Despite their individual pursuits, interests, and ambitions, all graduate students in English—literary scholars, creative writers, and professional and technical writers—must read and write critically. The ability to read, think, and write critically and to engage others in critical debates about books and ideas defines success in our discipline more than it does in any other academic pursuit or profession. Critical reading and writing are what we do in English.

Every professor will have her or his own ideas about what constitutes good critical writing at the graduate level, and you should find out what those ideas are for any given class. The requirements for different kinds of assignments—say, a short close reading exercise or a term essay—will also differ, of course. But for a major seminar or term paper there are some general guidelines that can be helpful to any graduate student. Advice from the graduate faculty about the expectations of graduate-level writing and keeping the pressures of graduate-level writing in perspective follows.

Undergraduate Critical Writing vs. Graduate Critical Writing:

First, what is it that distinguishes good graduate-level writing from good undergraduate writing? The answer rests partly in the expectations for any good critical writing:

A critical essay is at once expository and argumentative; it seeks to convey ideas and information clearly and efficiently and, at the same time, to make a cogent argument about clearly defined critical issues. Ideally, it demands a minimum of effort on the reader’s part. As a rhetorician once said, readers should never have to stop in puzzlement because they cannot make sense of the argument; they should only stop to admire the argument and the polish of the prose.

Good undergraduate essays, then, are supposed to offer the following:

1. a clear sense of purpose;
   
   
2. an argument that presents convincing evidence; in writing about literature, one demonstrates (rather than merely asserts) the points being made by using meaningful quotations from the text and giving specific commentary on those quotations;
   
   
3. focused, cohesive paragraphs that progressively develop one central focus for the essay that has been made clear to the reader at the outset of the paper—a focus that attempts to do more than merely summarize a text or retell a plot;
   
   
4. mechanically sound sentences and correct expression;
   
   
5. properly used MLA conventions for citation, bibliography, and manuscript form.

If an undergraduate critical essay fulfills all of these desiderata and demonstrates thorough understanding of the primary text under discussion, the instructor will swoon with delight.

A good graduate critical essay will present these same virtues, of course, but it must also meet three other criteria:

1. make some attempt to situate the argument within relevant criticism on the subject; that is, engage the critical conversation over the works and ideas;
   
   
2. use quality secondary sources to do so;
   
   
3. answer, typically in the introduction or conclusion (or both), the questions, “So what? So why is this argument significant? What does it offer to the critical debate over the subject?”

None of these three requirements need be intimidating. Here is a little greater explanation.

Entering into the Critical Conversation:

Discussing literature means that you are entering into a conversation with others who are also interested in your topic. In many cases, the conversation has continued for hundreds of years. For example, the debate about human nature raised by Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels began in November of 1726, when the book first appeared. It has washed through succeeding generations, variously flowing and ebbing, until reaching us in the present. Some conversers have carried on the discussion with great energy and heat, others with greater complacency. But the fact that the conversation continues uninterrupted attests to the value of the work: Gulliver’s Travels is a classic.

Some of the people who are carrying on the current critical conversation about a work or author or about features of language and creative techniques—scholars and writers who have devoted entire careers to these subjects—have been at it a long time; they are, understandably, better versed in the topic than you. If you are to establish credibility with your reading audience, though (and without credibility, you can never convince that audience to accept your critical argument), you need to listen carefully at first to what the conversationalists are saying. You need to demonstrate that you understand the issues at hand and, importantly, the critical idiom that the debaters use in talking about these issues. Only then should you enter into the conversation yourself: Just as you would never elbow your way into a group of people at a gala and begin talking about whatever you please, so, too, when entering a critical conversation you first listen to find out what the conversation is about and where each party stands in the debate.

A graduate professor does not necessarily expect that you have the expertise of a scholar who has been studying and conversing about a work or author for half a century, but she or he certainly expects that you show an intelligent awareness of some of the important current and running issues regarding your topic. You will be surprised to what degree enlightening yourself about the critical conversation helps you in refining your own thinking—and provokes you to say more.

Because of the greater expectations for your participation in a critical conversation about a work or author, you can expect to spend hours, days, weeks in the library. But certainly you love books, or you wouldn’t be pursuing an MA in English! Your English 697 class (Methods of Research and Bibliography) will devote much time to the methods and processes necessary for intensive library research of the kind that you will undertake in graduate school. But you might also avail yourself of various bibliographical resources. The Newton Gresham Library and the Interlibrary Loan Service are places to begin. But don’t be shy about using libraries at nearby research universities also. Many of them are within an hour’s drive. From our library site (or this page) you can find your way to library sites for Rice University, the University of Houston, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas at Austin (the Harry Ransom Center library for research in the humanities at the University is among the best in the nation). And because as a graduate student you qualify for a TexShare card, you are allowed personal access to holdings at state-supported university libraries.

