Your Third Essay for our class will be a Research Essay. We save the Research Essay for last because this Essay combines the skills you’ve worked on so far:
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Analysis: For the Research Essay, you will be developing an interpretation of some aspect of Vision. To develop and present this interpretation, you will have to engage in analysis of King et al.’s text.
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Critical Analysis: For the Research Essay, you will be combining outside sources into your essay. To incorporate those sources effectively, you will have to critically analyze the arguments in those sources to identify which arguments will best support your own arguments.
As with the previous essays, here’s what I’ll be looking for:
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An innovative, non-obvious thesis based on on your own interpretations supported with outside research. A key part of successful academic writing is supporting your interpretations with the interpretations of others. The Research Essay will allow you to continue to improve in this area.
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Thorough explanations of your thought process and your sources: One common mistake students make in research essays is mentioning each source just once in order to tick the box, and then spending the rest of the essay just talking about the student’s own beliefs. In contrast, an effective Research Essay will regularly synthesize sources and your own interpretations. Your sources should not just be one small thing somewhere in the introduction, never to be heard from again. Instead, your sources should be, as much as possible, a regular presence in most or all of your paragraphs.
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A focused essay that writes “a lot about a little”: Focus your essay on just one part of the graphic novel. Don’t try to explain all of Vision. Instead, try to explore just one small piece of Vision.
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“A small piece” can mean either one specific moment in the graphic novel (a specific scene or character or image), or one specific idea that is then supported with different moments from throughout the graphic novel. Sometimes students ask me “Do I have to write about only one scene?” The answer to that question is no. You can include multiple scenes in your essay, but if you do, all of those scenes should be linked to one single idea.
Assignment Directions
Here are the other requirements for your essay:
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2000-2500 words in length.
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Essays under 2000 words will struggle in terms of grade.
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There is a hard cap of 2700 words total: this total includes the Works Cited page.
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Use at least three outside sources in addition to Vision.
A primary place to find academic sources is the databases we explored in Lab Exercise #9 – Exploring Databases.