The concrete
detail
Paraphrase the gist of the actual textual information as
CONCISELY as possible. It is important for your reader to
understand what you're talking about, but only as an illustration
for your own ideas.
The interpretation
Go back
to the questions you've asked yourself during the close reading.
What answers have you found that you can explain here? As always,
remember that good interpretation avoids both summary and opinion -
your arguments must be original but crafted from actual evidence.
Example
"Coleridge opens his poem with an immediate statement of
locale: ‘In Xanadu’. This fable-like invocation makes the reader
immediately conscious of distance, as well as the mystical
connotations of the Orient in the context of Victorian
imperialism. By choosing a setting with such dual reverberations
of reality and fantasy, Coleridge creates a landscape parallel
to his view of the imagination - vast in breadth, yet potently
accessible."
Note how very
little textual detail was necessary to come up with quite a
bit of interpretation.
Keep an eye on the
big picture
As tempting as it is to fill space with any interesting idea you
come up with, do not put a single thought onto the page that you
cannot relate directly to the proving of your topic sentence.
Remember, your paper
must act as the impetus for an idea, not merely a description of
your sources, however subtle that description might be.
Integrating
quotes
Sometimes the textual details you include will necessarily take
the form of direct quotation, particularly when analyzing language.
It is always best to do so as inconspicuously as possible. The
quotes should serve only to prove your ideas, not to supplant them.
Rather than using big block quotations, wherever possible include
only that which is specifically necessary to your point, within the
framework of your own sentence.
Bad
Integration
Keats describes the Grecian urn as follows: "Thou
still unravish'd bride of quietness; Thou foster child of
silence and slow time; Sylvan historian who canst express; The
flowery tale more sweetly than can rhyme.".
Good
Integration
Keats begins by personifying the urn in terms of human
innocence, as an "unravish'd bride" and a "foster
child of silence and slow time".
