Assignment

A 6-pages, 1,500-word (or longer) research essay on a literary topic of your choice. You will use documented source material to support your essay's thesis. You must use 1 or more of the literary pieces listed on our syllabus as a source. A research essay presents and develops a thesis supporting multiple sources of opinion. You stake out a subject narrow enough to be researched and you steep yourself in it. Then you formulate a thesis -- your own attitude or opinion on the subject -- and present it in a persuasive form, along with facts, opinions, and information that prove it true. You should use appeals and other methods to support your thesis, but you should also analyze each source you plan to use to support your thesis.

There are two parts to a Research Essay:

1. The text (six or more pages and 1,500 or more words)
2. The works cited page (one or more pages)

Format:

Much of the writing in your research essay comes from the work of other writers, and you must give proper credit by citing (mentioning) these sources in your paper. The art of citing is called documentation, which is required for any information falling into the following three categories:

1. Any judgment, opinion, speculation or theory that is not original (unless it is universally known and accepted).

2. Any fact or statistic open to dispute.

3. Any information provided by a specific observer, even by an expert in his or her field (for example, opinions of psychologists on child abuse.)

QUOTATIONS AND CITATIONS:

You will use quotations to include information from your sources in your essay. For example, if you were quoting a Newsweek magazine article on the Virgin Mary by Kenneth L. Woodward, you could write:

Kenneth L. Woodward, in his article on the Virgin Mary, writes that "the 20th century has belonged to Mary" (49).

You must use at least four sources (one or more from each of the following categories) and list them on your works cited page:

•one book (such as our Literature textbook);
•one periodical (magazine, journal or newspaper) article;
•one website;
•one "multimedia" source: a film, video, DVD, painting, musical piece, etc.

These sources should be listed in alphabetical order, by the author's last name. Your source listings for books should look like this: Author's last name, author's first name, title of book, name of publisher, and year of publication.