English 1130 Research Essay Instructions

Transcription

1 English 1130 Research Essay Instructions The research essay (1500 words, plus or minus 10%) is a persuasive essay that crafts a critical, researched intervention into one of the final three debates explored in class (Tar Sands/Oil Sands, Gender, or Sports and Nationalism), and grounds this intervention in an existing scholarly debate. This assignment brings together all of the critical reading, writing, and research skills you have been developing all semester. Identify a debate, and then put in your oar : offer your argument in response. The strongest paper will interrogate assumptions, and may use academic pieces to critically analyze the popular ones. Strong papers will explore the complexity of the ideas involved, rather than remaining within superficial common sense thinking. As you seek your spark (your exigence, or reason for writing), consider how you can use the scholarly analysis to engage in a critique of the popular texts. To help you craft this kind of critical intervention into the case, use at least 3 of the 5 peer-reviewed academic articles from your annotated bibliography (more is better). As the library skills session explained, these are scholarly sources that you find independently, such as journal articles or peerreviewed books/book chapters. You can locate these peer-reviewed sources through the library catalogue and the library s online databases such as Academic Search Complete, JSTOR, or subjectspecific databases. The research librarians can help you find the right databases for your subject. More research is better, as long as your own argument is clear. Therefore, you are not limited to only the articles from your annotated bibliography; you can also use other peer-reviewed sources (articles, books, and book chapters) that you find while you are writing the paper. The readings you choose should ground rather than replace your own argument, so use quotations judiciously, explicate fully, and cite all sources used (direct or indirect). It is a good idea to review the WebCT powerpoint on avoiding plagiarism using MLA format. As extra decoration, additional (print or web) sources from reputable non-peer-reviewed publications, such as quality newspaper or magazine articles, or wellresearched journalistic books by reputable authors, are ok if used sparingly. Evaluate sources: avoid web content of questionable value. As you write and research, your ideas will grow and change. Check your thesis statement against the Four Criteria: Strength, Interest/Arguability, Specificity, Manageability. As your thinking develops, revise your working thesis statement and outline to match. You are allowed to use I in your paper, but consider how much work it does for you. Sometimes there is a good reason to use I. For instance, it may lend your paper more strength to use I if you are a student writing about the cost of education; to situate yourself as First Nations or non First Nations when exploring ideas about colonization and decolonization in the classroom; to discuss critically observations about your own experience of gender in a paper about performativity; to discuss critically your relationship to sports and nationalism if you are an athlete or a fan. In some other persuasive situations, the I doesn t do much work for you, so you may gain more traction for your argument by leaving it out and getting right to the point. At this level, we have begun to surpass the degree of precision available in regular dictionaries. For looking up ordinary vocabulary, your dictionary will be useful, but for defining technical language, consult a technical dictionary for your chosen subject. See examples for cultural theory and science. Hand in your paper in hard copy, double spaced, in a regular 12 point font like Garamond or Times, printed on one side of the page. All parts (essay, rough draft, peer edit sheet, etc.) must be handed in stapled together as one submission. Parts handed in separately will not be counted as handed in. Include a word count on the first page. Use MLA format.

2 Structuring your essay See the anatomy of an essay and mickey mouse samples, and use that basic essay structure. Since it is longer, your research paper will, of course, have more body paragraphs than the first essay; remember that the best place to expand and contract your paper is often in the s. Beyond the basic shape of the essay (i.e. the Mickey Mouse format), consider the best way to organize your thoughts to convince your audience. Organization of ideas: Exigence and Audience How you organize your argument will depend on your intended audience and your exigence (reason for writing). What kind of audience do you imagine you are writing to, and what kind of organization would be most effective at convincing them? There are many right ways to organize your paper. Some common kinds of organization that might work well for this paper are: Classification: Paragraphs divide the material into major categories and distinguish between them. Increasing importance: The most important point comes last, thus building the essay's strength. Cause and effect Indicates causal relationships between things and events. Be careful, however, not to mistake coincidence with causality, nor to disregard other possible causes. Comparison and contrast Involves lining up related ideas for a detailed account of similarities and differences. In this kind of essay it is important to decide whether you will be concentrating on similarities or differences. In general, the more similar things are, the more you concentrate on the differences, and vice versa. If you are comparing two works by the same author, or two love poems, for example, what will most interest you will be the differences between them; if you are comparing an Anglo-Saxon riddle with a science fiction novel the differences will be obvious enough that you will want to focus on the similarities. These models of organization can structure your paper as a whole, and/or they can also be combined to structure parts of the paper; for instance, one paragraph might use increasing importance in an essay that uses classification as its larger organizing structure. For help with the stages of planning and organizing your ideas, see shared/assets/the_organizing_stage53848.pdf For more on options for organization of your ideas, see

