The following comments are based on what I read across the class after you completed your practice essay. I have broken the feedback up so that you can see comments that are linked to the individual elements of the essay, as well as a section that provides an overview of general issues that need to be addressed.
Introduction
* Ensure that your thesis statement is concise and that it directly addresses the task.
* Make sure that your introduction clearly outlines the focus of your argument and gives insight into how you will explore your points.
* Your intro does not need to be huge but it should be more than just one or two sentences.
* Quotations do not generally work within the introduction. Leave them for the main body.
Main Body
* Ensure that your topic sentences clearly articulate what the focus of each paragraph will be.
* Ensure that your topic sentences provide a link back to your thesis statement.
* Follow up your topic sentences with statements that provide further exploration of your main point.
* As you develop your main body paragraphs, ensure that you are finding ways to integrate your evidence. You need to move beyond starting your discussion of evidence with, "For example...". By integrating your evidence you can demonstrate greater subtly and sophistication in your writing.
*When you are discussing the positioning techniques, ensure that you phrase your analysis appropriately. Shakespeare is positioning the audience, the characters themselves are not positioning anybody.
* Avoid repetitive comments in your main body. These tend to occur when you introduce your evidence and then attempt to synthesize it with the same style of comment.
* Use your evidence appropriately, i.e. use the appropriate parts of the quotations to suit your purpose and ensure that you are sure of what the quotation means.
* Your main body paragraphs should be focused on analysis. Do not fall into the trap of simply retelling the plot. Too much description will mean that you are unlikely to address the key criteria points.
* Quotations should not form part of your topic sentences.
* Ensure that you are synthesizing your evidence. It is not enough to include a quotation and then identify that a positioning technique is used. You need to explain the significance of both the quotation and the affect of the positioning technique(s).
* Make sure you format your paragraphs appropriately. There shouldn't be big gaps between your sentences and you shouldn't be be leaving lines between sentences and quotations unless the quotation is very long.
*Try not to use really big quotations. You are better off using smaller quotations that can be integrated.
* Make sure that your synthesis includes discussion of the various positioning techniques. This is a significant part of your argument. A number of you failed to do this in the last essay, do not make the same mistake again in Othello.
* Make sure you have a closing/linking statement at the end of your paragraphs. You need to ensure that there are clear cohesive ties throughout your essay.
Conclusion
* Your conclusion does not have to be huge but it should be more than just one or two sentences. You need to revisit the question, reinforce your main points and provide closure to your argument. The whole point is to conclude. For a question like this one, you can make some sort of comment as to whether good is privileged over evil or vice-versa.
*Do not bring new information or points into your conclusion.
General Feedback
* Ensure that you are constructing clear, concise sentences.
* Work on eliminating poor written expression. At times, clumsy expression is detracting from your content. This can affect criteria points outside of the middle criteria.
* Do not start a sentence with a conjunction, e.g. 'And', 'But', 'Because'.
* Revise the use of definite (e.g. the) and indefinite articles (e.g. a or an)
*Planning should be extensive given that you will have a couple of days to prepare before you go into the test.
* Work on spelling. This includes general spelling rules such as "i before e except after c".
* Ensure you underline the title of the play.
* Don't make value judgements - this includes comments on how well Shakespeare does something, e.g. "Iago is an excellent example of an evil character". Just stick to analytical discussions e.g. "Shakespeare positions the audience to see Iago as an evil character by..."
* Please revise the use of possessive apostrophes.
* Avoid silly errors like not using capital letters.
* Write in full sentences. Many of you have a tendency to write in sentence fragments.
* Be aware of grammar errors like lapses in subject-verb agreement.
* In the test you need to write in pen, not pencil.
* Quote is a verb, quotation is a noun.
* Make sure you spell Shakespeare correctly.
* Make sure you spell the names of characters correctly.
* Under no circumstances are you to use first or second person in your essay.
* Do not make reference to the era of the play or a particular time period. You are simply referring to the society constructed within the play.
*Write your essay using present tense. This demonstrates that you are engaging directly with the text.
*Make sure you manage your time effectively so that you are able to finish your essay in the specified time.
*Avoid vague statements. You need to be definitive in your statements. If you are vague it means that the reader is able to question your argument.
* Avoid sweeping statements. They do not help your argument.
Informative post!! Use clear, short and simple statements in essays. It makes people to understand easily.
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