Research Paper Guidelines
Here is a summary of this assignment:
This is a culminating research paper based on your work for the entire semester. Each
student will choose either a poem to analyze or a literary movement to discuss.
(Topics
MUST be different than PowerPoint Presentation topics.) If a poem is chosen, make sure, to include a critical approach (which you should have learned about in ENGL 102)
and at least three literary devices that fit the poem. If a literary movement is chosen, it needs to be more than just a boring history. You still need an original thesis that looks at the topic in an interesting way and has at least three main points that are discussed.
Papers should be 1800-2200 words. The word count does not include the title page or the bibliography. All papers must be submitted to the Learning House site AND the Dropbox on TurnItIn.com no later than 11:59 pm Friday, April 30, 2021.
Guidelines:
·Topic:
Choose either a literary movement studied in class or a poem studied in
class. As stated above, if you choose a poem, you need to analyze it using a
critical approach and at least 3 literary devices (you should have learned about
these in ENGL 102). If you choose a movement, you
cannot
just talk about
people who wrote in that style. A couple of authors can be included in your paper,
but you need to show how they helped expand the movement; they
cannot be the focus of the paper.
·Thesis:
Regardless of your topic, you must have a good thesis statement that
introduces your topic and lists your main points. (You should have learned how to do this in both ENGL 101 and 102.)
·
Sources:
You need to have at least 5 reputable sources. No Wikipedia. Reputable sources mean the information is fact-checked and published by someone who knows what they are talking about. Using sites that end in .gov and .edu are always good choices. Journal articles that can be found on the school library’s website are better to use than websites. Books are more than fine to use as sources as well.
·Citation:
Because this is an English class, you must do in-text citations and a
bibliography that follow MLA standards. There are many places to find how to do this online. I would suggest the OWL at Purdue University’s website.
·Quotes:
If you borrow any information from another source, you must cite it. If
you don’t cite your sources both in-text and in a bibliography,
you will fail the paper.
·General Things:
Papers should be 1800-2200 words long. You must have a
cover page that includes your name, the class name, the assignment title, the due date, and an original, creative title. If you do or don’t add page numbers and headers, you won’t be penalized either way. You
must include a bibliography of all your sources at the end of the paper. The cover page and bibliography do not count toward the word count.
