Two Thoughts on Drafting Paper Two

 

I.

To insure your paper keeps a clear focus on the prompt’s demand for a comparison of humor types, I suggest using the following structure for the paper:

 

1. Introduction paragraph concluding with the paper thesis.

 

2. Paragraph focusing on first humor type in story one.

 

3. Paragraph focusing on first humor type in story two.

 

4. Paragraph focusing on second humor type in story one.

 

5. Paragraph focusing on second humor type in story two. 

 

[repeat this pattern for the number of humor types you opt to examine or vary it to reflect additional stories]

 

6. Conclusion paragraph closing out the paper

 II.

 

The secret  to doing a solid comparison is to write effective topic sentences that organize each paragraph.  Below is a model for body paragraph one and the beginning of body paragraph two:

 

Of the two tales, X's "Title" makes the greater use of exaggeration and,
with it, accomplishes three things.  To get a sense of how frequently
exaggerations appear in "Title," consider the following partial list:  [here
you would need to list half a dozen or more exaggerations-all cited-trying
to find at least one on every page of the story; or, another strategy would
be to focus on one paragraph where exaggerations are especially numerous and
list those for the reader].  Such exaggerations accomplish three goals.
First, they make the story overly humorous.  [at this point you need to
offer some evidence of this; for though you make this claim, you offer no
evidence of anything that generated laughter for you.]  Second, they offer
vivid and memorable images for the reader.  For example, X writes of a woman
who is "as big as a house" (X 3).  Clearly, this is not a literal image, but
it has the effect of enabling the reader, who is undoubtedly aware of how
big a house is, to receive a startling vivid image of Miss Character's Name.
Third, by the shear accumulation of those images throughout the text, they
communicate a sense of the distortion caused by different perspectives--a
way of saying that different things appear differently to different people.
[or some such version of your thesis's meaning idea]  In other words,
readers come to recognize the exaggerated nature of all human perspective,
even while they are laughing at funny stuff.
          In contrast, Y's "Second Story Title" has far fewer specific
exaggerated descriptions but relies instead on exaggerated characters,
particularly Mr. Zeus and his dog Fluffy.  Mr. Zeus is an exaggerated gunfighter, never beaten in gunfight (Y 3) and able to shoot the wings off a fly from a distance of 500 yards (Y 2).  Fluffy is an exaggerated pampered pet, one so far removed from the wild that a servant has to pre-chew his canned dog food (Y 6).  However, when Y does use exaggerated descriptions, they work in a way similar to X's, especially in the way they create vivid images.  [offer evidence].  However, Y's main exaggerations are . . . .