When you have a topic:
Every essay must have a title. The rules for titles are that they use the same font and same font size as the rest of the essay. Capitalize the first, last, and important words in-between. This means you typically capitalize nouns and verbs. You do not capitalize (except if they are the first or last word in the title) articles (the, an, a), prepositions (of, below, near, above, etc.) or conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.). Typically you want the title to contain the main point in the essay, but that point needs to be reduced to three or four words. The title should be centered, but when submitting via email this is often hard to do.
When submitting an essay, the header should look like this:
Your Name
Course
Instructor's Name
Due Date
A Title that Predicts Essay Development
First, every essay will have an introduction, Body, and Conclusion. It is often said that the introduction tells the reader what the essay will tell the reader, the body of the essay tells the reader what the essay is about, and the conclusion tells the reader what the essay just told them.
For the narrative, it might be easier to think of the introduction as the beginning, the body as the middle, and the conclusion as the end.
With the introduction, I am the only reader, as are members of your peer groups, who is required to read your writing. Your job in the first paragraph is to persuade the reader to continue on.
Consider the audience when thinking about the type of introduction/conclusion you are going to use.
Answering these questions will give you considerable detail for a narrative essay. Develop the answers as fully as possible and you will go a long way toward completing your narrative essay.
(includes one or more of the following)
(includes the following)
(includes one or more of the following)
Syllogism |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| If 'A' is True | Major Premise/ Generalization |
All Humans are Mortal | Every Virtue is Laudable |
| And 'B' is True | Minor Premise/ Specific Instance |
John is a Human | Kindness is a Virtue |
| 'C' Must be True | Conclusion | John is Mortal | Kindness is Laudable |
Toulmin Model of Logic |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | Conclusion | Raymond is an American citizen | |
| Data | Minor Premise | Raymond was born in Puerto Rico | |
| Warrant | Major Premise | Anyone born in Puerto Rico is an American citizen |
|
The warrant is false because a French tourist who has a child
while vacatioining in Puerto Rico may chose between American and
French citizenship for their child.
| Claim | Conclusion | Raymond is probably an American citizen |
| Data | Minor Premise | Raymond was born in Puerto Rico |
| Warrant | Major Premise | Anyone born in Puerto Rico is entitled to American citizenship |
Here the warrant is accurate given the above information and
the reasoning is logical given the information. The warrant
establishes a trustworthy relationship between the Data and the
Claim.
Outside sources are materials that come from somewhere other than your memory or direct experience. These outside sources often makeup what is considered hard evidence in an argumentative, or other, research essay. These sources include, but are not limited to, books, magazines, academic or professional journals, radio and television shows, films, and the testimony of experts.
Like many things, authority and reliability depends on the source. Because, as a writer, you want to maintain a moderate tone and not drive your readers away, you have to choose your sources wisely. If you were to write an essay about animal testing, there are three (at least) sources of printed information available.
One of the sources is the Humane Society of the United States. The HSUS is a fairly mainstream, conservative organiazation. They tend to work behind the scenes in a low key way. HSUS runs animal shelters, spay and neuter programs, and looks into the treatment of both livestock and pets. The HSUS also engages in traditional political actions such as lobbying Congress.
Another organization and source of information on animals is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA is a bit more high profile than HSUS and many prominent people are members. If you have seen the "Don't Wear Fur" campaign where a group of models and moviestars stand behind a banner bearing that proclamation, you have seen some of the information PETA puts out. They are more activist and outspoken than the HSUS, but tend to have pretty much the same goals and act within the law.
Also among those advocating animal rights is the Animal Liberation Front. ALF is among the more radical of animal rights organizations, and if you believe the newspaper reports, they are also more likely to act outside of the law. If you have read stories in the paper about break-ins at research labs where animals are set free, someone holding philosophies similar to ALF's may well have been involved.
