Submission Portfolio: Points of Emphasis

We are moving into our final submission before our 1^st quarter portfolio, so it is a good time to start paying closer attention to your own analytical style.  When I grade the portfolios of your work, here again are the key elements I will be looking for:

(1)    Claims—On the “left side,” do they contain nice general observations of Setting, Character, Action, or Style?  On the”right side,” do they contain nice general inferences about the tone effects caused by these observed elements? 

Also remember that your claim can be just a left side claim or a right side claim—they don’t always have to have both. 

(2)     Description—Do you do a nice job of making specific observations/descriptions that support your claim?  Do you occasionally use figurative descriptions?  Do you ever compare elements to other, outside examples that your reader might know?  (“Watts looks a little like Zack Galifianakis on a bad hair day.”)

(3)    Discussion—Do you elaborate, even if just a little, on the tone or theme of your subject?  Do you occasionally use figurative descriptions of tone?

Some common mis-steps that you should look out for in your own writing:

(a)    This kind of writing should not be in the first person: no “I” or “I feel,” etc.  So-called “academic third person” sounds more authoritative and credible.

(b)   Write in the present tense when describing your work.

(c)    Do not “evaluate” the work.  That is, avoid descriptions or attempted inferences that claim elements of the work are “amazing” or “masterful.”  In analysis, we care not that you like the work; we care about how the thing works—your job is give us one way to look at the way the piece creates an artistic effect.

(d)   Avoid making inferences that refer to “the reader” or “the viewer,” like “These images help the viewer see the artist’s point more clearly.”  These are inferences we usually make when we don’t know what else to say—your work is to tell us the “point” of that work, to put it into your own words.

Look for examples of these points of emphasis in a future blog post.