Essay 2: The Profile ENG 1020 TR
What makes us who we are? What defines us? What do others remember most about us? These are central questions at the heart of a profile.
Your assignment is to write a profile of someone who interests you (either living or dead) and convey your dominant impression of that person to your reader. You may write about any acquaintance, friend, relative, or person you have heard about whose traits, interests, activities, background, or outlook on life might interest your readers. Most importantly, it's important to convey the effect they had on you about who they are and what they represent to you. Choose someone you think you can convey in an interesting way.
As the writer it is your task to capture the qualities that make the subject interesting, important or newsworthy, and bring the subject to life for the reader.
Your purpose is to show this person’s character and personality and convey what you feel defines them.
Audience: Imagine that you are writing for a literary journal that seeks creative nonfiction (such as Barren Magazine, The Sun, Conjunctions, or Hippocampus) or a popular magazine with an audience that has a literary sensibility (think New York Magazine or their Vulture Magazine that focused on popular culture).
Purpose: To convey your dominant impression of another human being and offer a peek into their heart and mind through writing that is engaging and/or offers a literary sensibility.
Necessary Components:
-An interview with your subject (the person your piece is about) or others that new them that can offer comments about their knowledge of them (perhaps 2-3 people). This can be a transcript or a video or audio recording, but it must be submitted to me. I do not accept essays without this component.
-At least three anecdotes that illustrate characteristics of Person X (possibly not all of these will find their way into the profile)
-Physical description of your subject (the person that your piece is about).
-Comparison between your subject and others, famous or not so.
Suggestions:
Ask yourself: Why am I writing about this person at this time? A profile, like any other developed story, must have a nut paragraph high in the story. Is this person in the news? Is he or she making a difference in some field of importance? Be sure your story has a point, and be sure you share the point with your readers. Successful profiles focus on a single dominant impression of the interview subject. If you had to characterize him or her in a single sentence, how you would describe them?
Look for telling anecdotes, incidents that tell readers something important about the subject of the profile and why you are writing about him/her. These can be critical in bringing your subject to life.
What makes this person unique? Look for those aspects of personality, history, motivation - behavior that make your subject different from others. Use details to illustrate these traits. Don't just tell; show (See chapter 5 in your text: Observing a Scene).
What motivates this person? Is your subject driven by a desire for wealth? Power? The need to be loved? A need to overcome childhood humiliation? Strive for insight without playing the psychiatrist.
Whenever possible, don't just settle for an interview. Spend as much time as you can with your subject, preferably when the person is engaged in the activities that make him or her newsworthy. Capture details. Describe how your subject approaches his or her work, interacts with colleagues, etc.
What is it like to spend time with this person? Capture the experience of being with your subject. How does this person walk? Talk? Do his or her clothes, or jewelry, tell anything? Does he or she have characteristic phrases? Gestures? Again, specifics are the lifeblood of good writing.
For other suggestions about writing profiles and for interviewing tips, see chapter 6 in your textbook and the link below:
Model Essays:
Professional:
"Old Damn Gaines" by Kindaka Jamal Sanders
"Kitty's Smile" by Pat Macenulty
"Regular, Degular, Shmegular Girl From the Bronx" by Allison P. Davis (Warning: Strong Language)
Student Essays (good, but not "perfect"):
"Terry Stephens: The Man Behind the Art" by Louis Gilmore
"The Value of a Variable" by Monica Franklin
"Alice Through the Looking Glass" by Christina Franke
Format
Your essay should have a title and be 3 FULL pages up to 5 FULL page. It should also be typed, double spaced, with one-inch margins all around, Times New Roman Font, & 12 pt. Refer to OWL Purdue for other questions about format.
Important Dates:
•
Make an appointment for an interview by R 10/6
Make an appointment for an interview by R 10/6•Interview completed and transcript due by T 10/11
Interview completed and transcript due by T 10/11•First version due on: R 10/13
First version due on: R 10/13•Peer Critique due back: T 10/18
Peer Critique due back: T 10/18•Final Version with all planning work and reflection due: R 10/20
Final Version with all planning work and reflection due: R 10/20NOTE: Keep all planning work, interview transcript, peer critiques, reflections and versions of the essay to hand in with the final version of the essay.
Your grade for this essay will be determined as follows:
Total Possible Points: 40/
Final Draft, evaluated on the following criteria:
Focus (11 points): Does essay have a clear purpose? Focus on a dominant impression? Show what seemed to make the person interesting to the writer?
Development (11 points): Are there detailed observations (sensory details)? A range of images and vantage points? Relevant and powerful details? Does each detail contribute to the dominant impression? Do direct quotations reveal the subject’s personality, character, mood, or concerns? Does the writer make use of metaphor, simile, anecdotes, and other figures of speech? Does the writer compare their subject (person they are writing about) to other people?
Organization (11 points): Do ideas and paragraphs proceed in logical and apparent sequence or pattern? Does writer use sufficient audience cues to let the reader know what has been discussed, what is being discussed, or what will be discussed? Does writer use attention-getting title and lead-in, paragraph hooks, transitional words and phrases? Does writer guide the reader from beginning to end?
Style (4 points): Is language clear direct and readable? Are sentences clear, concise, and easily read by intended audience? Is word choice appropriate for audience? Do sentences reveal and sustain appropriate voice and tone?
Mechanics (3 points): Are there obvious errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar? Are there patterns of error?
NO INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (-3 POINTS)
NO 1ST DRAFT ON DUE DATE (-3 POINTS)
NO PEER CRITIQUE (-3 POINTS)
NO PROCESS=NO GRADE
Grading scale:
A 36-40
B 32-35
C 28-31
D 24-27
F 0-23
