Rubric: critical analysis research paper
This is an extended critical analysis paper. Your thesis that was developed earlier during the semester is what you will be using for this paper. To refresh yourself on what critical analysis is:
Let’s start off with explaining what critical analysis is not. Critical analysis is NOT saying whether you like something or not. That is your opinion. It is not saying that the author is a raving madman (again, your opinion). Or, that red is your favorite color or that your best friend’s favorite uncle’s dog is named Johnnie, so you like the story because the author’s name is John. Not even close, people.
It IS, however, looking at a story with a critical eye, and digging into the story to find a deeper meaning. Critical analysis starts with looking at a specific text and deciphering the meaning to it. In some ways, it is like peeling an onion. Imagine an onion—it has multiple layers to it—once you peel away that crispy skin, you find the succulent oniony goodness underneath it. This is what great literary works are like. The words on the page mean little, it’s what is underneath those words, the hidden meaning to the story that gives it such depth. This is what I expect you to look for and explain with a critical analysis paper. In other words, it is not good enough to simply say that you like a text. That liking something is opinion, which everyone has.
Critical analysis is looking at the text, finding something in that text, say a color, like the color blue for instance and figuring out what that color blue means to the story. How many different meanings or definitions does blue encompass? It depends on the context of the story. Blue could mean depression. Blues could simply be a color, or it could be a musical genre. How is that author using the word? Or are they using it in multiple ways, which could be the case.
Critical analysis is deciphering a deeper meaning to the text you are studying and writing about. Critical analysis is also NOT retelling the story in your own words. Retelling the story is summarizing it. Again, not analysis.
So, in closing, look at the layer that is deeper than just what the words are telling you. Look below that, and figure out what the deeper layers mean. Is there something in that story, perhaps a symbol which means something else other than what the text implies. Do not retell the story. Assume your reader knows the story. Use the short story you are analyzing and pull examples from the text to help support your point and your argument.
For your critical analysis research paper:
PLEASE NOTE: Pick 1 (ONE) of the short stories that you are required to read this semester for your research paper. You should have not only picked one of the short stories from the assigned reading list for the term, but should have also written your (working) thesis using that short story as the basis for this critical analysis research paper.
1) You must include AT LEAST ONE short quotation (read this carefully—I said at least one—which means you will be including more than one, a lot more than one).
2) You must include AT LEAST ONE paraphrase quotation (read this carefully—I said at least one—which means you will be including more than one, a lot more than one).
3) You will ONLY have ONE block quote. ONLY ONE, means only one.
4) You will also have parenthetical citations after each paraphrase and quotation.
5) You will introduce your sources by the author’s full name and the title of the work in the sentence as a lead in to the quotation or paraphrase the first time you are using that source.
a. If you are only using that source in your paragraph, then you may include just the parenthetical citation after each paraphrase or quote.
b. If you are using two or more author’s in the same paragraph you will be first introducing them the first time, and for the second and subsequent times, use their last name as the introduction. (for example: Landone wrote in his essay about “The Yellow Wallpaper” that….)
6) Your paper will be six to eight (6 to 8) pages in length.
7) Your paper will conform to MLA format (read the Little Seagull Handbook for the MLA section again).
8) The last page of your paper will include your Works Cited page. It will be titled: Works Cited in the center of the page.
a. You will include all of the sources that you have used.
b. The information needed for this will include all of the publication titles (article title and periodical title) and also you will have the database title, too.
c. You will need the original publication date and the date that you found the article in the database.
d. You will need to know the page numbers if it is a pdf copy or if you are using your class text book (which you will be since your short story is in the class text book, and is your primary text)
e. You must include the authors if known and also the editors if known, too.
f. Each entry will start at the left side of the page for the first line, and the second and subsequent lines of that entry will be indented off of the left margin by a half inch.
g. When you have completed that entry, then you will move to the next line, and start that process again.
h. Each entry will be alphabetized according the author’s last name. There will not be any numbers to start each entry either.
i. The name order of each author will be reversed. Example: Joyce, James.
j. The only time you reverse the order of the names however is in the Works Cited page.
9) You will not use “I” in the paper in any place other than the introduction or the conclusion
10) This is an extended critical analysis paper that is argumentative in nature. You must include your thesis in the introduction of this paper and again, reworded in the conclusion. The body of your paper will be proving your point.
11) You will not include personal opinion at all.
12) You are relying on the “experts” in the field of literary theory and literature, to support your argument (which is why there should not be any personal opinion).
13) You will title your paper.
a. Make it something interesting, while letting your reader know, at least with a hint what your topic is.
b. You will NOT title your paper the same title as the short story you are working on. That is their work and their title, not yours.
c. You may include their title as part of yours, for instance, Rest Therapy in Sandra Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
The short story that YOU MUST USE IS–The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
(I ATTACHED THE STORY)
The thesis YOU MUST USE IS, “In ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist’s descent into madness is not only a reflection of the societal constraints placed upon women in the 19th century but also a poignant exploration of the consequences of denying women autonomy and agency in their own lives.”