Assignment Guidelines

Objective

To present an argument about the interpretation of a text in this class with support from works of other literary critics who have examined this text. In the process, students should demonstrate an understanding of the conventions of academic discussion and the MLA documentation format.

Topic

Choose one book from the list of assigned readings for this class-the book that is the most interesting to you. After careful consideration of this work and published works by other literary critics addressing this, formulate a thesis statement for an argument about the meaning and importance of your chosen book. Organize your argument around this thesis statement. Come up with three to five subtopics that are in themselves arguable and that add up to a strong case for your thesis statement.

When organizing your ideas, avoid structures that might lead you into excessive summarizing of the work in question. Also, be sure to support your ideas with quotations from the text in accordance with MLA format. The paper should also include some quotations from those secondary sources that you find the most useful in presenting your argument. Bring a 9-page minimum draft of you paper to class on April 29th for peer editing. After receiving comments from your classmates, revise and proofread before turning the final draft in on May 6th.

There are numerous good topics out there. The best of them will allow you to focus on particular details (characters, scenes, lines, objects, settings, etc.) in the chosen work while also helping you place the work in a wider historical, political, or literary context. Good topics are often answers to questions about the work over which there are actual or potential disagreements among readers. We will spend additional time in class discussing good and bad topics.

Annotated Bibliography

Identify eight secondary sources pertaining to your research paper topic. List them according to the MLA format for a list of works cited. Add approximately 400 words of commentary to each entry briefly explaining what it contributes to your understanding of the topic, what its critical orientation is, and what you think of it qualitatively. Turn this in on March 8th.

Writing Tips

1. Somewhere in the opening paragraph of your paper, you should write a clear thesis statement, which is a one-sentence overview of what you will be arguing in your paper.

   In most cases, the first thesis statement you come up with will not be arguable enough. Keep revising it until you have a statement that is truly arguable and interesting. Do not hesitate to revise it after you have written a complete draft of the paper. The thesis statement should directly address your chosen work.

   Example:

   FIRST TRY: American society is regulated by two separate justice systems.

   SECOND TRY-NOT THERE YET: Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson includes two separate justice systems.

   A GOOD THESIS: Of all of the doubling that takes place in Pudd'nhead Wilson, the division of the Southern civil order into two separate, conflicting systems explains the problem of racism the most clearly.

   Notice the evolution from an overly general, though accurate, statement about the two works to a statement about the difference between the two works to a precise explanation of how these books compare.

   Organize your paper around the thesis statement and be sure that each part of your argument bears some clear relationship to the thesis statement. Do not leave it to your reader to figure out what each subtopic is doing in your paper. Consider the following outline for an argument supporting the above thesis:

   THESIS: Of all of the doubling that takes place in Pudd'nhead Wilson, the division of the Southern civil order into two separate, conflicting systems explains the problem of racism the most clearly.

   1. Two systems: the official government order and the anti-government codes of honor of the First Families of Virginia.

   2. These two systems come into conflict in the argument between Tom Driscoll and Luigi.

   3. In the greater context of the work, this conflict explains the persistence of racism in the post-Civil War American South.

   Turn each of these subtopics into a unified paragraph with supporting evidence in the form of quotations. If a paragraph gets too long, break it down into two paragraphs, but make careful use of transitional phrases to keep the logic clear to the reader.

   Follow MLA format when using quotations or paraphrases to support the argument:

   Use blended quotations for quotations under four lines and block quotations for quotations over four lines. Remember the tricky punctuation rules for each type of quotation. If you have questions about this, ask me or look it up in a style manual such as Keys for Writers.

   Write a list of Works Cited at the end of the paper. The last name of the author comes first, then the title of the selection. Then, if applicable, the title of the book in which you found the work. Notice that you should italicize the name of a book or journal whenever you mention it. Also, take note of the pattern of indentation.

   Examples:

   James, Henry. "The Beast in the Jungle." 1909. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C. Sixth Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. pp. 524-553.

