Richard van Oort
ENGL 366B
Response Papers: FAQs
What is a response paper?
A response paper is a very short essay of no more than 500 words that responds to one of the
reading questions I have given you.
Where can I find the reading questions for the response papers?
They can be found online at the course website (http://web.uvic.ca/~rvanoort/engl366.html).
When is the response paper due?
At the beginning of class on the day we begin discussion of the play you have written on.
Do you accept late response papers?
No.
What makes a good response paper?
A good response paper is one that responds skillfully to the interpretive complexities of the
text under consideration. This means that in order to write a good response paper you must
go beyond summarizing the plot or the basic meaning of Shakespeare’s language. A good
response paper does not simply state the obvious; it explains the non-obvious. Of course, you
cannot make good interpretive decisions about the non-obvious until you have understood the
plot and the language used by Shakespeare’s characters. It is therefore essential that you read
and reread the play carefully before you begin writing your paper. It goes without saying that
a good response paper will also be elegantly and lucidly written.
How do I quote Shakespeare properly?
Please refer to the handout “How to Quote Shakespeare,” which I’ve included below (p. 4).
Are there any basic rules I can follow in formatting the essay?
Yes. Double-space, use one-inch margins and a standard 12-point font (e.g., Times New
Roman).
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Should I include a title?
Yes. Think of a good title, one that captures the basic idea or argument of your paper while
also drawing the attention of the reader.
How long is the paper?
The essay should be no more than 500 words. Papers that go beyond the 500-word limit will
seriously test my patience and may earn you a penalty.
But I have written a great paper that is 750 words. Why must I cut?
You could easily write 10,000 words. The point is not how much you can write but how well
you can make your point within the allotted space. I encourage you to write more than 500
words when you draft your paper. This will allow you to go back and cut the weakest
material. There is always material that can be cut. It would be a big mistake to sit down, type
500 words in one sitting, and then hand in your paper. Good papers are hard work and require
extensive revision. The main reason why students do poorly is because they haven’t given
themselves enough time to revise their papers.
Should I include a word count?
Yes, I require you to include a word count at the end of your essay.
May I exclude quotations in my overall word count?
Yes, you may, but it’s not necessary. It is in any case never a good idea to quote big chunks of
text in a short paper. It’s much better to integrate words or short phrases from Shakespeare
into your sentences.
If my paper is a few words over 500 will that count against me?
No, it won’t. If the paper is 503 or 514 words, I won’t mind. The basic rule of thumb is that
as soon as the paper goes over 500 words, I start to get much more impatient with verbiage or
wordiness. There is almost always verbiage. Verbiage that occurs in essays under 500 words
is irritating. Verbiage that occurs in essays over 500 words is positively insulting.
Do I need to write an introduction?
No, you do not. You are responding to a specific question, so your thesis should be evident in
your answer. Long, vague, and generalizing introductions are a waste of words. Get straight
to the point.
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May I refer to secondary sources?
You may, but it is not necessary and in general I would advise against it.
Why do you advise against citing secondary sources?
The response paper is about your response to the play. Chances are that some critic
somewhere has said something similar, but I want to hear what you think. The response
papers are not research papers. Integrating other points of view is time consuming and you do
not have space for it. Have you ever wondered why books written by academics are so long?
One reason is that they are forever citing each other.
Should I include a list of works cited?
Yes, you may. However, it is more economical to give a footnote, after your first quotation, in
which you provide the bibliographic information of the edition you are quoting from.
Are the titles of Shakespeare’s plays inserted in quotations marks or italicized?
They are italicized. The rule is that book-length works are italicized (or underlined), while
shorter works, such as poems, short stories, and scholarly essays, are inserted in quotation
marks.
I don’t understand the abbreviations you use in my marked paper.
For an explanation of the abbreviations I use, see the handout “List of Abbreviations,” which
I’ve attached below (p. 7).
Can you give me an example of a good response paper?
Yes, see the handout “Sample Response Paper,” which I’ve attached below (p. 5).
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How to Quote Shakespeare
•
Remember that Shakespeare uses both prose and verse in his plays. If you are quoting prose,
you do not need to indicate line breaks. Line breaks in prose are arbitrary; they come
whenever you run out of space at the right margin. All quotations from Shakespeare’s plays
should be referenced by act, scene, and line number(s). Full bibliographic information of the
edition you are using should be given in the list of works cited at the end, or in the case of
your response papers, in a footnote to your first quotation.
•
If you quote the chorus in Henry V, note that each scene in which he appears is referred to as
scene “zero.” For example, if you quote from the fifth line of the prologue, you would cite
this as “1.0.5.”
•
Follow the proper rules for quoting from your source text. There are two methods.
