http://argumentandstyle.wordpr
ess.com
Lectures 1-9 slides in Power Point
• Workshop in tutorials Feb 13. Bring two
copies of your draft of the evaluation essay.
• Evaluation Essay due February 20th
• Put your essay in the drop box for EN 2910
located at 347 Stong.
Grades
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Paraphrase 5%
Ad Analysis 5%
Proposal 10%
Evaluation 20%
3 Essays 30%
Final Exam 20%
Tutorial Participation 10%
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Paraphrase 5%
Ad Analysis 5%
Proposal 5%
Evaluation 10%
Essay
10%
Three assignments 15%
Fall & Spring tests 20%
Final Exam
20%
Tutorial participation 10%
Park 1
Kim Park
Dr. McGurk
EN 2910 sec. 1
21 Nov 2008
Marital Evaluations in Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?
Works Cited
Johnson, Bill. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The Power of Ambiguity.” A Story is a
Promise: Deep Characterization. 2007-8.
http://www.storyispromise.com/woolf.htm
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Dir. Mike
Nichols. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton,
George Segal, Sandy Dennis. Warner Bros.,
1966.
Works Cited
Gallagher, Carl. “Tennessee Williams’ Influence
on Edward Albee.” Cineaste 20.4 (1999):
34-49.
---. “Taylor and Burton Onscreen and Off.”
New Yorker. 5 Sept. 2005: 91+.
Works Cited
• Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your
research paper. It should have the same one-inch margins and last
name, page number header as the rest of your paper.
• Label the page Works Cited (do not underline the words Works
Cited or put them in quotation marks) and center the words Works
Cited at the top of the page.
• Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.
• List page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed. If you refer
to a journal article that appeared on pages 225 through 250, list the
page numbers on your Works Cited page as 225-50.
• If you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued
in print form but that you retrieved from an online database, you
should provide the URL address.
Citation
• the act of citing or quoting a reference to an
authority or a precedent. A means to
differentiate your original work from
borrowed words and ideas.
• If you cite facts/figures you must list the
source.
• If you have a works cited page you must
actually attribute the material in the body of
your essay.
Last year 7,000 Ontarians were diagnosed with lung
cancer, almost all of the patients had been
smokers for at least twenty years.
VS.
In an interview for the Toronto Star, Margarett Best,
the Ontario Minister of Health Promotion
emphasized the Province’s commitment to
smoking cessation after 7,000 patients were
diagnosed with lung cancer last year.
• You must attribute all borrowed material in
order to avoid plagiarism and maintain
academic integrity.
• When I read your essays I assume that every
word and idea is yours unless you tell me
otherwise by including a paraphrase,
quotation or summary which cites another
author.
• When you do research, what you learn does not simply
become yours just because you found it. Always cite
your sources.
• Strive to introduce borrowed material with the source
rather than burying the author at the end of the
sentence in parentheses.
The opening scene of Touch of Evil continues uncut for
more than three minutes (Smith).
Douglas Smith’s essay explains Welles’ technical
breakthrough in the opening scene of Touch of Evil,
which continues uncut for more than three minutes.
• The first time that you use a source, try to
identify the author and title, from then on, you
can refer to the author by last name.
Pauline Kael’s 5001 Nights at the Movies dismisses
the Dirty Harry franchise as reactionary
conservative male fantasy.
Kael regards the first production of the rogue cop
series as a “kind of hardhat The Fountainhead”
offering a blunt attack on liberal values (191).
• Interpretive vs. Evaluative Claims.
In Outlaw Culture bell hooks correctly identifies
the contradiction implicit in the American
media’s hand-wringing over sexism in hip-hop
music during the same year that The Piano was
the most critically acclaimed film. hooks
observes that in Campion’s film, “violence
against land, natives, and women, unlike that of
gangsta rap, is portrayed uncritically” and appears
natural and above reproach (120).
• Your works cited page contains the full
publication information for your reader, so in
the body of the text you can keep references
brief. Page numbers are required for quotes,
but are otherwise not always necessary unless
you are citing a large work or more than one
work from an author.
Evaluation arguments defend our
judgments
• Tone is an essential component to an
evaluation. Avoid all diction that creates an
arrogant or offensive tone. Respect your
audience and the opposing view.
• For example, while I may consider The Passion
of the Christ deviant torture porn on par with
the Saw franchise, I am mindful that many
folks viewed it as a emotive justification for
their faith.
• Avoid language that trades in absolutes:
Always, never, best, worst, worthless, or any diction
that states your case too strongly.
Avoid empty, vague or meaningless vocabulary such
as good, bad, fine.
X is a superior Y because of criteria A,B,C.
