Primary Source Comparison Assignment
Purpose: Writing about competing points of view is crucial to developing your own voice as a writer. This assignment challenges you to find arguments in primary sources that represent different points of view.
Assignment: Write an essay in which you compare/contrast primary sources:
· Reviewer’s Thoughts on Dada
o “Nothing Is Here: Dada Is Its Name.” American Art News, April 2, 1921.
· Duchamp’s Thoughts on Dada
o Marcel Duchamp, from an interview with James Johnson Sweeney, The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol XIII, no. 4-5, 1946, pp. 19-21
o Marcel Duchamp, “The Richard Mutt Case”
Your essay should be 1000-1250 (about three double-spaced pages, 12 point font). Include word count at the end of your paper.
Instructions:
· Your paper should include an introductory paragraph in which you introduce the primary sources and identify the main point of conflict between them.
· After your introduction, you should include body paragraphs in which you cite relevant passages from the sources that highlight this point of conflict. Use their words (but keep it brief…probably no more than one sentence at a time—don’t cite entire paragraphs to take up space!). After you’ve cited a relevant quotation, use your own words to explain why it’s relevant or important to your argument.
· Stay inside the parameters of the assignment. You will not need outside sources (other than the primary sources given) to do this successfully.
· You may pull in specific works from the “Dada, Duchamp, and Readymades” unit we did in class as examples of a particular point that an author is making (though not required).