1. Indented quotations are set off from the text of your essay in the following manner:
Hippolyta’s response to Theseus gets far closer to the truth:
But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy’s images
And grows to something of great constancy. (5.1.23-26)
Note that the quotation is not inside quotation marks.
2. Incorporated quotations are quotations, generally of two lines or less, that are included
seamlessly into your sentence. Quotation marks surround the quoted material. If you are
quoting verse, line divisions are indicated by a forward slash [/].
Theseus argues that the poet deals in insubstantial illusions, giving to “airy nothing /
A local habitation and a name” (5.1.16-17).
Note that the period comes after the parenthetical reference. In general, incorporated
quotations are preferable, especially in very short assignments such as the response
papers. Quoting large chunks of verse or prose distracts the reader from your line of
argument and should only be used if you plan to comment on the quotation in some detail.
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Sample Response Paper
The paper below responded to the following reading question
on Richard III: “In 1.4, Clarence recounts to his keeper a vivid
dream he had the night before. What is the significance of
this dream?”
Clarence’s Bad Dream
At the end of the first act, Clarence is murdered. Before he dies, he dreams that he and
Richard are at sea talking of the “wars of York and Lancaster” (1.4.15).1 The sea swell makes for
“giddy footing” (1.4.17) and Richard stumbles, knocking Clarence overboard and drowning him.
The dream is ironic on two levels. We know that Richard causes Clarence’s death. The
“giddy footing of the hatches” (1.4.17) suggests that Clarence stands in peril and is unaware of
the danger. The real enemy is not the Lancastrians, but Richard himself. Clarence’s death is not
an accident, as Edward IV and his shocked courtiers would like to believe, but a consciously
intended act that can be traced back to Richard.
But the irony goes much deeper than this. Though Richard is the obvious villain in the
play, it would be a mistake to focus only on him. The others characters, including Clarence, are
guilty too. This is the second irony of Clarence’s dream. The scene he witnesses at the bottom of
the ocean is a stark reminder of his guilt. He sees “a thousand fearful wracks” and “Ten thousand
men that fishes gnawed upon” (1.4.24-25). Strewn in between the shipwrecks are “Wedges of
gold,” “heaps of pearl, / Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels” (1.4.26-27), and, most horrible of
all, human skulls whose eyes have been replaced with “reflecting gems” (1.4.31). The scene is a
vivid momento mori, a reminder that we will all die and that the pursuit of wealth and power will
not help us in the next life when our actions will be judged by God.
1
William Shakespeare, The Necessary Shakespeare, ed. David Bevington (New York: Pearson Longman, 2005).
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So Clarence’s dream unfolds as a moral stocktaking of his life. He is visited by his fatherin-law Warwick, who reminds him of how he perjured himself when he switched allegiance from
the Lancastrian to the Yorkist faction. And he is confronted by Edward, son of Henry VI, whom
he stabbed at Tewkesbury. Accused of these crimes, he imagines himself being dragged toward
hell by the “Furies” and a “legion of foul fiends” (1.4.57-58). Filled with remorse, Clarence
confesses his crimes to his “keeper,” who has stood all the while listening, priestlike, to this
“confession”: “Ah, keeper, keeper, I have done these things, / That now give evidence against my
soul” (1.4.66-67). The scene ends with Clarence on his knees imploring God to execute his wrath
on him but to spare his wife and children.
Clarence’s bad dream reminds him of his share of the guilt in the bloodshed that has
occurred to this point in Shakespeare’s account of the Wars of the Roses. The play begins with
Richard announcing that “discontent” (1.1.1) has been buried in the “deep bosom of the
ocean” (1.1.4). But as Richard himself shows, discontent is alive and well. When Clarence
descends to the “slimy bottom of the deep” (1.4.32), he faces his own villainy. Richard is a
caricature of evil, but he lives on in each of the characters who would otherwise deny that he is a
part of them.
(507 words)
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List of Abbreviations
I use the following abbreviations when marking essays. If you are unclear about the issue I have
marked, either talk to me or consult a writer’s handbook. There are many such handbooks
available—for example, The Little Brown Essential Handbook for Writers by Jane Aaron and
Elaine Bander, or Quick Access: Reference for Writers by Lynn Troyka and Douglas Hesse.
These books explain common errors like run-on sentences and dangling modifiers.
agr
agreement (e.g., subject-verb agreement or pronoun-antecedent agreement)
awk
awkward construction, rephrase
cs
comma splice
dm
dangling modifier
frag
sentence fragment
gr
faulty grammar
ital
italics (underlining) needed
pass
ineffective passive voice
punct
punctuation error
ro
run-on sentence
sp
spelling error
rep
repetition
trans
transition needed
ww
wrong word
wc
problematic word choice or diction
w
wordy
^
insert (something missing)
?
unclear
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