3 Anatomy of an Essay (also see formatted mickey mouse sample on next page) Lastname page Your name Professor s name Class Date Word Count: (can be plus or minus 10% of assigned word count) Creative Title: Informative Subtitle Introduction: HOOK (grabs the reader : anecdote, story, quote, stat, fact, or they say ). SETTING THE STAGE (can provide context, develop the They Say, or lay groundwork for your I Say ). THESIS STATEMENT with argument and map. Body paragraphs in TT structure: Topic, Examples and Explanation, Transition: Topic Sentence: Threading: remind the reader what this paragraph has to do with your argument Examples (summaries, paraphrases, quotations, evidence, they say, etc.) Explanation of the examples and showing how they relate to your argument (develop I Say ) Transition sentence: does two things: 1. Threading : reminds the reader what this paragraph has to do with your argument 2. Subtly resists closure: I m not done! Keep reading! Something interesting is coming next! Conclusion: Without simply repeating the thesis statement, re-emphasize what your essay is about (the argument) and what you hope the reader will take away from it. Then create closure. Tips: Structure the map and organization of your argument to suit your exigence and audience Audiences from different disciplines (sciences, social sciences, arts & humanities) have different genre expectations for how to structure your paper s overall argument. There are several different ways to do a good job at organization. To get ideas, think about and read samples of the kinds of organization common in your discipline. The pairs usually respect planes of generality : within each paragraph, move from more general to more specific and back out again. There is no rule about how many body paragraphs to use. Use the number of paragraphs you need to make your case. Each paragraph can be between 4-10 sentences depending on how many s you use. To reach word count, expand or trim material in the s of each paragraph.

4 Nifty 1 Nora Nifty Professor James T. Kirk English June 2009 Word Count: 748 words Miserable Mickey: Irony in Mouse s poem Dancing With Ducky. (HOOK) In the words of famous author Trinh T. Minh-ha, [o]ne train may hide another train (Minh-ha 14). In this quotation, Minh-ha argues that the appearance of simplicity or innocence may be a disguise for more complex and dangerous matters. Mickey Mouse s poem Dancing with Ducky is no exception. (SETTING THE STAGE) The poem s main character, Mickey Mouse, is wholly owned by Walt Disney Studios, the international mega-corporation that owns 93% of the world s chocolate pudding (Dumbledore 639). In this poem, Mickey presents what seems at first glance to be a happy portrayal of childhood, the image readers have come to expect from the little squeaky rodent of Mouscapades fame (Granger 106). However, the ultra- innocence of the childhood this poem depicts is too perfect to be real, which suggests an ironic intent. The play of the children, while extremely happy, is stylized and artificial, and the friendships are saccharine, which suggests that the author intends an ironic criticism of the seemingly innocent Mickey Mouse persona. (THESIS STATEMENT): While scholars have traditionally accepted even applauded the poem s apparent innocence, a critical rereading suggests that "Dancing with Ducky" employs an often-overlooked irony in its depiction of childhood, play, and friendship; taking this irony into account reveals the false innocence of the peom s Mickey Mouse persona in the face of the actions of Disney corporation.

5 Nifty 2 Topic: The depiction of children in Mickey Mouse's poem seems sweet at first, but the sweetness is artificial and soon tastes bitter, revealing ironic intent on the part of the author. Example, Explanation () (respect planes of generality ) Transition (almost as general as your topic sentence, but not quite) Topic: The children's play is so stylized that it can't be real, which exposes the ironic message of the speaker. Transition Topic: The friendships described in the poem, which again seem innocent and good at first, are revealed as ironic mockery of friendship when their forced, artificial character is taken into consideration. Transition

6 Nifty 3 Conclusion: (WRAP-UP: bring the reader back to your argument: remind them of how the arguments you ve just presented convince the reader of your I say.) The irony at work in the depictions of childhood, play, and friendship in this poem thus reveal the underlying bitterness of a Mickey Mouse who has been forced to work in inhumane conditions in the hard labour camps of the Disney corporation. (CLOSU RE: the closing statement draws links and opens up to larger context, or uses a famous quotation or expression, or something creative to create closure. Try varying sentence length and word choice, or using other rhetorical strategies such as parallelism or climax, to strengthen the sense of closure. ) Perhaps "Dancing with Ducky" is Mickey's subtle but desperate way to reach out to his audience; perhaps we should read this poem not as a happy product of "Disney magic" but as a piercing cry for help.

7 Nifty 4 Works Cited Dumbledore, Albus. Cocoa Production and Global Media Corporations. Journal of Magical-Industrial Relations 23 (2005): Print. Granger, Hermione. Human Rights for Mice and Men: A History of Slave Labour in the Magical World of Disney. Social Science Quarterly 63 (2004): Print. Minh-ha, Trinh. From Commitment From the Mirror-Writing Box. Landmarks: A Process Reader. Ed. Roberta Birks et al. Toronto: Pearson, Print. Mouse, Mickey. Dancing With Ducky. The Collected Works of Mickey Mouse. New York: Mouskateers Press, Print.