Brief papers for precepts: The response paper may take an interrogative form: that is, you may choose to ask a question that's arisen in the course of your reading. Or you may choose to analyze an interpretive issue. Whether the response is interrogative or analytical, it would be a good idea to concentrate on the details -- a speech or scene, even a single line or a single image -- which can galvanize issues of broader interest for the play. (See entries in Handbook for suggestions about the analysis of Shakespeare's metaphors, similes , and imagery, about his verse or prose, and about the use of quotation.) For instance, you may be struck by Hamlet's disgusted fascination with the physical facts of death. To get at that issue you may want to look closely at his riddling talk about Polonius' death, or about Yorick's skull in the graveyard-scene: you'll probably get further by looking at the particular language and action in some detail rather than by trying to pose the kind of large abstract question (for instance, "To be or not to be") which made Hamlet a university drop-out.
Your preceptor may ask you to e-mail your paper in advance of the precept meeting. E-mail tends to invite a kind of sloppy shorthand, in which punctuation, spelling, and other niceties of good writing get lost. Resist the invitation. (It would be best to word-process the response, print it out for proof reading, correct the word-processed version, and then send it as an e-mail attachment.) Your weekly responses should be well-considered and well-written, and yes, style counts.
Longer papers:
What do you need to write a successful mid-term or final essay about Shakespeare
for this course -- after you've taken into account all the good advice in the
preceding paragraphs? First of all, an idea or, as we call it in the trade,
a thesis. That's not exactly the same as a subject-matter. You can sometimes
tell the difference by the title you give your essay. If the most accurately
descriptive title you can come up with is "Five Pages about Macbeth"
or "A Comparison of Two Characters" you may not have a thesis. But "Murdering
Infants in Macbeth" or "'Is this a Dagger': Hallucination and
Murder in Macbeth" suggests that you're on to something. (The latter
title has the advantage of a medial colon and a quotation--both very fashionable
in academic circles.) However complex your idea becomes in the course of the
essay, you should be able to state its basic premise; and in most cases it's
best to state it in the first paragraph. But you don't want to end your essay
by repeating the thesis-statement: your conclusion will be incremental, and
therefore will include matters that couldn't have been comprehended in the initial
statement of the thesis.
How do you get a thesis? Through the confrontation between an interested reader and an interesting play. It's ignited by the sparks that fly (the things that excite or puzzle you), and fanned by re-reading and thinking. You may worry that your idea is not absolutely original: don't. If the subject you're writing about has never been thought of before, there may be a good reason for that. On the other hand, you've (presumably) never written about the idea before; and since you are unique, you'll probably bring a slant that no one else could have brought.
Knowing what other people have thought about Shakespeare can help you refine your own ideas. If it seems appropriate or profitable to you to read criticism--after you've located the textual itch you want to scratch in your essay--your preceptor or the lecturer will be happy to make suggestions. (The Library's electronic searching tools can also help.) If you do use criticism--including what's in your edition of the plays--you must give an appropriate citation, either in a footnote, endnote, or parenthetical note. But the primary task for this essay is not secondary research but the direct confrontation between the reader (that is, you) and the play or plays.
A thesis needs to be supported with evidence. Your best--and in many cases your only necessary--evidence is the Shakespearean text: its words, characters, actions, settings, scenes. Brief quotations from the play (three lines or less) can be run into your own sentence. For instance, in Othello, Iago says "She did deceive her father, marrying you; / And when she seemed to shake and fear your looks, / She loved them best" (3.3.206-8); and that's how you'd write it. But if you want to quote a longer section of the speech, you should indent the quotation. (An indented quotation does not take quotation marks.) In either case, you should give the act-scene-line numbers parenthetically at the end of the quotation--and notice in the example where the punctuation goes. And you should observe the distinction between verse and prose. Verse lines begin at the appropriate point with a capital letter and end at the appropriate point to indicate the line break; that way the reader can hear the line's rhythm (see blank verse. Prose lines begin and end wherever your word processor dictates.
Often a quotation is not in itself sufficient to make your point. Analyze, explain: tell the reader how and why the quotation supports your argument. The more deeply you mine Shakespeare's language, the better. If you've ended a paragraph with a quotation, check whether you've forgotten to analyze and explain: most quotations require (or benefit from) your authorial follow-up.
Does it matter how well you write? You betcha! Here are a few things to keep in mind: Despite popular opinion, your teachers prefer lively writing to dull writing; and despite popular opinion, lively writing is usually briefer and simpler than dull writing. Active sentences are livelier, briefer and simpler than passive sentences: compare "I like this essay" to "This essay is one that is liked" or "It is interesting to note that this essay is one with many sentences in it which cause a reader to fall asleep." (See voice in Handbook.) Notice that you're welcome to put yourself into your essay by way of the first-person singular--just so long as the expression of mere opinion ("I think Angelo is a jerk") doesn't take the place of citation and analysis.
Good writing is always writing for an audience. Who's yours? Assume an audience that shares some basic knowledge with you; for instance, anyone reading your essay knows that "William Shakespeare, the great English playwright who lived from 1564 to 1616, wrote the play Hamlet." So don't bore us with superfluous information. And don't try to fool your audience with grand gestures toward historical matters you know little about, as in a sentence that begins, "All people in Shakespeare's day thought. . . ." (We don't know what all people thought; we know what Shakespeare's characters say.) On the other hand, don't write just for one person, even if she's as brilliant as a teacher at Princeton: "As you said in class, Angelo is a jerk" is too chummy, as well as insufficiently nuanced. Keeping the audience in mind is a good way of judging whether you've analyzed, explained, and through the adducing of evidence demonstrated the value and cogency of your thesis.
Revise and Proofread. Make sure your subjects agree with your verbs. Double space. Revise and proofread again. Leave margins of at least an inch. Check that all your sentences are complete. Revise and proofread. Don't play around with funny fonts. Revise and proofread. Number your pages. Staple them together. Have fun. Revise and proofread.
Mouse your way around the Handbook for more.