Paper 2 Presubmission
The outline originally had this listed for Oct 2, but I've delayed it so you can have some extra time to work on it.
Paper 2 is a 6-8 page research paper. (See my online handout Short Research Papers.)
The presubmission report is not a rough draft of your paper. Think of it as a proposal. Many students report that, once they get the presubmission approved, the paper almost writes itself.
When you submit it, you're giving me the opportunity to assess your preparation skills, before you launch into the business of connecting all the dots and shaping a whole essay.
Upload to the Turnitin.com slot a single MS-Word document (about 3 pages) that contains the following sections.
Assignment Details
Paper 2 is a 6-8 page research paper. (See my online handout Short Research Papers.)
The presubmission report is not a rough draft of your paper. Think of it as a proposal. Many students report that, once they get the presubmission approved, the paper almost writes itself.
When you submit it, you're giving me the opportunity to assess your preparation skills, before you launch into the business of connecting all the dots and shaping a whole essay.
The word "essay" comes from a French word that means "attempt."The secret is to make more a greater percentage of of your intellectual discoveries before you commit to churning out the sentences and crafting the paragraphs. (You may still have a last-minute revelation, since the essay is our laboratory, and we won't know how solid we've made our case until we actually put it to the test.)
Upload to the Turnitin.com slot a single MS-Word document (about 3 pages) that contains the following sections.
Assignment Details
1) Topic, Thesis (Opinion), and Title.
Examples:
2) Primary Evidence
Include direct quotations from your primary source, that you feel are important to the case you are about to make.
3) Secondary Evidence
Include direct quotations from your secondary sources.
4) Opposing Evidence
What quotations contradict the evidence you've gathered above? (If you can't find evidence, in either primary or secondary sources, then your claim may be too obvious.)
5) Thesis Paragraph (with blueprint)
5A) Optional: One body paragraph.
Just enough to give me a sample of what your paper will be like. I'm not asking you to commit to writing out the whole paper, since you will very likely change your approach -- and maybe you'll change it several times.
6) Preliminary conclusion.
Conclusions are not easy to write. Avoid the old trick of saying, "Therefore, as you can see, this paper has [summarize everything.]" A former colleague of mine from the University of Wisconsin -- Eau Claire, Joel Pace, said "The thesis is the starting point, the conclusion is the destination, and the paper is the journey." So, your conclusion should introduce your reader to the new features and routes that were inaccessible before, but are now within reach, now that your reader has finished the journey from point A to point B.
7) MLA style Works Cited page
Make sure to include both primary and secondary works.
MLA has come out with new rules for citing a web page, and asks that you add a new specifier for every print source. Wayne Cox has summarized these new MLA changes in a handy two-page PDF.
Examples:
- Topic: Gender in The Simpsons.
- Thesis: The Simpsons often tries to subvert traditional gender roles, but is constrained by the model of the sit-com, so that the traditional gender roles are perpetuated.
- Title: Does The Simpsons subvert traditional gender roles? The answer is a clear "Buh" (or "Snuh").
2) Primary Evidence
Include direct quotations from your primary source, that you feel are important to the case you are about to make.
3) Secondary Evidence
Include direct quotations from your secondary sources.
4) Opposing Evidence
What quotations contradict the evidence you've gathered above? (If you can't find evidence, in either primary or secondary sources, then your claim may be too obvious.)
5) Thesis Paragraph (with blueprint)
5A) Optional: One body paragraph.
Just enough to give me a sample of what your paper will be like. I'm not asking you to commit to writing out the whole paper, since you will very likely change your approach -- and maybe you'll change it several times.
6) Preliminary conclusion.
Conclusions are not easy to write. Avoid the old trick of saying, "Therefore, as you can see, this paper has [summarize everything.]" A former colleague of mine from the University of Wisconsin -- Eau Claire, Joel Pace, said "The thesis is the starting point, the conclusion is the destination, and the paper is the journey." So, your conclusion should introduce your reader to the new features and routes that were inaccessible before, but are now within reach, now that your reader has finished the journey from point A to point B.
7) MLA style Works Cited page
Make sure to include both primary and secondary works.
MLA has come out with new rules for citing a web page, and asks that you add a new specifier for every print source. Wayne Cox has summarized these new MLA changes in a handy two-page PDF.
Here is an additional reading that discusses in much greater detail the process of developing a thesis.
You don't need to complete the exercises described in this chapter -- just consult this as an extra resource, if you'd like another person's attempt to present the material I've assigned in Roberts, via my handouts, and via class discussions.
http://www.stevendkrause.com/tprw/chapter5.html