This week we will delve more deeply into critical writing about literature written by academic authors. Your research skills will play a big part in whether your final four weeks and the final assignment are successful.
As you continue to read about your author and his or her work, you should also continue keeping track of quotes, ideas, and summaries by constructing an Annotated Bibliography. Here is a page with an example of how to do one in MLA. Please read this before turning yours in.
Informal Writing Assignment:
Compile an Annotated Bibliography with at least 10 sources. Remember that, as with your first two essays, these need to be academic literary sources. You’ll find more interesting analysis in the library databases; if you’re not sure how to access those, refer to Lesson 4. You shouldn’t be relying on websites as research for this assignment.
Remember to look for interpretive works (things which say what the author is writing about) and not biographies.
An important note: The entries on your annotated bibliography shouldn’t include the writings of your chosen author. So, if you’re writing about Shakespeare, don’t include “Hamlet” and “King Lear” for this assignment. You may cite them in the final research paper, but don’t include them in this annotated bibliography.
What I Will Be Looking For:
- A properly cited Annotated Bibliography for your final research paper with at least 10 sources.
Research Paper Draft One:
This week you will begin the drafting process for your research paper. This should be an extended interpretive work, in which you draw on a number of different sources to make an argument about your author’s work. This may involve seeing a similar theme repeated across multiple works by the same author. It may involve showing how the treatment of a single theme evolves over an author’s career. It may involve showing how the same theme is treated differently by different authors. Hopefully I can offer some guidance as your draft evolves.
As I’ve said a couple of times, remember that you’re not writing a biography, and beware of over-reliance on interviews with your author, or statements by your author.
Keep in mind as well that you don’t need to sell me on this author. I get a lot of papers with breathless hyperbole about how wonderful the author is, and that’s not the point. This isn’t about quality judgment. If the author is well-regarded or influential then you can mention that but it shouldn’t be your focus. Your focus is on the interpretation of the work.
Your first draft doesn’t have a minimum length requirement, and it can be very rough, or just an outline (though if you happen to be farther in the process that’s obviously fine). But to be sure you can get done on time, it’s important that you break through the barrier of getting some initial sentences or paragraphs down on paper.
Lesson 10 Submission Checklist:
- Your Annotated Bibliography (Informal Writing #7)
- Your first draft of your research paper.