Essay Introductions

As we discussed during the Saturday orientation, all essay introductions have three basic components: the opening, the background, and the thesis.

The opening (also known as the "hook," "lead," or "attention-grabber") should begin the essay in an original, interesting, relevant way.  The goal here is to intrigue the reader enough that he or she keeps reading your essay.  I am being paid to read your essays, so I will do that regardless, but your opening should make me want to read on . . .

How can you craft an interesting opening?  There are many different strategies, some of which parallel the rhetorical modes you brainstormed for your outline.  For example, you could begin your essay with a brief story (which is called an "anecdote"), description (maybe of a photograph), or definition.  You could also begin by asking a question, providing an interesting quote, or giving a fact or statistic.  The key is to . . . A) be original (so don't fall into the trap of using a cliche), B) be interesting, and C) be consistent with the topic and tone.

After the opening, writers should lay the groundwork for the rest of the essay.  That means introducing the main ideas and topics the essay will analyze.  For this essay, that means you should introduce the idea of photography (or photographs, photographers, people who use or look at photographs, and so on).  Maybe you'll use the rhetorical mode of definition here.  Maybe you'll divide and classify.  Maybe you'll analyze the process by which photography moved from tin-type to digital . . . Each of you will handle this part of the essay in a slightly different way, but you will all be introducing the topic of photography.

After the background, writers should present their thesis statements.  This is generally the last sentence of the introduction and provides the backbone for all the body paragraphs and information to come.  To craft an effective thesis statement, you should first think of a question.  Then, your thesis statement will be the answer to that question.  For this essay, such as question might be this: "Do photographs alienate and isolate us, or do they bring us closer together?  Or does it depend on the context?"

For this post, just describe what you will be doing in each part of your introduction.

For example . . .

A) For my hook, I am going to describe a photograph by the photographer Graciela Iturbide.
B) For the background portion, I am going to define photography and divide and classify the various ways photographs can be used.
C) For my thesis, I am going to answer the question, "How does a photograph's ambiguity allow for us to empathize with another person without actually letting us reach a true understanding of that person?"

Using Quotes

One hallmark of advanced writing is the effectiveness with which one uses another person's words and ideas.  There are three ways to accomplish this: summary, paraphrase, and direct quote.  To summarize or paraphrase means to keep the author's ideas but to reconstruct them in your own language, syntax, and voice (while giving attribution to the original author, of course).  To directly quote a source is to keep the author's ideas and words (if the language is vivid enough to be worth keeping).  However, when using a direct quote, writers should avoid free-standing quotes (also known as dropped, floating, or cut-and-pasted quotes).  A free-standing quote is a quote that a writer uses without introduction or integration, and it will disrupt the writer's own tone and flow.

There are three ways of introducing quotes to prevent them from being free-standing.

1.  Use a simple introductory phrase, like "According to" or "So-and-so argues."  This method emphasizes the author, so a writer would use this when he or she wants to emphasize the person as an expert or someone offering testimony.

Here's an example.

According to Siegfried Kracauer, "While time is not part of the photograph like the smile or the chignon, the photograph itself, so it seems to them, is a representation of time" (424).

2.  Write your own sentence, then use a quote (introduced with a colon) that functions as evidence or demonstration of your sentence's ideas.  Be sure your sentence is a complete sentence; otherwise, the sentence becomes a fragment.  This method works most effectively for using source material as evidence for the writer's own claims.

Here's an example.

In certain ways, a photograph functions as a more reliable witness than our own memory: "Memory encompasses neither the entire spatial appearance nor the entire temporal course of an event. Compared to photography memory's records are full of gaps" (Kracauer 425).

3.  Instead of introducing the entire quote, integrate pieces (words, phrases, or clauses) into the context of the writer's own syntax.  This method works best to synthesize ideas and to create a smooth flow.

Here's an example.

When we reduce our experience of the world to collecting photographs, we become guilty of the "warehousing of nature" (Kracauer 435) and loved ones in dusty albums as forgotten souvenirs.