A Touch of Evil ranks as one of the most influential
films from the original noir cycle because of the
director’s techniques, the theme, and cast
performances.
Select and Rank Criteria
• Choose a single object (film, book, band, video
game, work of art) to evaluate.
• In this short writing assignment 4-5 pages, you
will develop an argument more convincingly
on a single topic rather than dividing your
time or the scope of the assignment to an
additional object.
• Focus on one object/situation only to
evaluate. This is not a comparison/contrast.
• You are not asked to compare and contrast.
The Piano is superior to Life is Beautiful because
it conveys verisimilitude, features a more
empathic protagonist, and benefits from the
director’s techniques.
You can certainly use another example as a hook
or introduction to your essay as long as the
body of your assignment develops one
evaluation.
Again, I can’t stress tone enough
• Avoid any evaluations of individuals unless
you confine it to their body of work as actor,
director, author, etc.
Anthony Lane considered Tom Hanks’
performance in Forrest Gump as an effort to
convince the audience that his character was
more than a bulging sack of virtues. Lane did
not consider him successful.
• Avoid gratuitous profanity and offensive slang.
• If you do decide to go snarky, make sure it’s
funny.
• Avoid the first person.
• I think Sarah Haskins’ “Target Women” is one
of the most humourous web series because
she exposes how little advertisers think of
women, she parodies gender stereotypes and
pokes fun at the beauty myth.
Feminism and Popular Culture by Andi
Zeisler
“many feminists have seen in Bewitched a
parable of early second wave feminism, and in
Samantha an embodiment of the way women
might enact everyday rebellion from behind
the facade of the perfect housewife.”
Student example
• Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party serves as a
milestone in modern art because it illustrates
women’s absence from art and history, and
the installation offers a feminist aesthetic by
combining the female form into the classic
banquet setting. Chicago created a stylistic
medium for women’s struggle to get a
metaphoric seat at the table.
Student Sample
• Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to
Hold us Back influenced a generation of hiphop artists because the album contained a
relevant critique of racial politics, it rejected
the popular norms of best-selling artists of the
genre, and it incorporated a variety of music
samples in order to create a unique sound.
So What?
• Remember that there has to be some level of
controversy or reasonable objection to your
position.
• You want to demonstrate a creative selection
and not simply offer a no-brainer by arguing
that Paris Hilton is the worst actor.
• Pick a topic you can be enthusiastic about.
Don’t try to cover too much. You can’t evaluate
why the reality tv genre is a cultural plague in
4-5 pages.
You could also not adequately evaluate how
Judd Apatow became rich by celebrating male
privilege and bathroom humour. Or why so
many films featuring demonic possession
were produced during Nixon’s administration.
Some Criteria for Film/TV
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Character Development
Dialogue
Theme
Pacing
Plot
Point of View
Verisimilitude/Realism
Cast Performance
Cinematography
Use of Motif (repeated imagery or symbolism)
Director’s Techniques (include: editing, scene splicing,
camera angle, cross-cutting, flashbacks)
Critiquing an Evaluation Argument
• Will a sceptic accept my criteria?
• Am I offending readers?
• Have I crafted an introduction that grabs the
reader’s attention and interest?
• Will a sceptic accept my general weighting of
the criteria?
• Will a sceptic question my standard of
reference?
Judith Halberstam’s “Dumb and
Getting Dumber”
• The men of Sideways are really just older, more
critically lauded versions of the hapless losers who
have always populated teen comedies—the geeky
strivers of Sixteen Candles, the libido-crazed pals of the
American Pie franchise, or the blindly hedonistic Jesse
and Chester of Dude, Where’s My Car? (Perhaps the
film should have been called Dude, Where’s My Pinot
Noir?) And like the dudes, the bros, the Jim Carreys and
Adam Sandlers and George W. Bushes, the stupider
and more pathetic the male heroes become, the more
they are loved by exceptional women.
Anthony Lane “Mondo Bond”
• All right, pay attention, 007. Here are some things that are great
about James Bond movies: the suits, the drinks, the stunts, the cars,
the hubcaps of the cars, the men, the women, the posters, the
weather, the music, the sex, the life. Here are some things that are
not so great about James Bond movies: James Bond movies. Have
you ever tried to watch "A View to a Kill," a work so bereft of ideas
that it chooses to employ Grace Jones as a special effect? Now is
the moment to reflect on this curious discrepancy—between the
completed films and the stuff they contain, between the millions of
brain cells that will die as you sit in front of "Moonraker" for two
hours and the pleasure of hearing Q say to M, "I think he's
attempting reëntry, sir," while Roger Moore makes interlunar love
to Lois Chiles, adrift in what he, of all people, must recognize as
zero gravity.