J7A Essay Process (Fall 2012)
Step 03
Step 03 Overview
Please do not read just the examples on this page and fashion your essay on them. It will result in errors.
Reading these instructions in full is expected. This is a teaching module, not just a set of instructions. Failing to do so probably will lengthen the amount of time it takes to complete the step and almost surely will have a negative impact on your grade. This is not an ordinary essay. Please write the essay according to the assignment, as described below.
Step 03 is your submission of the completed essay. It is entirely complete, as if it were your final submission for the term and will be graded not as a draft but as your final version. Even so, some Step 03 submissions will be required to be rewritten, for some there will be only suggestions for rewriting, for others the mentor may say the essay is already good enough and the student will submit it as Step 04 later, without any changes. This is the stage where most mentor feedback is given. Step 04, since it is very close to the grade submission deadline, has only simple comments on it, or none at all.
With Step 03 you also submit any support material (scans of sources used, etc.) in the same email. There are rules for how to submit support material. Please refer to the "Style requirements" page.
Specific Step 03 Instructions
Review the contents of the Overview & Deadlines page.
You cannot change your topic, of course.
All questions related to Step 03 should be directed to your mentor.
We will be looking at whether your work was rushed or whether it has benefited from a critical rereading by you. Therefore, work on you essay in a way that you have time to set it aside for a day at least, then reconsider its content. Credibility in part is you convincing the reader that you have spent time turning issues over in your head, noticing weakness and so forth.
Although you have already submitted a source report for your essay, of course you can continue to add resources or change resources.
Following the style requirements and staying within your topic write an essay that uses your concept to analyze your given object in a way that is credible and interesting. You will note that the form has some non-traditional aspects to it. Follow the requirements stated on it. (And you should definitely not write your essay first then look at the form; you will find that you'll need to rewrite portions of your essay to satisfy the requirements of the form, a waste of time.) Do not be afraid to use graphics when appropriate.
How to submit Step 03
This is a REQUIRED submission for all students.
To whom do you submit?
Me, and your mentor. The two of us only. Please try to make sure we are both on the "To" line of the email. (Technical reasons at my end for this request.)
What subject line should you use?
J7A_S03_LASTNAME_classname essaydone
Form to be used
Providing the mentor with passages that you have referred to or quoted from
All citations that are not widely accepted facts need to give us access to your source. The rules on how to do this is on the Style requirements page.
Note on just before submission, just after submission
Please do not double submit either because you forgot something or because you are worried your email might not be delivered. I definitely do not promise that I can track, and use, any revised version of your essay. Think, then hit the send button.
I try to log in Step 03 fairly quickly but it still might take me 48 hours past the submission deadline to reply. Watch for an ACCEPTED or NOT YET ACCEPTED and be sure to respond promptly if I request something, to avoid late penalties. Of course if you rework a submission that was bounced back to you, that is like working past the deadline and will be logged in as late.
Note for non-native writers
All work MUST be your own, from concept to submission. No consultation with friends or family or University writing resources except that you can use official University sources to help with research issues and focus your work in limited ways. There are severe penalties for doing so. You can submit more than one version. Refer to the Style requirements page for the specifics on this and the severe penalties for not following those requirements.
Late & other penalties
Beginning with this step, I now and then assess penalties for not following submission and format instructions correctly. I only do this in cases where the student has made submissions errors in the past and gives the impression of not being very interested in trying to follow instructions. Mistakes here and there are inevitable; please don't worry about these sorts of mistakes. If you are making a good effort to follow instructions, you are fine.
Late penalties are more severe than Step 02:
- 30 minutes to 24 hours past deadline: maximum possible grade is "B-minus" and the essay may not receive comments and certainly will receive those comments later than on-time submissions, making if more difficult to prepare for Step 04. SUBMIT ON TIME!
- 24-48 hours: maximum possible grade is "C"—this is an automatic grade, the essay will be read only to see if it rises to the level of a "C" and is academically honest in content, there will be no comments nor a return of the essay to the student
- after 48 hours: automatic "F", please move on to Step 04
How Step 03 is graded
Step 03 receives a single grade, given by the mentor. Your completed essay is graded for formal matters, credibility and interest but there is not particular grade weight for each of these categories. Poor form hurts credibility, for example, while interest is undermined if the idea is not credible. These all interact to provide a total effect for the essay.
Your mentor will assume this is the best you can do with this topic at this moment in time; he or she will not try to visualize an essay for its future potential. This is a product-oriented grade.
Step 03 also receives multiple comments. If you do not know how to use the "Comments" tool of MSWord to read your comments, please ask someone. Comments might be tagged as WORKONTHIS, CONSIDERTHIS, or NOTETHIS. These are special category comment:
WORKONTHIS means that the mentor feels the issue is important enough that s/he has required that you work on it for the next submission. At Step 04, you will be graded as to how well you fixed or attempted to fix an issue identified as WORKONTHIS. Much of your Step 04 grade turns on this issue of how you managed the WORKONTHIS issues. Please read all comments whether they are in the margins or in a general location, to be sure you have found all items identified as WORKONTHIS. My version of MSWord, if I do a find command for WORKONTHIS, will find both "WORKONTHIS" and "work on this" (a phrase that might accidentally be used when writing an ordinary sentence). Only items clearly marked WORKONTHIS require your attention. The mentor should also have given you an accurate count of items but it is, ultimately, your responsibility to check on your own and be sure you have found all instances. It will have a substantial effect on your grade; in fact, in a sense, most of your mentor grade for Step 04 is about how you handled these issues and how, in general, you have managed the process of the essay. It is, in theory, possible to receive an "A" on Step 03 and an "F" on Step 04 if WORKONTHIS items are ignored.
