Download THE RESEARCH PAPER (AN OVERVIEW)

THE RESEARCH PAPER (AN OVERVIEW)
MAKING LITERATURE MATTER , PART II, LITERATURE AND ITS ISSUES (221-1598)
Think of the research paper an extended formal essay with additional analysis, discussion, and references from other
secondary sources outside the scope of the author’s primary work and your own analysis. Some students write it as
an essay (such as Essay 1 or 2), and then add the additional secondary discussion. I will grade the first draft as an
essay. but please include your parenthetical references to both primary and secondary sources and Works Cited. I
will grade the final copy for MLA format and first draft revisions.
RESEARCH PROMPTS - CHOOSE ONE FROM THE FOLLOWING LIST:
1. Identify a specific "issue" (41-48) or a single "topic of literary study" (25-26) in a story, poem, drama, or essay
from Part II (221-1598) of the course textbook, and write a literary analysis based on how the author or poet
treats that issue.
2. Based on your reading of a single work, identify the author's or poet's argument with reference to claims,
persuasion, audience, evidence, and/or warrants (48-53) from a work in Part II (221-1598). Be very specific with
your thesis concerning how the author or poet deals with one or more of these elements.
3. Investigate a single "topic of literary study" (25-26) concerning one work in Part II (221-1598) of the textbook,
and write an extended analysis of how the author or poet treats this topic as a thesis.
4. Discuss how a single literary element helps an author give meaning to his or her work. Choose one element and
one work (or group of works by the same heading) in Part II (221-1598) for your examples and analysis.
THREE GRADED SECTIONS:
1. Note Cards: due Week 10 (daily grade). I will grade these for format, number of sources, and a complete and
correct subject card index. This requires a full set of cards for at least 3 secondary sources, including separate
sets of bibliography, quote (full quotes with 2 or more sentences and at least two quotes per source), and subject
cards (alphabetized by noun and adjective from the quote cards) – focus on format.
2. First Draft (15%): due at the office/grading conference – I will grade this draft as a formal essay (fully revised
with the revision guidelines for essays). I will provide a sign-up sheet during Week 10 for individual
office/grading conferences for the first draft (Week 11) – I will grade on composition and revision, as with essays
1 and 2.
3. Final Copy (15%): due Week 13 (typed , MLA format) – focus on format.
FINAL COPY LENGTH: a minimum of 1000-2000 words.
FORMAT: official MLA style formats following the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.,
including correct headings, double-spacing, pagination, and internal parenthetical notes alphabetically crossreferenced to the Works Cited page at the end of the paper.
SOURCES (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY): In addition to your primary source (the literary work from the textbook), you must
cite at least five different secondary sources, including books, magazines, journals, and scholarly databases (Print or
Web). I will grade the first draft of the research paper as an essay, but please include your parenthetical references to
both primary (the subject work and author from the textbook) and secondary sources (works about the author or
subject) and Works Cited. Some secondary sources exist in your textbook under selected authors as "Critical
Commentaries" and "Cultural Contexts".
THE FIRST DRAFT - SOME NOTES ABOUT QUOTATIONS
Ref: MLA Handbook, and A Handbook for Scholars (Oxford, 1991).
If you must quote:
Quote only the quotable.
Quote for color; quote for evidence. Otherwise, do not quote.
Quote the vivid or memorable or questionable, strange or witty;
paraphrase the rest.
1. Do not pad your work with quotes; avoid them, if possible. Quoted material should not make up more than 5% of
the paper length. Mixing your style of writing with that of other authors makes for difficult reading. Paraphrase,
summarize and synthesize your sources, but do not fail to give credit for the information with parenthetical
references according to the MLA format.
2. Always introduce any quoted material. This requirement needn't lead to a monotonous series of "he states," "she
states," "the author relates."
Incorrect: (author missing)
The long hard trail from West Wales to London was full of dangers. "Skilled robbers and highwaymen in a notso-romantic fashion would regularly waylay drovers by shooting them in the back in ambushes set in the dark
and steep passes leading into the cloudy mists of the Cambrian mountain range" (23). Furthermore...
Correct: (quote introduced after naming the author)
The long hard trail from West Wales to London was full of dangers. Hughes eloquently commented on this
danger in his history. "Skilled robbers and highwaymen in a not-so-romantic fashion would regularly waylay
drovers by shooting them in the back in ambushes set in the dark and steep passes leading into the cloudy
mists of the Cambrian mountain range" (23). Considering the economic success of this class of cattlemen, such
statements should not surprise the reader.
Correct: (paraphrase with author in the parenthetical reference - preferred)
The long hard trail from West Wales to London was full of dangers. Historians have remarked that
highwaymen and robbers were a constant danger to drovers on their way home from the market (Hughes 23).
Such encounters always followed travelling businessmen in that age, and among their peers drovers counted
as men who meant business.
NOTE: Always follow primary source material with some analysis or commentary.
3. If you quote, quote whole. If you paraphrase, paraphrase. Do not combine the two:
Incorrect:
Albert Schweitzer stressed the "one truth" that, according to him, "something spiritual" lies beneath "all that
happens in world history" (24).
Either quote:
Albert Schweitzer wrote, "One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual"
(24).
Or (preferably) paraphrase:
Albert Schweitzer believed that some spiritual essence underlies world history (24).
4. Indent long quotations (over fifty words, over two sentences, or over two lines of verse).
Indent 10 spaces.
5. With reference to final punctuation:
a. Use single quotes for quotes within quotes.
Original Quote: (from the poet Shelley)
Call the world if you please "The Vale of Soul-making."
As used by the writer:
Tossing off an elevated statement like "Call the world if you please `The Vale of Soul-making'" with a shrug was
all a part of his pose.
b. A period that finds another type of punctuation mark disappears.
Incorrect: He states, "What harm is there in owning a handgun?" (Barnes 23).
Correct: He states, "What harm is there in owning a handgun?" (Barnes 23)
6. A quotation construed as a sentence, no matter how short, begins with a capital letter:
According to Jones (86), Freud said something along the line of "Nuts!" and went on his way.
7. A quotation construed as a fragment, no matter how long, begins with lower-case (unless the fragment begins the
sentence it lies within):
During the interview, the subject said "waving the wiwwy pretty once" for "wearing the really pretty ones."
"Wearing the really pretty ones" came out "wearing the wiwwy pretty once."
8. A quotation placed into a subordinate clause with an introductory word like "when," "whether" or "though" is a
fragment, not a full sentence. Among these introductory words, "that" is the most common:
Quote:
The want of a thing is perplexing enough, but the possession of it is intolerable.
As included in the text:
Vanbrugh said that "the want of a thing is perplexing enough, but the possession of it is intolerable" (56).
Also:
Though "slumber is more sweet than toil," he was famous for the long hours he worked on his research.
9. The Comma-Quote convention requires that a comma separates any transitive verb analogous to "say" from a
whole-sentence quotation that is its direct object:
The tombstone states, "I told you I was sick."
A word or phrase may intervene:
Graves wrote in his Spiritual Quixote, "Go to the tavern, and call for your bottle and your pipe and your Welsh
rabbit" (45).
This convention applies only to full-sentence quotations:
Incorrect:
Correct:
He writes, "a Mindy weeke" after every tale...
He writes "a Mindy weeke" after every tale...
Nor does it apply to infinitives, participles or gerunds:
Incorrect:
Correct:
To say, "I think not" is all very well for the non-specialist.
To say "I think not" is all...
Incorrect:
Writing, "Nothing may come of this" more than once in his diary, Cavendish nevertheless
plunged ahead.
Writing "Nothing may come of this" more than once...
Correct: