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Source: Classic Essays in English, edited by Josephine Miles. 2nd edition. 1965. Little, Brown and Company. Pages 432-34.

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A SUMMARY OF SUGGESTIONS ON COMPOSING, EVALUATING, AND RECOMPOSING

In the essay: What is the controlling theme or idea? That is, what is the predication of the subject in the theme-sentence? And how do the separate sentences, and the groups of sentences in paragraphs, support and develop the idea? (Logic and Grammar)

Relations of ideas: Logic

Their character: definition; comparison and contrast.

Positive evidence, necessary for definition and support: identification, example, allusion, analogy, authority.

Negative evidence, sufficient for definition and argument: anticipating and negating possible expectations.

Their sequence: order and form.

Temporal or spatial, narrative or descriptive: then-then-then; and-and-and, first-second-third; negative, but-but-but; coordinate.

Alternative or choice: -either-or; negative, -neither-nor; coordinate.

Explanatory or causal: -if-then; because-therefore; negative, though-however-yet; subordinate.

Relations within statements of ideas: Grammar

Substance: Concrete and abstract, specific and general, literal and figurative, neutral and evaluative, denotative and connotative.

Predication: bases of organization; time, voice, person.

Qualification: adjectival and adverbial, phrasal and clausal.

Connection: guides to organization; coordinate, subordinate.

Substitution: one form to function as another; noun to function as adjective, clause as noun, phrase as adverb, and so on.

Signs of relation; spelling and punctuation.

Morphemes and syntactic units: roots; affixes, derivational and inflectional; agreement, reference, word-order.

Punctuation: intonation patterns of stress and pitch as partially indicated; punctuation marks and spaces as boundaries.

From the essay: What is the controlling tone toward reader, the purport and effect? (Rhetoric)

Location of main point in essay’s own terms, and focus by controlling point of view.

Meeting other possible expectations, such as the reader’s.

Relation of understanding of essay in its own terms to reader’s reception of it in his own terms.

Use of knowledge of work’s context—history, occasion, effects—for establishing relevant expectations.

On the essay: How are judgments made by the critic and self-critic? (Evaluation)

Criteria or standards of value:

By criterion of coherence, internal consistency, relations of main characteristics, evaluate:

Main theme, and steps of development.

Use of evidence, both positive and negative, for adequacy and relevance.

Specific uses of language, use of a specific word, sentence structure, reference, or order.

By criterion of correspondence, external relation to facts, evaluate adequacy of evidence.

By criterion of communication, effectiveness, evaluate relation of work to reader, the satisfying of the expectations it establishes.

Recomposition: toward closer meeting of standards:

Reconsideration and restatement of main theme in the light of completed composition.

Addition to and clarification of evidence; elimination of unnecessary and irrelevant detail.

Pointing up and sharpening of the details of presentation.

Heightening of emphasis at important points: the central statement, the transitions between it and supporting statements.

Use of structural devices of similarity and difference: parallel structure in series and like elements, contrast in opposed elements.

Strengthening of details to clarify the whole design.