Reflecting on Hamlet Comparative Essays a.k.a. Paper 2 Advice

Objective: Improve your literary comparative essay writing in advance of the Paper 2 exam. To give you kind, helpful advice about how to improve your formal comparative essay advice, I’ve left each of you a voice comment on turnitin.com. To help you understand your score on the IB rubric, I’ve: Created and shared this detailed writing advice PowerPoint Posted exemplar papers on my website. They are not perfect, but they represent really scholarly, successful responses to this assignment. TONIGHT: Listen to your voice comment and reflect on the back of your rubric. Strengths in your writing sample Areas of improvement you or Matheny sees in your work Goals for writing improvement in the coming months

Focus your lit analysis writing on language & its effect Your literary writing should focus on how language reflects ideas in literature, not how literature reflects culture Any statement about culture must be cited

Solid example of cited cultural evidence leading to a language-focused literary thesis statement

Edit out “to be” verbs whenever possible “To be” verbs lead to: Wordiness “is saying” versus “says” Passive Voice “Hamlet is used” versus “Shakespeare uses Hamlet” Lower grades in “language” category of the rubric

Avoid Passive Voice Passive voice is still a problem—it obfuscates sentences by not being specific about who performs the action. Fix PV by: Look for a form of "to be" (is, are, am , was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle. For example: Denmark has been damaged by the totalitarian theocracy.  The totalitarian theocracy damaged Denmark. 

Examples of Passive Constructions: Revise them in your mind Examples of Passive Constructions: Revise them in your mind.  #practice

Introductory Paragraphs Should: Immediately focus on the text you’re discussing, rather than the author and their works or culture in general Provide an introduction to the dominant characters, conflicts, and techniques inherent in your thesis Be edited for brevity End with a literary thesis statement

Integrate Effective Evaluation You’re not evaluating the author, but which of the two compared/contrasted works is more effective. Often, this evaluation is relayed in a dedicated, final body paragraph or in the paper’s conclusion.