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Paper 2 Draft (6p minimum)
Moved from Nov 18: This paper is due online on the 23rd.
Write a paper that uses peer-reviewed academic sources to defend an intellectually complex, non-obvious claim about one or more of the works on the syllabus. Your paper should demonstrate your developing ability to apply a consistent critical approach (economic determinism, gender theory, historical-topical, etc.), to integrate quotations from quality sources (at least 4, in addition to your literary work or works), and to acknowledge a variety of interpretations (including evidence that challenges your thesis).
Write a paper that uses peer-reviewed academic sources to defend an intellectually complex, non-obvious claim about one or more of the works on the syllabus. Your paper should demonstrate your developing ability to apply a consistent critical approach (economic determinism, gender theory, historical-topical, etc.), to integrate quotations from quality sources (at least 4, in addition to your literary work or works), and to acknowledge a variety of interpretations (including evidence that challenges your thesis).
Integrating Quotations
Please avoid wordy, high-schoolish constructions like the following:
If you write the paper first, and then go online to "find quotes to support your argument," then you are not really doing research at all.
Update: a note on MLA Style.
It doesn't happen very often, but MLA style has changed slightly in the past year. For your draft, I'll accept a works cited list that follows the format you learned in STW, but for your final revision there are few tweaks I'd like to see.
Updated MLA style works cited entries:
For items in an anthology or collection:
Note that the page numbers are for the whole range of the article, not just the pages from which you pulled quotes.
In the following passage from the book My Big Boring Academic Study by Professor H. Gluteus Windbag III, it talks on page 34 about how Huck and Jim become friends despite a few rough spots in their relationship. [Insert long quotation here.] This quote shows how Huck and Jim are indeed friends.Prefer instead a graceful inegration of key words and phrases from outside sources, in a manner that does not interrupt your own flow of thoughts.
While Jim is understandably worried about what Windbag calls Huck's "occasional lapses in fidelity" (34), Jim's faith in Huck is "ultimately justified."(See my handout on integrating sources.) Note that this is a draft, so I don't expect perfection, but I will be able offer you more directly useful help if you give me a well-thought-out draft, rather than six flabby pages of plot summary and personal reflection. As I emphasized when discussing the bibliography exercise in class, my intention is that you find good academic articles first, and that you choose a thesis that you can defend based on the research you've already found.
If you write the paper first, and then go online to "find quotes to support your argument," then you are not really doing research at all.
Update: a note on MLA Style.
It doesn't happen very often, but MLA style has changed slightly in the past year. For your draft, I'll accept a works cited list that follows the format you learned in STW, but for your final revision there are few tweaks I'd like to see.
Updated MLA style works cited entries:
For items in an anthology or collection:
Surname, Givenname. "Title of Short Item." Title of Full Collection. Ed. Bill Smith. City of Publication: Publisher, Year. 123-45. Print (or Web, or TV, etc.).
Note that the page numbers are for the whole range of the article, not just the pages from which you pulled quotes.
