Dr. Morillo
Final Research Paper : Due exam week, TBA
12-15 pages exclusive of Works Cited.
Paper must have a title and a Works Cited section
You will develop your proposal's
research question into a paper engaged with
some idea(s) from Nixon's Novel
Definitions anthology
about the novel, and workable in 12-15 pages.
This final paper will be on a novel or
novels or novelist(s) of your choice, but
will
require that you formulate a thesis. Your choice of topic largely
determines what kind of secondary sources you may need to situate and
depend your argument. A paper of this kind is still rather short, so it
must be selective and focused. It is
only long enough to make a limited number of claims
backed by sufficient evidence, and it is about half the length of the
manuscript of a typical published essay.
This paper is therefore closer to the
territory of the conference paper to read aloud and closer to an
academic writing genre in which you make one good point. One good point
can be rich and absorbing, and the significance of an idea is not a
function of how big it is, but instead how sharp it is. No matter how
much or little you turn to the ongoing critical conversations about
18th-century texts and contexts, be sure that your own voice, staking
and defending your claims, is the dominant one.
Give yourself enough time revise and redraft
ideas, and to proof your
work with your eyes and brain, not just your spellchecker. As the key
work in a professional program your papers are the main evidence for
your professional skills, so show that you care about your work. The
clearest mark of academic written work that is becoming professional is
a correct and accurate bibliography and proper citation form in the
text (MLA for this
paper).
It is highly unlikely that your idea will be so blazingly original that
nothing else is published on or close to it. Aim instead to complement
and perhaps challenge the current state of knowledge by being informed
enough by the thoughts of others while developing a sense of your own
voice and style and its place in ongoing collective debates about
historical texts and contexts.
Argument Advice
Since you are writing neither simple summary nor mere description, you
will need to propose a specific thesis that is the kind of interesting
idea someone could possibly disagree with--something worth arguing and
requiring some evidence to be convincing. I expect a well-stated
thesis in the introduction, so you need to have figured out what you've
concluded about your topic in order to write the most effective
introduction and thesis. So count on revising and rewriting. Very often
you'll find that in an early draft your conclusion makes the best
material for a stronger introduction in the next draft, because the
draft conclusion tends to be more specific and better frames what you
have in fact argued
throughout the text. The more effective your introduction and thesis,
the more time/space you'll have to explain, illustrate, and elaborate
the points in your argument. Assume that your audience is less
interested in slowly discovering what you have to say and more
interested in seeing how you defend and argue for what you've already
stated in summary in your thesis.