These characterizations are meant to show that while people and organizations can have similar goals, they can also have different approaches to achieving those goals. These approaches are products of the biases we all have. As a writer you need to be aware of the biases your sources have. If you are not aware of the biases, your argument may end up being undermined by them. If you are writing an argument to support a ban on animal testing and you know your audience wants to continue testing, which source of information might be the most likely to sway their opinion? The radical or the mainstream? The moderate or the in-your-face? If you can get the same information from a more conservative source, it may have a greater effect on your audience.
There are three general categories of journals and magazines and you should understand how they are different.
The first category is written by a generalist for the general public. General consumption news and entertainment magazines fit into this category. Often the writer is someone with no specific training or experience in the topic they are writing about. In a sense they become "instant experts" on their topic as they compose the essay or article. Publications such as Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Ebony, and Esquire fit into this category. These publications will typically contain a good deal of advertising. These publications rely on advertising dollars to sustain themselves and they are in business to turn a profit as well as provide the public with information.
The second category is written by an expert for the general public. This expert may not have specific training in their topic but they may have devoted their career to writing about certain issues, or they may be a professional intheir field but prefer to write to a general audience rather than to or for their peers. Publications such as the Smithsonian, Psychology Today and National Geographic can be considered to fit into this category. These publications usually rely more on subscription dollars than advertising dollars to continue their existance, but there will be some advertising, usually concentrated in the front of the publication.
The third category is written by an expert for other experts. These are typically professional and academic journals. Titles include College English, Teaching English In a Two Year College, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Lancet (the British version of JAMA), and many more too numerous to list. A quick trip through the library will provide you a quick glimpse of what is available. These publications are nearly devoid of advertising and those advertisements that are there usually are for textbooks and professional studies related to the field that the journal covers. Also, while publication in the first two categories requires the writer to simply please the editor, publication in professional and academic journals requires peer review. Peer review means that the essay was sent to the editor, who inturn sent the essay to reviewers, who critique the manuscript and send it back to the editor and writer for revision. These cycle can be repeated. Essays in professional journals will also contain a complete list of source materials where the articles and essays in the first two categories may or may not name their sources.
Journals and Magazines are typically more current than books, often making them a better source of information. They also do not require you to read a whole book to get the little bits of information you might be looking for. By the time a book reaches the shelves of a library, it may be as much as two or three years behind current scholarship on the topic. There is a long process of researach, writing, and revision before a book even reaches the mechancial publishing stage where type setting, galley proofing, final publication and distribution can take at least six months. The general rule of thumb is don't use any source that is older than 10 years unless it is a piece of work absolutely critical to a particular field's scholarship.
Pesornal Interviews are often one good way to get the testimony of experts. Of course, as you can see by watching news coverage of any trial, you can find an expert to say just about anything you need to be said. Lawyers are a good example to illustrate this: Lawyers are experts in the field of law, but for every lawyer who wins a case, and has presumably made the proper judgement about the law and circumstances in question, there is a lawyer who loses that same case who made a less valid interpretation of the same circumstances.
You've likely heard all of the hype about the Information Superhighway that is the World Wide Web and Internet. And there is as much good information out on the Web as many Net-heads say. However, there is at least as much garbage out on the Web as there is useful information. The problem then becomes how to tell the good from the bad and the ugly. Remember that anyone can put up a web site. AS with any other form of publication there are no editors. Once in awhile aservice provider won't allow certain material on their machines, but that is rare. On the Web, be extra critical of what you see. Along with solid information and scholarship, there are a lot of wackos out there. If you are not sure about the material you find at web sites, use the questioning strategies in the following two links to give you a better idea about the material on any given web site.
Mark Twain said "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." A more recent maxim about statistics is that they are like bikinis: Interesting for what they reveal, but essential for what they cover up. Keep both of these points in mind as you provide your reader with statistics to clarify or support a point in your essay. While statistics can bring certain parts of an argument to light, don't rely on them to make your argument for you and don't use so many of them as to make your essay read like a spread sheet. Your reader won't get your argument if they fall asleep!