Your assignment:

A.  Find three quotes from Susan Sontag's On Photography that you could use in your essay.

B.  Introduce those quotes and/or incorporate them into a sentence of your own that you could use in your essay.

C.  Post those three sentences to the blog.

Essay Prompt

According to Susan Sontag, photography "offers, in one easy, habit-forming activity, both participation and alienation in our own lives and those of others--allowing us to participate, while confirming alienation" (167).  In an essay of at least four pages, explain how photography can (paradoxically) both alienate and reaffirm the connection between that individual and humanity.
In your essay, use the essays from Susan Sontag's On Photography, the photographs and essays from Slate's Behold, and at least two photographs from your fellow students to help you explain/explore/prove your points.

Questions to Consider (not a checklist you have to answer in the essay)

Why do you take photographs?
What do you do with the photographs you have taken?  How do you use these photographs?
When you bring the camera up before your eyes, are you still participating in the experience captured in the photograph?  Or have you become an observer instead?
How/why do advertisers use photographs?
How/why do newspapers use photographs?
How/why does the government use photographs?  (Take a look at your driver's license . . . )
How can/does a photograph (a static representation of a visual object/scene, or, as Sontag describes it on 112, a "dissociated moment") reveal "truth" about fluid, abstract, and dynamic individual psychology and group social structures?

In terms of this blog post, briefly explain which rhetorical modes you plan to use in your essay. The nine rhetorical modes are forms and methods of presenting and structuring information.  Here they are in no particular order . . .

Description: using sensory detail (such as visual imagery) and/or figurative language (such as metaphors or similes) to provide a detailed overview of a subject's characteristics.  For example, in this essay you could describe a photograph . . .

Definition: detailing the essential qualities of the subject or idea.  For example, in this essay you could define "truth" or "community."

Exemplification: providing examples to help explain the subject or idea.  For example, in this essay you could refer to specific photographs as your examples.

Narration: telling a story to help explain the subject or idea.  For example, in this essay you could tell the story that a photograph implies, or you could tell a story of a time you took a photograph.

Cause / Effect: explaining the causes preceding an event or explaining the effects following such an event or action.  For example, in this essay you could explore what would cause a person to share a photograph on Instagram or what the effects of that sharing might be.

Compare / Contrast: explaining the similarities and differences between two or more different examples, subjects, or ideas.  For example, in this essay you could compare and contrast two different ways of interpreting the same photograph.

Division / Classification: explaining the various types and categories of a subject or idea.  For example, in this essay you could divide and classify the types of photographs.

Process Analysis: explaining how to do something, how something was done, or how something should be done in the future.  For example, in this essay you could explain the process by which a person chooses which photographs to share and which to keep private.

Argument: asserting a logical thesis and then supporting that thesis with reasons and evidence.  For example, in this essay you could argue that photography makes people more isolated and leads to fragmented identities . . . or you could argue that photography deepens empathy and brings us closer together in a shared humanity.

Your essay does not need to use all nine rhetorical modes.  Rather, each paragraph should have a clear mode as its central core.  For a four-page essay, you will probably have somewhere between four and seven body paragraphs.  How will you use rhetorical modes as the basis for those paragraphs?

Provide a brief outline of your body paragraphs.  If I were to write this essay, my outline might look like this:

Body Paragraph 1:  I'm going to try to define photography.

Body Paragraph 2:  I'm going to divide and classify the different reasons people take photographs.

Body Paragraph 3: I'm going to explore some of the effects of sharing photographs with others.

Body Paragraph 4:  I'm going to analyze the process (and give examples) by which photography can depersonalize.

Body Paragraph 5: I'm going to compare that process of depersonalization with a process by which photography can foster empathy and lead to positive social change.

"The Image World"

In On Photography, Sontag classifies three different acquisitive functions photography fulfills: photography as "surrogate possession"; photography as "consumer's relation to events"; and photography as "information (rather than experience)" (150).

Choose either the photographs by Paula Zuccotti, Gordon Parks, or Jesse Burks, and explain how that photographer's work embodies Sontag's system of classification.  In your explanation, use another quote from her essay "The Image World."

