Here's another recycled post: how to comment on a grad paper

 I found these comments in my file for the theory class. 

“Critical Review of...”

Rewrite  

Let’s start with the title: it could be a bit more revelatory and interesting—a minor issue. The intro is strong, but the last sentence of the 1st paragraph is weak. Here is the place where you could insert a strong thesis statement, but instead you simply announce that your paper is going to comment on the article by B. Something that we already know from your title. Likewise, the concluding sentence of the essay is weak: you apologize for not dealing with every aspect of the essay, instead of taking advantage of the final position to highlight your own strongest point, whatever you feel that to be. The time to make this kind of statement is early in a paper, as a kind of captatio benevolentiae.  

You might need more context in the second paragraph. What exactly was B reacting against? I would say there are two main traditions: neo-classical poetics in Europe did not really consider the novel as an artistic genre because it was a new, upstart form that did not form part of the classical canon. Secondly, B was writing partly in reaction to the Russian formalists. If you don’t see this context, it becomes hard to see why B establishes the dichotomy between poetry and prose. Poetry (poetics) entails a certain narrower, classical view of genres. I don’t think that it as easy as you assume to extend his “prosaics” to the realm of “poetics.” I also think you need to consider the historical development of the novel as a genre.  

In the third paragraph: it is unlikely that B knew Gramsci. You should look up the actual dates of publications of Gramsci’s work rather than just saying that you don’t know whether he knew Gramsci or not. Good summary here, though. 

Page 5: “Essentially a genre theorist of the novel, I...” Who is the genre theorist, you or B?  

You make good points throughout, but a better thesis statement and conclusion would result in a better, more cohesive paper.  

***

Final Grade A -

Most of my previous comments have been addressed. Generally, this is a strong paper, building on strengths of the first version. My main critique at this point would be that the paper could test B’s theory against real examples of novelistic and poetic discourses. It seems a little abstract, too theoretical, in a way. The reader doesn’t really have a sense of what B’s theory would look like when set in motion. The paper could go even further in the direction of proposing an interesting idea about Bakhtin’s theory. 

I didn't give a grade for the first version, because I wanted attention on substance not on "why did I get this particular grade." I didn't have to change any information to publish this on my blog because there is nothing personal here. Everything is about the work, nothing about the writer as human being. [update 11 years later: now I really don't know who wrote this paper!]. 

I also gave some interlinear comments that I didn't save.  

Now I'm feeling I should have kicked his or her ass even more. But beyond a certain point is becomes counter-productive.

Wooten's theory of improv

I was watching some videos of Wooten [bass player of renown] on improv.  I will mix in his ideas with some of mine.

1] Improvise badly.  [This is similar to my idea of writing bad poems; it frees you up.  The results will be good, possibly]

2] Wooten says: there are 7 notes in any given scale, and 5 notes NOT in the scale. So play any notes you want; you have more than 50 % chance of those being the right notes.  If they aren't in the scale, they will be altered notes or chromaticism.  [My idea is: there is only one bad sounding note, which is the fourth degree in a major seventh chord.  So play CEGB and then F in your right hand.  That F sounds really bad.  You can avoid that one if you like. Everything else is pretty good.]. 

3] Make the groove solid, says Wooten.  Note choice is less important than the rhythmic feel of the music. [So I can improvise with simplistic ideas or repeated notes.]   

4] My final idea [not attributed to Wooten] is just to do it.  Sit down and do it enough. Anyone can improvise.  Now can anyone improvise well? No.  The quality of the ideas might be good, bad, or indifferent. One thing I learned from Chick Corea's book is this: you are the judge.  You get to decide what you like and what you don't, so you are developing your own taste. That fact that the fourth over a major seven sounds bad to your ears [if it does] is just as useful as knowing that the third sounds super consonant and sweet.  Maybe the third will be too sweet, what Herbie Hancock calls the "butter notes."   

Reading in anthologies

 I remember the revelation of reading the Complete Works of a certain poet. [Wallace Stevens]. I was maybe 14 or 15.  Anyway, reading in an anthology gives a false impression. You find that the poems are more uneven in the complete works. Some fall flat; some are dull or incomprehensible (especially if you are 14); some good ones never get into the anthology. It seems as though the anthologists only read other anthologies and choose the same ones out of inertia. (Can an anthology be plagiarized?) Even the weaker poems provide satisfaction, and make the ones you like stand out even more. The dullness is part of the over all experience of finding out for yourself what is interesting, and finding out what poetry is really about: a process of large numbers of failures punctuated with tenuous and temporary successes.  

Also, books of poems are works of art in their own right. They have organizing principles. Who would know that Lorca's "La guitarra" is part of a sequence of poems, and that this sequence of poems in its turn is part of a book of poems? The anthology does not give you that information. Even your professor might not know this, using an anthology of poems selected by someone else. 

