argumentative essay Custom Essay

Researched Term Paper Overview

How to approach the writing:
• Write about a story or poem by someone on our reading list or in our text book.
• DO NOT write about a story or poem we discuss in class.
• The subject for Annotated Bibliography and Research Paper should be the SAME.
• For your research paper, you are writing a piece of literary criticism ( at least 6 full pages of your writing that is an argumentative essay that proves your thesis that a story or poem has a certain meaning made in a certain way through the author’s use of literary elements, style, historical milieu, author’s biographical details, etc.).
• As it is a research paper, you will use the opinions of experts to support your essay.
• You are not writing biography—do not include a biography of the writer unless you can show a clear connection to a life incident of the writer and an aspect of the story or poem. Do not write a biography as an introduction.
• You are not writing a book report.
• You are not writing a plot summary—do not retell the plot; in literary criticism, it is assumed the reader of your paper has read the subject of your paper, so they do not need a summary.
• You are not writing a character sketch.
• Write in third person (even if some of the experts break this rule, you are to use only a third person perspective—remember, they are experts and have earned the right to chart their own ground now and again).
• Avoid passive constructions.
• Avoid wordiness and padding (Such as saying “wordiness and padding”).
• Follow the 80/20 rule.
• Write about the work(s) of one of our writers from our reading list but avoid the stories and poems we discuss in class.
• DO NOT refer to the author by only his/her first name
o By only the last name is fine
• DO NOT assume the story or poem is autobiographical (MOST ARE NOT)
o The narrator and/or speaker are not necessarily the author

Basic Format Issues
• Turn in a hard copy of the paper on the due date (at the beginning of class)
• Email a copy to yourself and to me.
• DO NOT PASTE IT IN EMAIL—it will not hold its formatting when I copy and paste it into a format I can type comments on.
• One inch margins all around (this is usually the default setting so don’t try to change them)
• Don’t move margins in to help you reach page requirements
• Don’t move margins out to help you stay within page limits
• Times New Roman 12—don’t use 12.5 or 13 to help you reach page requirement
• Double space
• Paginate—page number should appear in header in upper right corner
• Do not number page one (unless you just can’t figure out how to avoid—thank you Mr. Gates)
• Use proper MLA format (except you will not need a cover page)
• Parenthetical citations in text in proper MLA format
• Works Cited page in proper MLA format
• If you are turning your paper in as a hard copy, use white paper and black ink only, don’t have a Cover Page, don’t used a folder, portfolio, report cover, etc. (just a staple in upper left corner will do).

Source Issues
A Literature-based research paper is a multi-sourced investigation into an aspect or aspects centered on a given work of Literature (In this course a poem or short story). When you are compiling sources, remember that not all sources are created equal (not all sources undergo rigorous editorial oversight) therefore not all sources are considered equally reliable. Pick wisely.

Possible Topics
As soon as possible, pick a topic you may want to focus on in your paper. Begin researching the topic and compiling bibliographic information on what you find and read about the topic. As early as you can, write a working thesis statement for your paper, write a brief thumbnail sketch of what you plan to focus on and give me a copy, so I can make sure you are on the right track and narrowly focused for a short research paper.

Among the many things you can write about:
some particular aspect of a story or poem
• any of the elements of fiction in a story
• any of the elements of poetry in a poem
• use of form and structure in a poem
• write about how a work of art breaks from conventions in order to achieve something it could not by relying on conventions
• how historical perspective plays a role in understanding the work of art
• how the author’s life plays a role in understanding the work of art

the work of more than one author or more than one work by the same author and make a comparison—but remember the rule for comparative essays (you must reveal ideas through comparison that could not be found without making the comparison).
• compare how two authors approach the same subject
• compare how two genres are employed for the same subject (or even the same storyline: Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles and her short story, “A Jury of her peers”
• compare how some writers handle the same sort of subject
• compare how some writers use plot, irony, setting, etc.
• use of similar images for similar and/or different meanings
compare similar themes, ideas, conflicts, symbols, images, etc. as they are handled in different genres and art forms—but remember that when you compare you must treat each item compared equally, so you cannot spend more pages on the item you find more interesting than you spend of the piece of literature.
• compare poem or poems that deal with death or love or war or hate or anything with a song or songs that deal with the same subject matter
• compare a painting to a short story focusing on how each art form deals with subject matter, idea, theme, symbol, imagery
• compare a song or album to a story or poem
take a critical approach to work of Literature
• apply a Marxist theoretical approach to a poem or story.
• apply a Psychoanalytical theoretical approach to a poem or story.
• apply a Post-colonialism theoretical approach to a poem or story.
• apply a Reader Response theoretical approach to a poem or story.
• apply a New Historicism theoretical approach to a poem or story.
• apply a Feminist theoretical approach to a poem or story.
• apply a Deconstructionist theoretical approach to a poem or story.
• apply any theory or combination of theories of literature to a poem or story.
Situate the work in the historical context of the setting and/or writing–publishing dates
• Look at the life of the author for clues about the meaning of the story
• Look at historical events that were unfolding at the time the story is set
• Determine if the work of art deals with the historical event
o If so, how and why
o If not, how and why
• Look at social issues of the time the work was written, published, and/or set
• Look at government at the time the work was written, published, and/or set
• Look at politics of the time the work was written, published, and/or set
• Look at economics of the time the work was written, published, and/or set
• Look at science and medicine of the time the work was written, published, and/or set

Various Information that is also important

• Many of your sources will agree with each other on a given issue that is important to your thesis. You can gather many sources by using a summary of multiple sources that agree on an important point.
• Underline your thesis statement
• Have a Title for your essay that does some work to invite the reader into essay.
• Have a works cited page.
o Your works cited will include only those sources you cite in your paper and therefore may not be the exact list of sources found in your annotated bibliography.
o Your Works Cited Page does not count as part of your essay’s page minimum.
• Use quotes from the story/poem/play you are focusing on.
• Remember that a research paper thesis should be stated as an argument that you then defend in the body of the paper.
• 80 % of the writing in your paper must be your own original work:
o Explain the importance of the material you are quoting
o Explain the way the poem/story works
o You may not write a biographical paper, but you can use biographical information to support your thesis—explain how an aspect of a writer’s life relates to their work.
o Make connections to real life events
o Make connections to history
o Explain how an element of fiction or poetry works in the story or poem