Choosing One Sophistication Move
The floor is still commentary
- A line of reasoning is communicated through commentary explaining the relationship between thesis, claims and evidence.
- Nothing replaces that, and no sophistication move rescues an essay that has not done it.
- So the order of work is fixed: commentary everywhere, then one deliberate move.
A timed essay has room for...
Three half-moves read as reaching; one complete move reads as control.
One move, done properly
- The CED lists three routes — broader significance, alternative interpretations, relevant analogies.
- A timed essay has room for one of them done properly, not three gestured at.
- Three half-moves read as a writer reaching; one complete move reads as a writer in control.
Write the essay's ____ first; the sophistication move is the last thing you add.
If you run out of time, the essay still works.
Choose by what your text gave you
- If the text supports two readings, take alternative interpretations — the material is already in your hands.
- If your reading turned out to be about how texts or readers work, take broader significance.
- Take the analogy only if one arrived unbidden and needs no explaining; never go looking for one.
Match each move to where it belongs.
Placement is part of the move, not a detail.
Three half-moves score worse than one complete one. A timed essay has room for a single sophistication move done properly; gesturing at all three reads as a writer reaching for a mark rather than one in control of an argument.
Which move does this text call for?
Sort each situation by the move its material supports.
You should look for an analogy to include in every essay.
Take an analogy only if one arrived unbidden and needs no explaining.
And place it where it belongs
- The alternative-interpretation move goes late, once your reading is established enough to survive a rival.
- The broader-significance move goes in the final paragraph, where it can follow from everything proved.
- An analogy goes wherever the idea it clarifies first appears — and nowhere else.
Select all the parts of the one-move plan.
Length is not part of the plan.
A one-move plan
- Before writing, name the one move you will make and the paragraph it belongs in.
- Write the essay's commentary first; the move is the last thing you add.
- If you run out of time, the essay still works — which is why the move goes last.
Plan written in the margin before starting: move = alternative interpretation; paragraph 3. The essay then does its commentary throughout, and paragraph three spends two sentences on a rival reading and why the evidence favours mine. Nothing else is attempted, and nothing is left half-done.
Commentary is the floor and nothing replaces it. A timed essay has room for one sophistication move done properly. Choose by what your text gave you — alternative interpretations if it supports two readings — and place it: rival readings late, broader significance last, an analogy where its idea first appears.