CONSIDERTHIS means that the mentor thinks attention to that particular matter will improve your essay and might improve the grade either you or the other reader(s) gives it. These are issues identified that you have the option of either working on or not. Unlike WORKONTHIS, not attending these items will not affect your grade downwards in the case of the mentor. Of course the other reader(s) do not know your grades, nor do they see any of the comments made on your essay by your mentor.
NOTETHIS means that for future essay you might consider the point but there is really not need or no way to work on it at this time.
Comments by your mentor that have none of the three are, essentially, the same as NOTETHIS comments and your mentor may or may not bother to use the phrase NOTETHIS to highlight something.
Formal matters
Instructions on this area specific. Please refer carefully the "Style Requirements'" page.
Credibility
Your essay needs to give the impression of someone who is well-informed, careful in thought, committed to accuracy, not rhetorical in nature, and not driven by an non-academic agenda. This means that politically motivated essays and faith-based essays fall outside the boundaries of this particular assignment. These essays have their place, too, but not for this assignment.
For me, when I am judging credibility in the real world of academic works:
I am most sensitive to issues of "driven" essays that seem intent on getting to a certain conclusion for one reason or another.
I fact check as I go along, when I independently know the facts. Otherwise I just hope the person is telling the truth.
I take a look at the sources used, since some are better than others and if the writer doesn't know that, the writer probably doesn't know the field that well.
I am aware of what others think of the ideas presented. However, I am somewhat skeptical of these informal reviews since sometimes they are just comments that repeat the comments of others and truly new ideas often get a very chilly reception initially. I generally try to make my own judgment.
I have an "instinct" for the right language. For example, I recently critiqued an article that had multiple problems with it, including skipping some seminal sources on the topic, skipping evidence that was contrary to the conclusion desired, and too frequent in its spelling errors. But, in addition, it always wrote "Samurai" rather than "samurai", a sort of 19th century scholarly style. The writer had indeed relied heavily on a work from the 1800s but treated it as 21st century scholarship. That one error made the essay "feel" not within the current discourse on the topic. When you read in the field, you know how to write about it. When unfamiliar, that unfamiliarity can show even in just the turn of phrase.
However, the J7A assignment is not the real world of academic publications; we are practicing analysis. So, in truth, when I read J7A essays and worry about credibility:
The first thing I check are the use of sources. If the student has successfully read and understood and represented sources accurately, my sense is that pretty much all else in the essay should be OK.
I am hoping that you have become fairly well informed on your topic(s). Weak papers are usually weak on this point or rushing things (see below).
I do check logic. (I don't do that in the "real world" because essays with truly flawed logic usually don't make it to publication.)
And, I ask, constantly, if the student has rushed the writing. If the writing is rushed, I assume the reading is rushed, and the thinking over the topic is rushed, and that, therefore, even if the style is impressive and the ideas clever, the content lacks the very most important element: the author spends more time thinking about the topic than the reader so that the reader doesn't have to. Various things can give the impression of a rushed essay but most easily noticed are, for me, weak arguments that would have been tossed if the paper had been critically reread before submission or poor organization where it looks like a first draft, as if the student is writing his or her way towards a conclusion, find the path forward in real time, with each sentence. That is draft material; you should rewrite the essay now knowing what you want to say.
I am concerned about essays that press a point, and other sorts of rhetorical argument that make the essay feel as if it is trying to "sell" a point. There is definitely an important place in scholarship for arguments that are trying to prove something. Most of the truly brilliant work probably happens with that type of essay or book. But the goal of this assignment is only to help the reader appreciate or think in more sophisticated ways about your object of analysis.
I am very concerned about sweeping statements rather than specific, nuanced observations ("the Japanese ..." "premodern Japanese literature ..." "never" "always" etc.)
There are the areas where all of us as writers continue to strive to be better. I understand this is a lower division essay and that it will be rough, maybe even very rough, around the edges. Nevertheless some basics are possible even for those in their first year of college: care to spelling key terms, setting aside enough time for a rewrite, reading self-critically to see if the essay holds up well, basic accuracy and so on. These are just the nuts and bolts of any academic essay. Writing academic prose is a slow process: there are sources to understand, the mechanics of quoting, the consideration of arguments, the need for good organization, and so on. Set aside the necessary time. If you are curious, when I am confronted with a publication deadline, I set aside about 30% of the total writing time to deal with formal matters. They are picky and cannot be rushed.
Interest
Scholars are curious creatures (pun intended). Give us something new to think about and we are almost giddy. Generally, and this is true for the J7A essay too, just giving us a new way to think about something, or bringing our attention to an aspect of something that usually goes unnoticed — that's plenty good. The topics are designed so that you are applying a concept to an object that is usually interpreted in another way. If, for example, the topic is the tea ceremony, its Doaist elements, or Buddhist elements, or sabi are very common topics. However, if you need to look at the tea ceremony from the perspective of yugen you might find something interesting. It will NOT be as "on target" as a commentary using sabi; it will be marginal to some degree. That's OK. If it helps us, legitimately, notice something worth noticing that's enough. We understand that the project at hand is difficult. If you seem to have made good effort to know your concept and know your object of analysis, you are likely to be rewarded for your effort even if it isn't really "successful" in the typical way that word is used. But do know your concept and object. Otherwise your observations will entirely lack credibility and may even look silly or irrelevant.