Writing Center

Lexi Tollefson ’15 is from Tulsa, Oklahoma and pursued a major in English as well as a certificate in East Asian Studies. She wrote this essay as a senior.

Introduction

“She Preferred it Sunk in the Very Element it Was Meant to Exclude”: Making Sense of Nature and Sisterhood in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: In the introduction to a Junior Paper on Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, the author sets up her argument by defining the subtle difference between Nature (capital N) and nature (lowercase n).  This exploration of key terms allows for a smooth transition into her thesis about existential and social questions and the separation of biological sisters.  

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Structure

Bounded by Beauty: The Influence of Photography on Perception and Approaches to Cultural Landscape Assessment

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: This paper is about the impact of the huge amount of photography and photo-sharing networks available on the internet on viewers’ perception of cultural landscapes. This paper was written for Alice’s writing seminar Cultural Landscapes and responds to a prompt asking her to make an argument about the impact of photography on cultural landscape conservation. It is showcased here for its masterful approach to structure.

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Structure

Promoting U.S. University-based Hybrid Centers as a New Window for Advancing Rule of Law in China

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: This summary of a WWS policy paper is incredibly coherent and well-written, an example of effective structure. Jean begins the summary with a brief introduction on the increasing presence of U.S.-based hybrid centers in China, then addresses the unique benefits and advantages of these institutions in promoting legal reform, and ending with recommendations to further improve their efficiency. 

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Motive

Saratoga Billboard: The Façade of Advertising

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: In this excerpt, Sewheat demonstrates a clear command of motive, addressing the existing scholarly commentary on Ralph Steiner’s Saratoga Billboard (1929), which only provide literal interpretations of the work’s subject matter, and then moving beyond the scope of current scholarship to analyze the piece from an artistic perspective.   

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Motive

You say Chanani, I say Chananaei: Language and Ethnography in Augustine

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: In this excerpt, Jessica explores the motivation behind Augustine’s identification of Chanani with Chananaei when referring to North African congregants in Roman Africa during the late fourth century CE. She challenges the historical argument that this identification reveals the internal ethnic identification of Punic-speakers because it fails to consider the Latin-speaking perspective and the theological context, which is a strong motive.

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Motive

Florine Stettheimer’s Family Portrait II: Cathedrals of the Elite Family

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: This essay argues that Florine Stettheimer’s 1933 painting Family Portrait II is a critique of the elitist society of 1920s New York and thus an extension of her Cathedrals series. In this excerpt, Cara beautifully introduces both her internal motive, which is the stark contrast she noticed between Family Portrait I and this painting, and her scholarly motive, which is the oversight in the art community of this painting’s social significance.

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Thesis

“If you will only”: The Presence of Loneliness in “Song of Myself”

BY Writing Center

In a Tortoiseshell: In this series of excerpts, the author’s process of developing a thesis is foregrounded. Excerpts 1 and 2 are taken from the introduction and conclusion of the original essay submitted to us, and Excerpt 3 is a revised introduction. Each excerpt includes the essay’s thesis, and as the author reiterates it his argument becomes more and more refined, improving significantly over the course of writing and revision. 

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