For even more extensive research, there are always the mighty Library of Congress and British Library; if you can’t afford to visit them, you can at least access them on line for titles and bibliographic information.

Using Appropriate Secondary Sources:

When you undertake a project requiring research, avoid using “sophomoric” sources intended for, well, sophomores. Use standard bibliographic tools like the MLA International Bibliography to identify current sources in journals, essay collections, and monographs. Get guidance from your professor on what the good sources are for the field of work in which you are engaged. If you are to establish credibility for your own argument, you need to cite authoritative opinion. For that reason, as a rule, avoid Internet sources, except for bibliographic purposes, unless you are absolutely certain of their authority. And despite the usefulness and convenience of indexes like JSTOR and Project Muse, which offer full-text on-line articles, do not merely download the first ten articles that such a resource kicks up and call that “research.” These indexes are neither comprehensive nor exhaustive.   

Don’t shy away from difficult critical articles and books. It’s better to get in over your head in a piece of criticism—using an interesting, smart critic whose argument you may have trouble following in every detail—than to shortchange yourself intellectually by using a short, simplistic article that can only provoke short, simplistic ideas. When wrestling with a critical text, concentrate on what you do understand and can take away from it, more than on what you don’t follow. Remember also that, in spite of this warning to use graduate-level sources, virtually no source is wrong to use simply for getting up to speed on your topic, provided that it is a creditable one. When it comes to citing sources and using them to inform your argument for an essay, however, aim high. And be meticulous about getting your citations and bibliography right.

Introductions and the Big “So What?”

One can applaud a well-written undergraduate paper that simply shows a good grasp of the primary text, but a graduate essay should be able to use such insights for a clearly stated purpose: What do you plan to show your reader about the text, the author, or the cultural contexts? Be able to say in your introduction what is at stake in your essay—why someone should want to read it.

A good introduction to an argumentative essay is often made last, after the author has written a full draft and finally discovered exactly what she or he wants to argue—not “kind of” or “sort of,” but exactly. We usually discover this true thesis as we write our way into it. Finding yourself blocked when you go to write your introduction may be a sign that you haven’t yet figured out what you are trying to offer beyond description or explication, in which case you probably cannot go beyond these aims in the execution of the essay. And if you are not able to do so, your reader will probably dismiss the paper with a disappointed “So what?”

A good introduction to a critical paper accomplishes several purposes: It announces the topic; it raises the critical question or the problem about the topic that the research has set out to solve; it establishes contexts for the argument by locating it in the larger critical conversation about the work or issues; it unequivocally states the argument itself; and—importantly, and perhaps comprehensively—it establishes the authority of the writer from the outset. Clearly, it should not only arrest the scholarly audience’s attention but also demonstrate that the writer is worthy of being allowed into the critical conversation being carried on by that audience.  

It may help you to remember the difference between a topic and a purpose: It’s one thing to point to a subject and say that you plan to write about it; it’s something very different to be able to state what you have to say about the subject, and why. Look at some articles from creditable journals and see how they build their introductions. Very often the author will proceed in this fashion: defining the subject, stating the reigning critical opinion(s) on that subject, and then proposing what will be shown to the reader and how it differs from, or augments, current opinion. Not a bad model.

Managing the Pressures of Graduate Student Writing:

As a graduate student-author, you’re in something of a tough spot psychologically, largely because of the change that you perceive in your audience from the time that you wrote undergraduate essays. You may suddenly feel pressure to be an international authority about a work or author, to make only startlingly original arguments, or to be a flawless prose stylist. But these are wildly unrealistic self-demands. You are a student who is still learning the craft of “professional” critical writing. Besides, as any honest faculty member will admit, no one who continues to research and write ever completely loses a sense of ignorance, insufficiency, and anxiety before his or her reading audience; no one will ever know as much as one “should,” be a perfect writer, or never make mistakes.

Consider your professors, then, not as adversaries determined to show up your inadequacies but as individuals with varying degrees of experience who are involved in the same intellectual processes that you are and are present in your lives at this time to help you in those processes, not merely to give you information and a grade.