Common Ground

What observation mad’st thou in this case. . . ? (The Comedy of Errors 4.2.5)

Common Ground is the first of three elements of an effective introduction.

A Common Ground is exactly what it sounds like.   We use the term in writing in much the same way we use it in our everyday speech.   In writing about literature, a Common Ground sentence is a brief statement of a generally received opinion, a plausible belief, or the context of your research.   It is something that most readers will agree with and not challenge.   People who have read your text but not your essay will have a “common understanding” of the text from this sentence or set of sentences.  

It is: Something any reader will understand from reading the text.

It is: An observation.

It is not: An argument.

Examples:

• In As You Like It, Shakespeare presents a forest world of equality and fraternity set against a court world of family strife.
• Much Ado About Nothing constructs Don John as the villain of the drama because he agrees to Borachio’s plan that ultimately leads to the cruel abuse of Hero.
• Katherine, in The Taming of the Shrew, appears to hate men but is eventually reconciled to the importance of women’s subservience to men.