   Faulkner, William. Light in August. 1932. New York: Vintage, 1990.

   Perloff, Marjorie. "'Pound/Stevens: Whose Era?' Revisited." Wallace Stevens Journal: A Publication of the Wallace Stevens Society, 26:2 (2002 Fall), pp. 135-42.

   NOTE: Indentation patterns are actually likely to be wrong on this web page. Bibliography indentation is not really possible on a web page. Sorry.

   Alphabetize works cited according to the author's last name. The year of original publication after the author's name in the above two examples is optional, but the year of publication after the publisher is required. There are many other rules for MLA format for peculiar instances that will come up, but the above two examples should serve as useful models for the vast majority of cases for this class. Do not hesitate to look these rules up.

   Grammar issues:

   Refer to events in a work of literature in the present tense. This may sound strange at first, but it is the convention for addressing literature. Notice that we tend to follow this rule in class discussion.

   Transitions. These are words that serve as signposts pointing out the direction of your argument to your readers. Some of these transitions are like "One Way" signs leading your reader on to the next point. Others are like "U Turn" signs indicating a reversal of direction. There are other more subtle transitions that alter the tone or indicate approval or disapproval of what you are discussing.

   Examples:

   One Way Signs (leading from before to after or from cause to effect)

   The Compson family sells Benjy's pasture in order to send Quentin to college at Harvard. Subsequently, Quentin commits suicide.

   World War I caused many young artists to question the very basis for their systems of belief. Consequently, their art depicts a world of disorderly and, at times, indecipherable fragments.

   W. E. B. DuBois was an early supporter of Booker T. Washington. Thus, his public disenchantment with Washington's educational programs surprised his readers at the time.

   U-turn Signs (establishing a contrast between ideas)

   Whereas Sherwood Anderson portrays living characters in a small town in prose, Edgar Lee Masters depicts dead characters in a small town in poetry.

   Wallace Stevens evokes many different traditional images of religious belief and practice in his poem "Sunday Morning." However, these images fail to provide him with a unified basis for his religious contemplations.

   These are just a few examples of the numerous transitions out there that can help you arrange your ideas. Most style manuals will give you a more exhaustive list of options and fuller explanations of how to use them. Your best resource, however, is your own experience with written and spoken language. You undoubtedly hear and use dozens of these transitions per day. Integrate the appropriate ones into your writing.

   Keep in mind also that these transitions are often the most important as you move from one subtopic in your paper to the next. Very frequently, the first sentence in a new paragraph needs to provide the reader a clear transition between ideas in the previous paragraph and ideas in the new one.

   A grammatically complete sentence has at least one subject and one verb. If it is missing a subject or a verb, it is a sentence fragment. Sentence fragments are sometimes acceptable, but only if you mean to use them.

   Comma rules are complicated, so look them up in a style manual if you had trouble with them on the previous paper. A comma splice is what happens when you try to separate two grammatically complete sentences with only a comma. Comma splices are bad. Avoid them.

   Example:

   WRONG: I hope Neil Diamond comes to Duluth, he is such a great singer.

   CORRECT: I hope Neil Diamond comes to Duluth because he is such a great singer.

   ALSO CORRECT: I hope Neil Diamond comes to Duluth. He is such a great singer.

   Avoid using the passive voice whenever it is possible to do so. When writing in the passive voice, you remove the subject from the sentence or at least de-emphasize it. This makes writing less engaging to most readers.

   Avoid contractions when writing college papers. Replace "they're" with "they are" and replace "don't" with "do not" (these are just a few examples of the numerous possible contractions out there.

   Italicization is the best way to signal that you are referring to a word itself and not to the thing that the word represents. Notice how I am using italicization of the terms in the following section "e". You should also italicize titles of books (even in parenthetical references and lists of works cited) and foreign-language words like idŽe fixe, status quo and Bildungsroman.

   The word it's (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is. The word its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive of it. Its and whose both deviate from the standard rule about possessives.

Grading Standards

In grading papers for this class, I will use the following criteria: