Control Over the Elements of Composition
IntroducedConventions exist so the reading is free
- Grammar and mechanics that follow established conventions of language allow writers to clearly communicate their interpretation of a text.
- The stated purpose is communication, not correctness for its own sake.
- Every error the reader has to repair is attention taken off your argument.
A misplaced comma can make your reader do more detective work than your thesis does.
The stated purpose of following conventions is to...
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Every error the reader repairs is attention taken off your argument.
The conventions that cost most in this subject
- Write about literature in the present tense: the narrator refuses, not refused.
- Name the speaker or narrator, never the author, for anything happening inside the text.
- Punctuate quotations exactly, and mark a poem's line break with a slash.
Literary analysis is written in the past tense.
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The present tense is standard: the narrator refuses, not refused.
For anything happening inside the text, name the speaker or narrator, never the ____.
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The author is for statements about the writing itself.
Sentences that survive being read once
- An exam reader reads your essay once, at speed.
- Keep the subject and its verb close together, and put your claim in the main clause.
- A sentence that needs re-reading has cost you the point it was carrying.
Does this sentence follow the conventions?
Sort each sentence by the convention it keeps or breaks.
Write about a text in the present tense. The narrator refuses is standard in literary analysis; the narrator refused reads as retelling the plot rather than analysing the text — and it is the single most common convention error in exam essays.
Select all the things control is not.
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Clarity is exactly what control is.
What control is not
- Control is not elaborate vocabulary, and it is not length.
- A long word used slightly wrongly costs more than the plain word would have earned.
- The rubric rewards clarity of interpretation; ornament is neutral at best.
Put the final pass in the order this lesson gives.
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An exam reader reads your essay once, at speed.
A final pass, in this order
- Tense: is every verb about the text in the present?
- Attribution: have I written the author where I meant the speaker?
- Quotations: is every one punctuated exactly as the text has it?
Before: The author showed that she was angry, when the narrator said "she never forgave the house". After: The narrator's phrase "she never / forgave the house" places the refusal before its object. Present tense, right attribution, exact quotation, and a claim instead of a retelling.
Conventions allow a writer to communicate an interpretation clearly — that is their stated purpose. In this subject: present tense, name the speaker or narrator not the author, punctuate quotations exactly and mark a line break with a slash. Control is clarity, not vocabulary or length.