2. Let your reader know early on in the paper what you will be arguing and how you plan to demonstrate your point of view.

3. My questions have provided you with a broad thematic frame—the role of individualization or historical consciousness in political theory—within which to judge and make an argument about the readings. The questions also all ask you to take your own positions on these matters. Remember, one of the easiest and most effective ways of demonstrating your own point of view and argument is to think of counter-arguments—what would someone disagreeing with you potentially say?—and then to explain to the reader why your position is more convincing than the counter-arguments.

On Your Prose:

write short and succinct sentences that communicate your point IN THE FEWEST WORDS possible. Good writing is not using 50 words to say what can be said, without loss of meaning, with ten. It is when you use those ten indispensable words and even imagine how you might effectively go down to nine. If you read my edits of your responses carefully, you’ll see that I am very often striking out EXTRANEOUS vocabulary and constructions.