CRITERION 4: INNOVATION (typical feedback: obvious, shallow, unoriginal, not risky, sources, support, research) 
To download my handout on Innovation in pdf, click here.

The primary goal of a university humanities essay is to show the instructor something about a class text that they had not seen before, in a way that changes (however slightly) the way they will see it (and teach it) in the future.  You can’t probe your instructor’s brain to find out what they see already, but here’s what you can do:   

CONSULT SCHOLARLY PUBLICATIONS!!!  Become familiar with the ongoing scholarly discussion on your subject.  Position your thesis in clear relation to that discussion. Unless the prompt or prof bars you form doing so,you should consult and cite however many scholarly publications are necessary for you to make your argument convincing and innovative, and to position that innovation with respect to an already ongoing discourse.  (If you wind up with fewer sources than are required, you probably aren’t innovating.)

CITE THOUGHTFULLY.  FRAME YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS. Make sure your citations make clear where prior work ends and your innovation begins.  Clear citations aren’t only there to avoid plagiarism.  They are necessary for your reader to understand what you are adding to the scholarly discussion.  Use signal phrases (e.g. “According to Percy, [x], but”; “rather than, as Hernandez puts it,” “While Sergi argues [x], I will argue [y]”) to make sure the distinction is clear and unambiguous.  Signal phrases are especially valuable and underused in undergrad papers.  Remember that each new sentence requires a new citation.  Modify your citation system as necessary in order to make that happen.

CONSULT WIDELY.  The number of works you consult should exceed the number of works you interact with directly in your paper; consider using footnotes, endnotes, and/or a Works Consulted list to give proper credit.  It may also be appropriate to provide a short in-text reference to comparable work done elsewhere (if your point was inspired at all by a similar argument elsewhere, be sure to provide a brief citation of some kind).  Never cherry-pick sources to falsely signal innovation; rather, exhaust your available resources to find precedents.  If you are breaking new ground, then you may refer briefly to a range of sources consulted (e.g. “I have not yet found any scholarly work that mentions [subject x] in [text y]”), with a footnote listing multiple sources you consulted to demonstrate that there is no precedent. 

KEEP IT SMALL, CLOSE, AND SLOW.  Avoid massive, thematic, or historical projects – which are subjects more appropriate for an academic book.  Class discussion will already cover many of the large-scale concerns related to course texts; your instructor has already thought about most of the others in a deeper way than you’ll be able to access in a short essay in little time.  If you’re actually interested in making an innovative contribution using the tools you have, use close (slow) reading to analyze a very specific and very small element of a course text – it is very unlikely that we’ll already have thought much about your chosen element.  Unless you are otherwise instructed, do not use an argumentative essay to demonstrate your knowledge and comprehension of core course concepts, nor to re-apply core course concepts.  We have quizzes and other ways to assess your knowledge, comprehension, and application of concepts.  If you regurgitate class material, you’re definitely telling me what I already know!

AVOID REDUNDANCY.  If you are about to cite a published work for pure affirmation, because it makes the same point that you’re arguing, stop and think: why are you arguing something that’s already been argued by a prior work?  You can use prior scholarship as a jumping-off point for your own argumentation; you can’t use your argumentation simply to arrive at the same point a prior scholar has already made (otherwise you’re not arguing at all)!  I’ve found it’s a helpful rule of thumb to take one of the following approaches to every secondary source you cite:

DISAGREE.  Taking a respectful tone, identify a flaw in a prior scholar’s argument – and then discuss, in your essay, the effects of that flaw on subsequent conclusions or readings.  Such a flaw may be a plain misreading, a misunderstanding, or reductive logic; it may also be an omission of relevant evidence. 

DEEPEN.  Take a prior scholar’s argument even further than they did, perhaps by revealing new evidence that shows that the argument has ramifications that the scholar did not consider.  It is not enough to simply take a scholar’s established approach and re-apply it to a new text; your re-application must require some re-shaping of the scholar’s work, illuminating in it a new layer of meaning.

DESTABILIZE.  Treat the scholar’s work as a text in itself.  Identify inherent contradictions, or read it against the grain, perhaps in a way that reveals an underlying assumption or bias that has coloured prior readings of the text being analyzed.  Recalibrate the lens and look again at both primary and secondary texts.