Paragraphs give the writer control and the reader access. Paragraphs are often seen as one distinct space for developing one distinct idea.
Depends on writer's purpose and reader's needs. One word to ?
Short paragraphs make for quicker reading, but a choppier flow often results.
Thesis statement for a paragraph. Asserts a sub-point of the main thesis point. Used to orient the reader to what comes next. Orients the writer to what you are going to say next.
poor: How life is in a ghetto.
better: Residents of a ghetto tend to have a higher death rate, a higher infant mortality rate, and a higher unemployment rate than do residents of the suburbs.
poor: Do Americans really need large refrigerators?
better: If Americans did their marketing daily, as do most Europeans, they could save energy because they could use smaller refrigerators.
poor: The literature of mythology contains many resurrection stories.
better: One of the oldest resurrection myths is the story of the Egyptian god Osiris.
poor: All novelists seek the truth, and some novelists are good psychologists.
better: In their attempt to probe human nature, many novelist become excellent psychologists.
poor: In my opinion public buildings should be required by law to have no-smoking zones because of the adverse effects on health of "passive smoke."
better: Public buildings should be required by law to have no-smoking zones because of the adverse effects on health of "passive smoking."
poor: Religion as part of the school curriculum should be avoided because it can cause trouble.
better: Religion as part of the school curriculum should be avoided because each student in a classroom may have a different religion.
poor: Homosexuality is a status offense to the effect that the participants are willing so that the relationship is voluntary in character rather than the type described in a victim-perpetrator model.
better: Homosexuality between consenting adults should be considered an alternate life-style rather than a crime.
poor: The Amazons of today are trying to purge all the stag words from the language.
better: Feminists are trying to eliminate the use of sex-biased words from public documents and publications.
Use this process as one way that you can narrow the focus of your essay and come up with something approaching a workable thesis statement.
The Subject of your essay will typically be part of the assignment. In your first essay (the narrative), the subject was you--the writer. With this second essay, the subject is how someone in your life is important to you.
Having chosen your subject, the next step is finding a topic that meets the requirements of the assignment. With the narrative you needed to tell a story about yourself that was interesting or important and helped make you the person you are today. Some have written about a parent's illness, mishaps with the police, an accident involving their child, and so on.
With the second assignment you are to make some point about a particular person and their importance in your life.
For the third assignment, let us look at the treatment of the nuclear power industry on the Internet. Notice how we have narrowed the topic from a social issue and its treatment on the Internet to a specific topic: the treatment of the nuclear power industry on the Internet. The next step is developing a purpose for the essay.
The essay's purpose is what was referred to as the 'rhetorical goal' in the first assignment's readings. Establishing this goal may be the most important step of composing the essay. Without this goal, it is difficult, if not impossible, to make decisions about such things as whether the chosen details are relevant, whether the essay makes the point you hope for, or whether you are done or not. This is where a purpose statement comes in handy.
Try writing a statement something like this: "The purpose of my essay is to show my classmates and teacher (your intended or assigned audience) that such and such is true." An example follows.
To get a thesis statement from a purpose statment, simply omit the first section of the purpose statement:
This leaves us with a thesis statement:
This is a statement that readers will most likely either agree or disagree with. Such a thesis statement puts the writer in the place of having to prove their point. The writer and reader can also evaluate each piece of support material in relation to the thesis to gauge its relevancy and importance to the essay and the essay's argument.
When writing an essay that makes a point, that point is typically expressed in the essay's thesis statement. For this course, that thesis is also referred to as the essay's goal, the essay's claim, the essay's controlling idea, or the point of the essay. If you are unsure about your essay’s goal, then check the file "One way to compose a thesis" that includes this material.
Because this thesis is the point that the essay seeks to make or discuss, the material presented in the essay, the evidence and details, should all work to support the thesis. If the evidence/detail does not support the thesis, then it most likely should be cut from the essay.
