How The Crucible Comments on Miller's and McCarthy's Cold War America

Bridget's feedback:

"You've done a good job reading your chosen scene closely and thinking about the themes and how they relate to McCarthyism. The two themes you've identified (mob mentality, power of position/authority) make good sense in the discussion. Use those two points to focus the discussion more. Proceeding through the scene chronologically results in a lot of summary rather than analysis. Try using the two main ideas to organize the body paragraphs instead. You could then use the third body paragraph to draw explicit parallels to McCarthyism or incorporate those points in earlier discussion. To focus on achieving 1500 words, my advice is also to eliminate summary--only use it when you want to remind the reader of some action in the play or emphasize a certain point in your argument. The same goes for outside information--I'm not sure you need to use so much detail to explain the reference to Pontius Pilate, nor does your reader need to know where Joseph McCarthy was from--this is good information and interesting, but you want to keep the focus on the text of the play. Lead with analysis--summary should support and supplement. I would also recommend streamlining the writing itself. A lot of the sentences repeat similar ideas or phrases, or could be rewritten in the active voice to cut down on unnecessary words. For example, the first sentence of the first body paragraph (17 words) could be revised in the active voice as "The author communicates the play's main ideas in the first seven lines," cutting the sentence by almost a third. That being said, micro-cuts to meet a word count can be quite labor intensive. I suggest first thinking about bigger, higher-order revisions (organization, prioritizing argumentation over summary) before you get started on fine-tuning the syntax and diction."

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