imagine it was all a dream, yet as the loyal servant begging to get a good response by the audience. He may still be doing orders by telling the audience he will personally “make amends ere long” if they give the actors applause, as if maybe, the audience didn’t like the play, his boss, Oberon, might not be pleased. Puck may feel it’s his duty, his job, to make sure that the audience enjoyed it. Yet he personally denounces himself and the play when he says “this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream.” Was this to show his self-consciousness’ towards the many themes of the play: including love, imagination and magic? Or is Puck being sincere with the audience at the main question of it all being a dream and not real?

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Submitted by: @144.00.00.000 (144.00.00.000)

You’ll get an answer from us within two business days.

Your instructor’s response will begin with some directions on how to decipher her/his comments effectively. Please read these directions before looking at the feedback on your draft.

Some instructors put their global comment at the beginning of your draft, while others put it at the end. In this case, the global comment comes first. This is the most important of your instructor’s comments.

The comments your instructor weaves into your draft will address smaller issues, though they may also be important ones, as is the case here.

Occasionally your instructor may address sentence-level issues, such as punctuation or grammar, but email isn’t the best medium for that sort of instruction. For more help in those areas, make an appointment in the regular (face-to-face) Writing Center.

Notice that, as in the regular Writing Center, your instructor is likely to ask you questions to stimulate your thought process, rather than just tell you what to do.

Return-path: <wcemail@facstaff.wisc.edu>
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 16:20:51 -0500
From: Writing Center Instructor <wcemail@facstaff.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: >E-Instr< Paper for English 162, due Oct 5
In-reply-to: <5.1.0.14.2.000.00ae2140@facstaff.wisc.edu>
To: Jane Doe <janedoe@students.wisc.edu>
(by way of Writing Center <writing@facstaff.wisc.edu>)
Cc: wcemail@facstaff.wisc.edu
References: <5.1.0.14.2.000.00ae2140@facstaff.wisc.edu>

Dear Jane,

Thank you for your request for electronic instruction. My name is Elizabeth, and I’ll be working with you via email for this draft.

Because reading on a computer screen is difficult and often headache-inducing, I recommend that you print out this message and keep it in front of you as you revise your draft.

I’ll comment on your draft and respond to your concerns in two ways. First, I’ll write a general comment that addresses broader issues and the overall organization of your text. Second, I will interweave shorter comments on sections of your draft into your text. Please make sure to distinguish my comments from your original text—I’ll leave extra space around my own comments and put asterisks around them. These comments will focus on local issues (sentence or paragraph structure) and on my reader-based responses to sections of your text.

Finally, I’d recommend that you address one set of comments at a time. *First,* you should read the general comment and consider revising your draft with respect to these observations. *Second,* you should go back and look at the interwoven comments. Because some of these refer to local issues, they may not be applicable after you’ve revised the global structure of your draft in response to my general comment. Still, some of them may be relevant, so make sure to read them carefully.

>A request for email instruction from Jane Doe,
>janedoe@students.wisc.edu, a(n) undergraduate student who
>is writing a paper of 250-350 words for English 162, due Oct 5.
>
>The assignment is: Close reading of the last passage of
>Midsummer Night’s Dream. Paper should be 250-350 words
>long. I have to “make a brief but very specific argument as to the
>choices Shakespeare has made with regard to language, and
>how those choices relate to meaning.”
>
>My major concerns about this paper are: Am I too specific? Is it
>repetitive? Does it even make sense? Could you help me in the
>order of my essay? How can I make my paper clarified?
>
>The parts of my draft I think are working best and the ideas I find
>interesting are: I like my main points, it’s just that I don’t know
>how to clarify them.

Jane,

I think you’re right that you have some interesting, complex ideas about language in the epilogue and that you’re having trouble organizing and expressing them clearly. In these comments, I will introduce a few key points about how to work on literature papers, but I strongly urge you to follow up by visiting the Writing Center to work on future papers. It’s not something you learn overnight, but a gradual process, so don’t feel discouraged if you don’t get it all on the first try.

You touch on several points in the essay, but you haven’t yet figured out how they relate to one another. You discuss the playfulness of Puck’s rhymes, his effort to be a good servant, and his possible recognition of the lack of substance of many of the play’s themes, given that the play is all a dream. Is there any connection between these points, other than that they are all enacted through language? If such a connection doesn’t suggest itself, I would try focusing on only one of these points and developing it much more fully, since this is a very short paper.

To do this, you need to set up the main point of the essay in a short (for this paper) introductory paragraph, where you state how Puck uses language in a certain way—and say what that way is, for example, rhyming—to convey certain ideas, which you will also specify. Finally, ask yourself why these ideas are significant in context of the play as a whole, and include a sense of that in the intro.

In the body of the essay, aim in a one-page essay for not more than two paragraphs. Each paragraph should begin with a main point, then provide a quote from the epilogue as an example, and then look closely at the language in that quote to support the point you’re making. If you are talking about rhymes, for instance, include an example and talk about how it shows Puck’s playful qualities, and why you think these qualities are significant at play’s end.

I hope that these comments help you to get started, and that you can use them towards your next essay for the class, too. Best of luck!

Elizabeth

>My draft:
>
>The denouncement of Midsummer Night’s Dream by Puck
> asks the question was it all a dream?

*First, the word you are looking for is “denunciation.” But second, and more important, are you sure that this is how you want to characterize the epilogue? Puck does seem to be dismissing the play’s effects, but to denounce something suggests that he is really criticizing it harshly, and I don’t see that you present textual evidence that this is the case. Consider carefully what tone the epilogue does strike.*

>Puck asks this question by his witty rhymes and his use of diction.
>Puck tells the audience that if anyone was offended, then it was
>all a dream, but if the actors were to have good luck to escape
>the hisses of the audience then we all should be friends. Puck was
>perceived as a playful, and a loyal servant, so by rhyming the
>very last passage Shakespeare may have wanted to have address
>the audience, in rhyme, as the still playful Puck.

*Good! Explain how the use of rhymes indicates playfulness. This might be an idea to develop in more depth.*

>Puck ends the play happily and comically as he tells the audience
>that if the play bothered anyone to just imagine it was all a dream,
>yet as the loyal servant begging to get a good response by the
>audience. He may still be doing orders by telling the audience he
>will personally “make amends ere long” if they give the actors
>applause, as if maybe, the audience didn’t like the play, his boss,
>Oberon, might not be pleased.

*The above is a run-on sentence that this reader, at least, finds awfully hard to follow. The point I get out of this is that Puck is playing the good servant here: which aspects of his language could you use to back up this point? “Make amends” is one good piece of evidence, but you need to explain what about this quote is significant to your point.*

>Puck may feel it’s his duty, his job, to make sure that the
>audience enjoyed it. Yet he personally denounces himself and the
>play when he says “this weak and idle theme, no more yielding
>but a dream.” Was this to show his self-consciousness’ towards
>the many themes of the play: including love, imagination and
>magic? Or is Puck being sincere with the audience at the main
>question of it all being a dream and not real?

*How does Puck distancing himself from the play, i.e. calling it a dream, relate to his self-consciousness? I wasn’t clear about what you meant. Do you mean that he is conscious that the play’s major themes are insubstantial in some way, because they are all just part of the dream? Try to break down your questions into points that you want to make, and get rid of the questions.*

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