Often the best way to know if the evidence supports the claim is to explain how the evidence supports the claim. If you cannot construct this explanatory link between the evidence and claim, then it is not likely your reader will either. As the writer, it is your job to construct the links between your evidence and your claims. It is your job to make it as easy as possible for the reader see things your way.
Providing this explanatory link between your data and claim forces the reader to see things your way, at least for as long as they are reading the essay. If you do not provide this link, then either your reader will not make the link you are hoping for or they won't even try to make any link. When you provide the link, as the writer, you have greater control over the response of the reader.
In brief, a outline of the essay would look like this:
Keep this in mind as you are working on the essay and revisions.
On the Works Cited page, give the title of the article "in quotes," the name of the newspaper underlined or italicized, the day, month, and year if the article's publication, a colon, and the section and page's name underlined or italicized, the volume number, the year (in parentheses), and the inclusive page numbers of the article.
Smith, John. "The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts." Psychology Today Jan. - Feb. 1996: 23-25.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name and page number on which the quoted material appears in the journal.
(Smith 24)
On the Works Cited page, do the same as above but put the author’s name first. Note that the name is in reverse order. Also note that if the newspaper’s name does not give the city of origin, you put the city in [brackets] after the name.
Smith, John. “The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts.” Daily Bugle [Los Angeles] 29 Feb. 1996: A1+.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author’s last name and the section and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the paper.
(Smith A1)
On the Works Cited page, give the author’s name, the title of the article “in quotes,” the name of the magazine underlined or italicized, the day, month and year of the article’s publication , a colon, and the inclusive page numbers of the article.
Smith, John. “The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts.” Newsweek 29 Feb.
1996: 23-25.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author’s last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the magazine.
(Smith 23)
On the Works Cited page, give the author’s name, the title of the article “in quotes,” the name of the magazine underlined or italicized, the months and year of the article’s publication, a colon, and the inclusive page numbers of the article.
Smith, John. “The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts.” Texas Monthly Feb. 1996: 23-25
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author’s last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the magazine.
(Smith 24)
On the Works Cited page, give the author’s name, the title of the article “in quotes,” the name of the magazine underlined or italicized, the months and year of the article’s publication, a colon, and the inclusive page numbers of the article.
Smith, John. “The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts.” Psychology Today Jan. - Feb. 1996: 23-25
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author’s last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the magazine.
(Smith 24)
On Works Cited page, give the author’s name, the title of article "in quotes," the journal’s name underlined or italicized, the volume number, the year (in parentheses), and the inclusive page numbers of the article.
Smith, John. "The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts." Journal for the Spread of Peanut Butter 22 (1996): 23-25.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author’s last name and page number on which the quoted material appears in the journal.
(Smith 24)
After giving the journal’s name, include volume number and issue number, year (in parentheses), and page numbers.
Smith, John. "The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts." Journal for the Spread of Peanut Butter 22.3 (1996) : 23-25.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author’s last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the journal.
(Smith 24)
After giving the journal’s name, include issue number, year (in parentheses), and page numbers.
Smith, John. "The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts." Journal for the Spread of
Peanut Butter 3 (1996) : 23-25.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author’s last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the journal.
(Smith 24)
After giving the journal's name, include volume number and issue number, year (in parentheses), and page numbers.
Smith, John. "The Rising Cost of Peanut Butter Has Consumers Going Nuts." Journal for the Spread of Peanut Butter 22.3 (1996) : 23-25.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the journal.
(Smith 24)
On the Works Cited page, give the author's name, the book's title underlined or italicized, the city of publication, a colon, the publisher, and the year of publication.
Smith , John. The Great Peanut Butter War. New York: Houghton, 1996.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
(Smith 24)
On the Works Cited page give the names of the authors in the order presented on the cover. All other information is the same as with one author. Note that the second author's name is not reversed.