Many people, even famous people, in my own field I have heard say over the years: Oh, I don't really like / read / understand poetry.  It's odd to me because I would not have gone into the field to read modern Spanish novels. Nothing wrong with the modern Spanish novel, but I wouldn't have felt compelled to go into the field from reading Azorín, Gabriel Miró, Benet, Marsé, Laforet, or even Goytisolo. My late colleague Bob Spires asked me in the intrerview: why don't you study fiction?  I had no great response, but now I would say: all of you are already doing that.   

rescuing a post from 2006

My criteria for an article:  

Problem The article must first address a significant critical problem. That is, it cannot be merely informative or descriptive, but must make an argument. For me, the critical problem usually involves a paradox. For example, we know that Creeley's poetry was influenced by Pound and Williams. Yet, in comparison to their work or Denise Levertov's, his poetry is not strongly visual in the same way. A paradox is like a wrinkle in the fabric of our expectations, or a distance between what most people think about a particular writer and what is *actually* the case. I had an interesting talk with Mark Halliday: his perception of Thank You was that it contained many difficult poems that did not make sense on the surface. My perception of it was the opposite. Of course, when we got out the Collected Poems I saw that we had both overestimated the proportion of "easy" and "difficult" poems in the book, overlooking the ones that did not confirm our previous bias.

The critic must feel that the problem is of some significance and make a case for this significance. Does literary history change if Creeley is not a visual poet? Maybe it does. Maybe not. There has to be a non-obvious consequence that makes a difference for something else.

Primacy

The critical article cannot repeat what has been said before. It cannot argue an obvious thesis, that Levertov derives her line-breaks from WCW. It has to take into account what has already been written and enter into a critical dialogue with it. Even if not much has been written about the topic, there must be some demonstration of the gap in the critical literature.

Voice

The critic must speak with voice of her / his own. It can't be the application of an already existing critical discourse. The critical voice is the authority--not the literary theorist to whom the critic is beholden. Nobody else could have written this article but him / her / me / you.

***

I haven't said anything about theory. That is because the presence or absence of theory in the article (i.e. references to specific works by "name" theorists) is not directly relevant to these criteria. For me, the theory will usually be more implicit than explicit, simply because I have my own voice, more or less. Barthes is not theoretical because he quotes other theorists or presents abstract ideas (although he does do this too) but because his is an interesting mind dealing with critical problems. I find my own ideas more valuable than applications of Derridean theory, say, to a particular text. The silliest idea in my head is worth more than the most profound idea in someone else's head (Frank O'Hara, as paraphrased by Kenneth Koch). This is not arrogance. It is the starting principle. Why should you listen to me if I'm simply a less accomplished version of someone else?

Good academic criticism has to be extremely imaginative. It should convey the same excitement we get when we read Barthes on LaRochefoucauld. I hate "imaginative" criticism where I feel the critic is simply making things up. After all, making things up is pretty easy to do. That's cheating, in my mind. You can't say you'd "rather be interesting than right." You'll end up being interesting in a kind of dull way. If you stretch out a little bit, you have to have the smoking gun, the piece of evidence that makes your argument not only possible or plausible but probable. We've had students who seem to have the "spark" but can't quite put things together in a cogent way. I've been that student myself.

Bad criticism is bad because there are not that many people who can do all of this and put it together. Ever read a plodding, descriptive dissertation, where the dissertator seems to be merely going through the motions? He is not incompetent; he deserves the doctorate and a place in the profession, perhaps.

For myself, I feel that I need to have something for the formalist reader and something for the cultural critic at the same time. That is, if I'm writing about poetry there has to be something interesting going on in what I'm saying about the poetry, as poetry. At the same time there's got to be some other point beyond this as well--some reason for you to care even if you don't care about the poetry as poetry.

Research is still "writing"

 What I mean by this is this: if you are researching, you will be taking notes, putting what you learn in written form. The exception is when you are reading a book and not taking notes, just marking pages or keeping mental note of ideas. The process of writing is continuous with the process of note taking.  

Scratching my head

 This is the strangest statement I've read this year:

"What makes me uncomfortable about this situation was how so many people, under the guise of being 'objective,' did feel the need to invest their time in the name of establishing some kind of truth in the situation." It's on Andrew Gelman's blog, but in a post by another contributor.  

You need an hour, but you only need an hour

I have decided to return to my practice of writing every day on my book, for an hour a day more less, using the Seinfeld chain method; I began on January 1.   

Many things require an hour (or less) a day. Practicing an instrument (for hobbyist ambitions). Running: yesterday I ran (walked) for an hour and did 4.5 miles.  Now, I don't even need to run everyday, even, just every other day, alternating with weights. I only spend 30 minutes lifting. Making progress on a book ms. For meditation, 30 minutes is good if you aren't a Buddhist monk.  

You can prepare class in an hour a day. I teach two and a half hours a week, and I need about an hour of prep for each hour of class, if it is a class I have taught many times before.