Literature
Paper;
That is, they should have a point tomake about a particular work or works from the syllabus, and should supportthat point with an analysis of evidence from the text. The point you want to make will be yourthesis, and a thesis must be debatablethat is, it must be something that isnot obviously true or merely factual, but something that a reasonable person mightnot agree with, and that is therefore worth demonstrating with your analysis oftextual evidence.
A merely factual statement: Medeamurders her children in order to punish Jason for betraying her.
A thesis statement: Medea is drivento violence because, as a woman and a foreigner, she has no status in ancientGreek society, and this leaves her with no legal or civilized way to resistJasons betrayal.
Another thesis statement: Medea isdriven to violence by what the Chorus would call excessive loveby a level ofpassion that cannot be restrained by reason.
The evidence you will analyze tosupport your thesis will be facts from the text: facts of language,description, and action. When the specificlanguage of the text is especially important, quotations can be an essentialform of evidence. As a rule, though, youshould quote the text directly only when its exact wording is significant. Otherwise, descriptions of characters,setting, etc., and the action of the text, can be paraphrased orsummarized. Do not summarize the wholeplot, though: use only the evidence that bears directly on your thesis. But note that evidence that might seem tocontradict your thesis is relevant: by addressing its presence, and explainingeither that it does not in fact conflict with your thesis or acknowledging thatit might point to alternative interpretations, the way in which you deal withsuch conflicting evidence and potential counterarguments can demonstrate toyour reader that you have considered alternatives to your thesis rather thansimply overlooked or ignored them.
A note on conventions regardingtitles of works: titles of book-length works (novels, plays, epic poems,book-length essays, etc.) and of films should be italicized or underlinedwithout quotation marks, while the titles of shorter works (short stories,lyric poems, less-than-book length essays) should be placed in quotation marks,and not italicized or underlined. Thetitles of works on the course calendar exemplify these conventions.
Paper Titles and Citation Format
Papers should have titles that givesome idea of what the papers subject will benot just the topic, but what youare going to say about the topic. Titlessuch as Paper #1 and Young Goodman Brown are not informative. Young Goodman Browns Descent into Despairwould be a better title.
Even if you are not using secondarysources (and I do not require that in this course), you should still have oneWork Cited: the text you are analyzing is your primary source. At the end of the paper, under the headingWork[s] Cited, you should give publication information on your source asfollows.
It is acceptable to use italics whereI have used underlining. Underlining isoften the recommended option because italics do not show clearly with somefonts.
A short story in an anthology:
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. YoungGoodman Brown. 40 Short Stories. 5th ed. Ed. Beverly Lawn. Boston / NewYork: Bedford / St. Martins, 2017. 1-13.
A book-length work (novel, play,book-length essay, book-length poem):
Euripides. Medea. Trans. Rex Warner. New York: Dover Publications, 1993.
Kincaid, Jamaica. A SmallPlace. New York: Farrar, Straus andGiroux, 1988.
A film:
Into the Wild. Dir. Sean Penn. ParamountVantage, 2007.
If additional information, such as the names of writer, performers, orproducer, is relevant, it can be included between the films title and the nameof the distributor:
The Mission. Screenplay by Sir Robert Bolt. Dir. Roland Joff. Prod. Fernando Ghia, David Puttnam. Perf.Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally. Warner Bros., 1986.
A poem or reading from Blackboard:
Whitman, Walt. Give Me theSplendid Silent Sun. <https://blackboard.ric.edu/bbcswebdav>
The Children of the Sun. <https://blackboard.ric.edu/bbcswebdav>
Whitman, Walt. When I Heard theLearnd Astronomer. Poetry Foundation.<http//www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174747>
Use MLA citation format.
When using only a primary source,citations in the text usually refer to page numbers. When citing a poem with numbered lines, referto line numbers; when citing a play with numbered acts, scenes, and lines,refer to all three (e.g. 1.2.3-5 would mean act one, scene two, lines threethrough five).