Smith, John, and Jane Doe. The Great Peanut Butter War Revisited. New York: Houghton, 1996.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last names and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
(Smith and Does 24)
On the Works Cited page, give only the name of the first author and then the designation et al. To stand for the others. All other information is the same as with one author. Note that if a subtitles given on the cover, it appears after the main title, separated by a colon.
Smith, John, et. al. The Great Peanut Butter War: The Jelly and Honey Battles. New York: Houghton, 1996.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name, the designation et al., and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
(Smith et al. 24)
On the Works Cited page, give the author’s name, the title of work ("in quotes" if it is a short story, poem, or essay; underlined or italicized if it is the name of a novel or a play), the title of the anthology underlined or italicized, the editor of anthology, the volume number (if necessary), the city of publication, a colon, the publisher, the year of publication, and inclusive page numbers of the work as it appears in the anthology.
Smith, John. "Ode to Peanut Butter." The Norton Anthology of Peanut Butter Literature. Ed. P. Brittle. Vol. 2. New York: Houghton, 1996. 34-36.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
(Smith 35)
For a reprinted article excerpt in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Drama Criticism, Literary Criticism from 1400 to 1800, and Classical and Medieval Literary Criticism, use the anthology format.
Bayley, John. "Return of the Native." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine and Daniel Marowski. Vol. 31. Detroit: Gale, 1985. 260-261.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
(Bayley 260)
For signed articles in the Dictionary of Literary Biography follow the anthology format.
Keating, H. R. F. "Agatha Christie." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Bernard Benstock and Thomas F. Staley. Vol. 27. Detroit: Gale, 1989. 68-82.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
(Keating 68)
To cite articles from the Opposing Viewpoint series include the name of the author of the article, title of article "in quotation marks," series title underlined or italicized, editor, place of publication, publisher’s name and year of publication, and page numbers for article you are citing.
Sullum, Jacob. "The Death Penalty Is Just." The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Carol Wekesser. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1991. 57-60.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
(Sullum 57)
For unsigned biographical information in CLC, TCLC, NCLC, SSC, PC, LC,CMLC, use the following format.
"Czeslaw Milosz." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine and Daniel G. Marowski. Vol. 31. Detroit: Gale, 1985. 258-259.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the title of the entry "in quotes" and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
("Czeslaw Milosz" 258)
"Joel Williamson." Contemporary Authors. Ed. Donna Olendorf. Vol. 144. Detroit: Gale, 1994. 487
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the title of the entry "in quotes" and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
("Joel Williamson" 487)
"Maud Hart Lovelace." Contemporary Authors New Revision Series. Ed. Susan M. Trosky. Vol. 39 Detroit: Gale, 1992. 240-241.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the title of the entry "in quotes" and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the book.
("Maud Hart Lovelace." 240)
To cite files from the World Wide give the author's name (if known), the full title of the web page quoted from "in quotation marks," the title of the web site's homepage (from the window bar) underlined or in italics, the full http address, and the date of visit (in parentheses).
American Dental Association. "Fluorides and Fluoridation." Facts About Fluoride.Http://www.ada.org/consumer/fluoride/articles/fa01.html. (10 Feb. 1997).
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name ( or an abbreviation if written by a corporate author with a long name) and the page number on which the quoted material appears on a printout of the web page. Look at the beginning of the web page or at the very end (see whose name follows the © symbol) to locate the author.
(American Dental Association 2)
Entries from an electronic online journal should include: name of the author (if given), title of the document "in quotation marks," title of the journal underlined or italicized, volume number, issue number or the identifying number, year or date of publication (in parentheses), number of pages or paragraphs (if given) or n.pag ("no pagination"), publication medium (Online), name of the computer network, and date of access.
Galston, William. "Divorce American Style." The Public Interest 124 (Summer 1996) : 15 pp. Online. Expanded Academic ASAP. 11 Feb. 1997.
When giving the parenthetical citation in the body of the paper, include the author's last name and the page number on which the quoted material appears in the printout of the information.
