1. Reflecting on Hamlet Comparative Essays a.k.a. Paper 2 Advice

2. Objective: Improve your literary comparative essay writing in advance of the Paper 2 exam.
To give you kind, helpful advice about how to improve your formal comparative essay advice, I’ve left each of you a voice comment on turnitin.com.
To help you understand your score on the IB rubric, I’ve:
Created and shared this detailed writing advice PowerPoint
Posted exemplar papers on my website. They are not perfect, but they represent really scholarly, successful responses to this assignment.
TONIGHT: Listen to your voice comment and reflect on the back of your rubric.
Strengths in your writing sample
Areas of improvement you or Matheny sees in your work
Goals for writing improvement in the coming months

3. Focus your lit analysis writing on language & its effect
Your literary writing should focus on how language reflects ideas in literature, not how literature reflects culture
Any statement about culture must be cited

4. Solid example of cited cultural evidence leading to a language-focused literary thesis statement

5. Edit out “to be” verbs whenever possible
“To be” verbs lead to:
Wordiness
“is saying” versus “says”
Passive Voice
“Hamlet is used” versus “Shakespeare uses Hamlet”
Lower grades in “language” category of the rubric

6. Avoid Passive Voice
Passive voice is still a problem—it obfuscates sentences by not being specific about who performs the action.
Fix PV by:
Look for a form of "to be" (is, are, am , was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle.
For example:
Denmark has been damaged by the totalitarian theocracy. 
The totalitarian theocracy damaged Denmark. 

7. Examples of Passive Constructions: Revise them in your mind
Examples of Passive Constructions: Revise them in your mind.  #practice

8. Introductory Paragraphs
Should:
Immediately focus on the text you’re discussing, rather than the author and their works or culture in general
Provide an introduction to the dominant characters, conflicts, and techniques inherent in your thesis
Be edited for brevity
End with a literary thesis statement

11. Integrate Effective Evaluation
You’re not evaluating the author, but which of the two compared/contrasted works is more effective. Often, this evaluation is relayed in a dedicated, final body paragraph or in the paper’s conclusion.