English 462
18th-Century Literature
Dr. Morillo
Third Paper Assignment
Due by or before NOON on Friday, November 13, in folder
on Tompkins 270 or as an attached file sent in email
Graded, worth 20% of final grade
6 pages, inclusive of Works Cited.
Choose a single published scholarly essay, published no earlier than
1989, from an academic journal or
book chapter (or section) directly about any of the works we've read or
will read that you wish to understand further.
Make two copies of this published work, one on paper or as file for
you, and one on paper for me. Read the published work carefully,
taking notes about its argument. Where do you agree with it? why? where
do you disagree? why?
Write a 5-page critical appraisal of the essay, noting how well it
succeeds or fails at explaining and illuminating the work (or works) of
eighteenth-century literature you chose, as based on your own
understanding of what is important and interesting to know about that
literary text. By all means consider the language and readability of
the published piece, who it's target audience seems to be, and if it is
helpful to students like yourself. Just because it's published
doesn't mean that it's necessarily better than you can do. Your job in
this critical review is two-fold: you need to show that you understand
and can summarize the complete argument of the published text, and that
you can offer informed opinion about its quality as an interpretation
and a piece of writing.
The professional version of this assignment is the academic review,
definitely a current genre with some constant (though not necessarily
agreeable) traits. To see how the pros do it, go to the reviews section
of any of the journals listed below.
Recommended academic journals:
Eighteenth-Century Life
Eighteenth-Century Studies
The Eighteenth-Century: Theory and
Interpretation
Genre
Studies in English Literature
1500-1900
English Literary History
How to
cite an academic article or book chapter in MLA
form for a Works Cited bibliography :
Formula for an article:
Nickel, Terri.
"Pamela as Fetish: Masculine Anxiety
in Henry
Fielding's Shamela and James Parry's The True Anti-Pamela." Studies in Eighteenth-Century
Culture
22 (1992): 37-49.
Note
hanging indent of 2nd and subsequent lines. First
line is flush left.
Note
that any novel title is in italics within the quotation marks
for the article title.
There
is no punctuation between the journal title and the volume
number.
Any
works cited entry ends in a final period.
If the article is in an online periodical: replicate the complete print entry formula, but then 1) if the online version has page numbers, after the inclusive page numbers and period put the name of the hosting site, in italics (e.g. Project Muse, or JSTOR), then the word web for medium, then the date you accessed it, MLA no longer requires the full url (universal resource locator) within angle brackets < >.
Hence:
Tolson,
Nancy.
“Making Books Available: The Role of Early Libraries, Librarians, and
Booksellers in the Promotion of African American Children’s
Literature.” African American Review 32 (1998): 9-16.
JSTOR. Web. 3 April 2008.
A book
chapter, formula:
Author
last name,
First name. “Title of Chapter.” Title of Book in Italics.
Place of publication: Press, year. Inclusive
pages of chapter.
Hence:
Spencer,
Jane. “Wit’s
Mild Empire: the Rise of Women’s Writing.” The
Rise of the Woman Novelist: From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen.
If it’s a
collection of edited essays, after
the essay
title’s period put title of collection; then after title of collection
put Ed.
then Editor’s full name. The place of publication, press, date,
inclusive
pages.
Grundy, Isobel. "Against Beauty:
Eighteenth-Century Fiction Writers Confront the Problem of Woman-as-Sign." ReImagining Women: Representations of Women in Culture. Ed. Shirley Neuman and Glennis Stephenson.