(Galston 3)
SFCC Library: Electronic Resources contains a database called ProQuest. proQuest contains magazine and journal articles of a more scholarly sort. You can start your search by using your author's name and then narrow it down from there if necessary. The best articles, the most reliable information, is found in the scholarly publications. Trade magazines can be good, as can magazines in general. newspapers tend to be the least helpful, but you never know. Click on the Proquest link found on the Electronic Resources page.
Literary Databases also contain a good deal of relevant information on the various authors. Within these articles, you may find some information relating to some point you are working to develop.
SFCC's Book Catalog may also be of help, but you'll want to get to campus to pick up books. I'm not sure how fast they are about getting books out to rural areas.
Answer each of the below questions for essays written by each of your book club members (the five member group(s) need respond to just three of their group members' essays--just be sure everyone gets three). Please complete your responses by the stated deadline.
Pragmatism is a collection of many different ways of thinking. Most of the thinkers who describe themselves as pragmatists point to some connection with practical consequences or real effects as vital components of both meaning and truth. Some pragmatists object to the view that beliefs represent reality and argue that beliefs are dispositions which qualify as true or false depending on how helpful a disposition proves in accomplishing the believer's goals. For this type of pragmatist it is only in the struggle of intelligent organisms with the surrounding environment that theories acquire meaning, and only with a theory's success in this struggle that it becomes true. Pragmatists do not hold that anything that is practical or useful, or that anything that helps to survive merely in the short-term, should be regarded as true. Instead, most of them argue that what should be taken as true is that which contributes the most good over the longest course.
Deconstruction is used to denote a philosophy of meaning that deals with the ways that meaning is constructed and understood by writers, texts, and readers. One way of understanding the term is that it involves discovering, recognizing, and understanding the underlying — and unspoken and implicit — assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that form the basis for thought and belief. It has various shades of meaning in different areas of study and discussion, and is, by its very nature, difficult to define without depending on "un-deconstructed" concepts. Deconstruction is neither an analysis, a critique, a method, an act, nor an operation, but an attempt to demonstrate that Western thought has not satisfied its quest for a "transcendental signifier" that will give meaning to all other signs.
Feminist literary criticism is informed by feminist theory, or by the politics of feminism more broadly. In the most general and simple terms, feminist literary criticism before the 1970s -- the first and second waves of feminism -- was concerned with the politics of women's authorship and the representation of women's condition within literature. With the more complex conceptions of gender and subjectivity and third-wave feminism, feminist criticism has taken a variety of new routes. It has considered gender in the terms of existing relations of power, and as a concrete political investment. While it has been closely associated with the birth and growth of queer studies, the more traditionally central feminist concern with the representation and politics of women's lives remains.
Formalism/New Criticism: While these two schools are separate and distinct, they can also be looked at together as both privledge the text itself over what goes into the making or reading of the text. They sometimes refers to inquiry into the form (rather than the content) of works of literature, such as plot, genre concerns (such as with a captivity narrative) but usually refers broadly to approaches to interpreting or evaluating literary works that focus on features of the text itself (especially properties of its language) rather than on the contexts of its creation (biographical, historical or intellectual) or the contexts of its reception. Adherents were/are emphatic in their advocacy of close reading and attention to texts themselves, and their rejection of criticism based on extra-textual sources, especially biography.
Marxist criticism is a loose term describing literary criticism informed by the philosophy and/or the politics of Marxism. The simplest goals of Marxist literary criticism can include an assessment of the political "tendency" of a literary work, determining whether its social content or its literary form are "progressive"; however, this is by no means the only or the necessary goal. Marxist literary critics have also been concerned with applying lessons drawn from the realm of aesthetics to the realm of politics. Marxist criticism can be about identifying the class struggle within a text.
