Lecture 004

Close reading essays are literary work used by critics to analyze other literary works such as fiction, poets, and comics. Making good use of various writing strategies can make a close reading essay much more successful. Specifically, there are three writing strategies commonly used by writers to produce understandable and persuasive essays. Firstly, using various supporting evidences from different portion of the same literary work can make the essay more persuasive. Secondly, specific details of the literary work often make the argument stronger. Thirdly, readers can understand the essay better if an introduction and a summary are provided. Therefore, detailed supporting evidence from different parts of the literary work as well as an introduction and a summary that brings the arguments together make a close reading essay stronger.

Given that supporting evidence make up a large portion of the close reading essay, arguments can be made even stronger by stacking evidence from different parts of the same literary work. In the work, The author of the work "'Making Strange' Everyday Encounters in Nooncuccal’s 'Municipal Gum'" supports the claim that Noonuccal's use of ambiguity in the poem strengthen the poem by exemplify on multiple words. The ambiguity between the word "Its" and "It's" opens up the reader's imagination to different potential subjects on the modifier "hopeless." Besides this one instance, the author also mentioned other words of pronominal form such as "its" and "you" in different parts of the poem to strengthen the argument. Similarly, professor Haworth, in his analysis on "Chicago Boy" by Carol Tyler, supports his conclusion that Charles's childhood difficulties can hardly affect Charles using instances of childhood difficulties in multiple pages of the comic. (page 3). By exemplifying multiple occurrence of the same phenomenon, the claim is more generalize to larger context and thus making the essay more persuasive and therefore successful.

Being a close reading essay, it is essential for the authors to derive evidence from details of the literary work. Haworth exams detailed phrasing such as "Holy Kee-Ri-ist" and "I’ll be Doggonned", to draw conclusions that these light-hearted tone help establish a contrast near the end of the story to emphasis the devastating aspects of the war. The scope of evidence is small in the work "'Making Strange' Everyday Encounters in Nooncuccal’s 'Municipal Gum'" as well. The author takes the advantage to analyze individual word choice such as "Municipal" and "its". By looking at detailed diction in the literary work that focuses only in a small area, the reader has something easier to refer to than a larger conceptual map of the literary work that is both unfamiliar and intricate to the reader. As these small details serve as good entry points to draw conclusions, arguments made this way become stronger.

The existence of a good introduction and a summary can better guide the reader through the author's claim. A good introduction establishes the context reader need to understand before reading the claim of the close reading essay. At the beginning of his essay, Haworth introduces the historical context of "Chicago Boy" as well as its larger narrative, being a part of Carol "Tyler’s You’ll Never Know" series. Likewise, "'Making Strange' Everyday Encounters in Nooncuccal’s 'Municipal Gum'" begins the essay by explaining that the poem Municipal Gum "describes the narrator’s encounter with a tree on a street that has been paved in by bitumen." (page1) These introductory sentences contextualize the literary work to make sure that the readers are on the same page when critics begin their arguments, making the essay more understandable. In addition to the introduction, both analysis of "Chicago Boy" and "Municipal Gum" use a summary near the end of the essay to aggregates the arguments above. Thus, a more meaningful and memorable central claim can be established.

Class

Ambiguity

Essay Writing

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