For this final assignment, choose Kate Choplin “The awakening” to compose the literary research essay.Explore, discuss, and interpret the way literature written by women reflects the traditions, practices, or ideologies of a given society. While these literary versions offer different insights that define the power and influence of literature in a society, certain fundamental questions arise: Do the writers through their work provoke controversy? Do they genuinely challenge the social situations they address? Does each writer critique issues still plaguing our contemporary society and offer solutions? Do the historical and social backgrounds support the writers’ representation of a particular society? Finally, do these literary works guide readers to see and welcome new perspectives?
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When you are asked to write a “research” essay in college or a university, you are asked to produce an essay with a specific aim. If your only research experience involves reading several articles, copy and type the potentially pertinent parts for your project, you will need to elevate your approach to engage your mind with a literary work and to eventually create a document to reflect your intellect, imagination, reason, judgment and writing skills. The following offer suggestions for the writing of the longer essay for this class. It does not address or offer answers to your writing problems or questions; it is only meant to give you guidance on how to produce a good essay (the suggestions are not limited to this class).
First, this essay is the culmination and final product of “an involved process or research, critical thinking, source evaluation, organization, and composition.”1 You can use primary sources; for example, each of the texts is considered a primary source, and then supplement the topic you will discuss with journal articles found in the CSI databases or from other media. Using primary and secondary sources give your writing distinctive characteristics instead of resembling an article in an encyclopedia. It also gives you, the student, the opportunity to increase your knowledge in a subject area and to possibly lead to unexpected understandings beyond the classroom.
The purpose of writing this type of essay is to engage in academic research practices in order to investigate some aspect in more depth of any of the topics raised in the texts or in our class discussions. A text is not only a book; everything may be classified as a text depending on the way it is “read.” If you have viewed a film version of one of the texts, it can easily address an issue that was relevant when it was written and is still significant in modern times. Please discuss your topic with me as soon as possible.
In addition to the topic you plan to explore, you will locate and use at least three (3) sources using the CSI library research databases such as GoogleScholar or JSTOR or credible Internet resources. The goal here is to ensure you find relevant, reliable, and current research.
Be sure you are making an original claim in your paper, not simply restating other people’s research or repeating accepted ideas. The goal of the research paper is NOT to simply present research or report what others have said about your topic. Instead, as you analyze your topic, use your findings to support your claims. Essential for this assignment will be for you to address the “So What?” question. What might your research, your analysis, and your interpretation add to the conversation of this topic?
ESSAY FORMAT: double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, standard 1-inch margins, double spaced throughout the document, your name, the class (GWS 222- 29785), the date, and pages should be numbered.
CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION
A strong Research Essay will
A strong Research Essay will
– Have an engaging and predictive title.
– Contain a clear, well-supported analysis of an issue related to the reading(s).
– Demonstrate careful thought with evidence of original thinking.
– Discuss the topic by way of the evidence and point to specific claims found in the secondary sources;
– Include an engaging and thoughtful introduction and conclusion that move beyond
simplistic statements of the argument and reiterations of main points.
– Progress logically and smoothly with appropriate transitions indicating connections between ideas
– Use appropriate sentence structure, word choice, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
– Use language that enables clear and effective communication.
– Show significant rewriting of ideas, organization, language, and style.
– Document and integrate source material correctly and effectively both in the essay and in the Works Cited. You can find MLA guidelines for in-text citations and Works Cited entries at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/.
– Meets the 5-8-page length requirement;