New Historicism is an approach to literary criticism and theory based on the premise that a literary work should be considered a product of the time, place and circumstances of its composition rather than as an isolated creation of genius. It had its roots in a reaction to the "New Criticism" of formal analysis of works of literature that were seen by a new generation of professional readers as taking place in a vacuum. New Historicists aim simultaneously to understand the work through its historical context and to understand cultural and intellectual history through literature, which documented the new discipline of the history of ideas. Michel Foucault based his approach both on his theory of the limits of collective cultural knowledge and on his technique of examining a broad array of documents in order to understand the episteme of a particular time. New Historicism is claimed to be a more neutral approach to historical events, and is sensitive towards different cultures.
Post-colonialism (also known as post-colonial theory) grapples with the legacy of colonial rule. As a literary theory or critical approach it deals with literature produced in countries that were once, or are now, colonies of other countries. It may also deal with literature written in or by citizens of colonizing countries that takes colonies or their peoples as its subject matter. Post-colonialism deals with many issues for societies that have undergone colonialism: the dilemmas of developing a national identity in the wake of colonial rule; the ways in which writers from colonized countries attempt to articulate and even celebrate their cultural identities and reclaim them from the colonizers; the ways knowledge of colonized people have served the interests of colonizers, and how knowledge of subordinate people is produced and used; and the ways in which the literature of the colonial powers is used to justify colonialism through the perpetuation of images of the colonized as inferior. The creation of binary oppositions structure the way we view others. Such opposition was used to justify a destiny to rule on behalf of the colonizer, or 'white man's burden'.
Psychoanalytic literary criticism is criticism which, in method, concept, theory or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. The object of psychoanalytic literary criticism, at its very simplest, can be the psychoanalysis of the author or of a particularly interesting character. In this directly therapeutic form, it is very similar to psychoanalysis itself, closely following the analytic interpretive process discussed in Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. The concepts of psychoanalysis can be deployed with reference to the narrative or poetic structure itself, without requiring access to the authorial psyche (an interpretation motivated by Lacan's remark that "the unconscious is structured like a language").
Reader-response criticism is a literary theory that arose in response to the textual emphasis of New Criticism from the 1940s to the 1960s in the West. New Criticism had emphasized that only that which is within a text is part of the meaning of a text. No appeal to the authority or intention of the author, nor to the psychology of the reader, was allowed for the most orthodox New Critics. Reader-response criticism is a group of approaches to understanding literature that have in common an emphasis on the reader's role in the creation of the meaning of a literary work. Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work by reading it and completes its meaning "by applying codes and strategies". It is concerned with the reader's contribution to a text. It stands in total opposition to the text-oriented theories of formalism and the New Criticism, in which the reader's role interpreting literary works are not taken into account. In general, one can group reader-response theorists into three groups: those who focus upon the reader's experience and psychology, those who concentrate on the linguistic and rhetorical dynamic of audience, and those who concentrate on readers as cultural and historical ciphers.
Structuralism is an approach to analysing narrative material by examining the underlying invariant structure. For example, a literary critic applying a structuralist literary theory might say that the authors of the West Side Story did not write anything "really" new, because their work has the same structure as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In both texts a girl and a boy fall in love (a "formula" with a symbolic operator between them would be "Boy +LOVE Girl") despite the fact that they belong to two groups that hate each other ("Boy's Group -LOVE Girl's Group") and conflict is resolved by their death. The versatility of structuralism is such that a literary critic could make the same claim about a story of two friendly families ("Boy's Family +LOVE Girl's Family") that arrange a marriage between their children despite the fact that the children hate each other ("Boy -LOVE Girl") and then the children commit suicide to escape the arranged marriage; the justification is that the second story's structure is an 'inversion' of the first story's structure: the relationship between the values of love and the two pairs of parties involved have been reversed. Structuralistic literary criticism argues that the "novelty value of a literary text" can lie only in new structure, rather than in the specifics of character development and voice in which that structure is expressed.
Type any of the above terms into wikipedia.org and you'll see where I got my summaries, and then some.
Summary must be devoid of summarizer’s stated opinion, must maintain perspective and proportion of original, but must be in summarizer’s own words.
Adapted from Read and Respond by Swinton and Agoposowicz