"Melancholy Objects" and "The Heroism of Vision"

A. Estrada's "Lazy Elephant"

B. Ramirez's "My Beast"

L. Navarro's "Challenge"

M. Hallmark's "You Can't Say No"

E. Tapia's "Just a Wall"

I. Mendoza's "Universal Helper"

R. Saceaux's "Pinky Pogo"

K. Smith's "Wide Open Spaces"

J. Love's "Sea Sees Souls"

D. Bollinger's "Growth"

K. Flom's "Leave Your Worries Below" 

D. Zbysenski's "The Troll"

K. Marshall's "Passion, Purpose, & Determination"

R. Ruiz's "Dog"

R. Bristow's "Love"

D. Akins's "You Are Everything"

C. Parker's "All You Must Do Is Write"

H. Todd's "Achievement"

A. Maldonado's "Happiness"

A. Garza's "Welcome to Rapture"

G. Cernas's "Hope"

M. Ward's "Roxxi, My Little Ewok"

Melancholy Objects and The Heroism of Vision

Read Sontag's essays "Melancholy Objects" and "The Heroism of Vision," and explain how Sontag's argument that "the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own" (57) and "Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitve relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment" (111) relates to the photographs by Ole Marius Joergensen and Martha Cooper/Henry Chalfant.

Finally, send me a photograph of an object that is important to you.  Do not explain the significance of the object, but do give your photograph a title.  I am going to post these to the blog, so don't send me any images you don't want to share.

"America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly"

In "America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly," Sontag analyzes (and critiques) a retrospective of the photographer Diane Arbus, whose work she compares and contrasts with Edward Steichen.  While both Steichen and Arbus present images of individuals outside of any historical or political context, Sontag argues that Steichen focuses on the positive aspects of this human condition whereas Arbus focuses on those grotesque, uncomfortable universal realities.

For this blog post, look at the more recent photographs by Jana Romanova.  From your point of view, do these photographs have more in common with Sontag's description of Steichen or Arbus? Why?  In your explanation, use a quote from Sontag's essay.

Photography as Social Rite or Defense Against Anxiety

L. Navarro's "Courage"

M. Ruiz's "Sunshine"

E. Tapia's "Farewell"

H. Todd's "Trust"

K. Flom's "Basking in the Beauty of Nature"

M. Hallmark's "City in a Garden"

A. Maldonado's "Stop Growing Up, You Promised Me"

K. Smith's "Life Must Be Ruff"

L. Flores's "One of the Seven Wonders, in My Eyes"

D. Zbysenski's "Brothers"

R. Bristow's "Freedom"

D. Bollinger's "Time Off with Family"

D. Akins's "Running in the Rain"

M. Ward's "Through the Eyes of Innocence"

A. Garza's "Clinging to Childhood"

K. Marshall's "The Joy of Finding Purpose"

B. Ramirez's "Controlled Chaos"

R. Saceaux's "Stress Free"

R. Ruiz's "Namas-cray"

I. Mendoza's "Why Am I Here?"

A. Estrada's "Kid Drummer"

J. Zamorano's "Sea Your Life Away"

C. Parker's "Waves and Crosses"

L. Castro's "I'll Be Back to Help"

Post 2: "In Plato's Cave"

First, read Sontag's essay "In Plato's Cave."  On page 8, Sontag refers to photography as "mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power" for most people.

Read and examine the photographs by Ilisa Katz Rissman.  How do these photographs embody that concept of photography as social rite or defense against anxiety?  In your explanation/analysis (that should be at least a paragraph), use at least one additional quote from Sontag's essay.

Finally, send me (via email) a photograph that you have taken that functions as a social rite or defense against anxiety.  You don't need to explain the context of the photograph, but you do need to give it a title.  I am going to post these photographs to the blog, so don't send me anything you don't feel comfortable sharing with the world.

Post 1: Introductions and Questions

For this initial blog post, introduce yourself in a brief paragraph (major, career goals, hobbies, etc.), and ask one question you have about the class.  Make sure you read the syllabus before you ask your question . . .