Page 63 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

62 How to write critical essays
‘aims’ together without any attempt to find a logical order in
which the distinguishable purposes can best be explained. You
would then make the brilliant deduction that you need another
block of paragraphs which are roughly about Browning’s
‘achievements’.
To turn mere grouping into persuasively logical argument,
try to rephrase your noted heading for each group of
paragraphs so that an inert description of subject is enlivened
into an assertion of opinion. If, for instance, your essay plan for
Herbert’s style lists a group of paragraphs under the heading of
‘imagery’, substitute some simple proposition like ‘Imagery is
Herbert’s greatest strength’ or ‘Herbert’s imagery humanizes
God’. Then try to redefine the topic of each component
paragraph so that it can itself function more vigorously as an
argument. Work out which of these more localized propositions
needs to be established before some other can be logically
advanced as now provenly relevant and tenable. You should
finally be able to do much the same in reviewing the
relationship of the groups themselves and in deciding which of
these needs to be offered to the reader first.
Ideally, each group, like each of its component paragraphs,
should be a necessary prerequisite of the next. By establishing
one point you earn the right to proceed immediately to the next.

Systems for sequence

The most effective order will almost always emerge through
thought about the particular problems which have occurred to
you during your research on each essay’s specific topic. If,
however, you cannot think of an appropriate structure, some
version of one of the following systems may serve. Be sure to
adapt it thoughtfully both to the precise demands of any set
question and to your own judgement as to what criticism
should seek to achieve.

THESIS, ANTITHESIS, SYNTHESIS
Sometimes your essay can be ordered into a debate between
two potentially accurate readings. You can consider the case for
and against an author or text whose importance is disputable.