This first draft of the proposal should have as defined a thesis as you can manage, and a good start on the bibliography.  It needs to show significant effort and care.  Make two three copies of this draft. You will exchange drafts with a peer in class, and you will keep one, and turn one in.

All proposals will have 3 parts: 1) a title 2) a project description in narrative form 3) a bibliography with no fewer than 25 items, all presented in standard, alphabetized MLA Works Cited format for bibliographic entries.

All proposals will have a limit of 6 pages total, within which you must include all 3 parts listed above. All proposals will be computer printed or typed, collated and stapled. Minimum acceptable font size is 12 point; margins must be standard.

Part 1, Title: a good title provides the reader with more than just the general domain of the paper (e.g. something about Hawthorne, a reading of Middlemarch etc.), it includes one or more key terms from your argument. Imagine your title having to help convince a reader to look at your one argument about, say, Faulkner, out of the many thousand of other arguments in print about Faulkner. For example, John Irwin entitled an excellent book on Faulkner Doubling and Incest/Repetition and Revenge: A speculative reading of Faulkner. Your title need not follow the typical academic formula (title: subtitle) but your title needs to be cogent and enticing.

Part 2, Narrative Description. May be single-spaced text if necessary. This is the most critical part of the text and the one that requires rewriting to be effective. In this section you first propose a thesis. Remember that a thesis, a statement of argument, is a statement that someone could, or better yet, would want to dispute and argue against. Then explain how you plan to explore and defend the proposed thesis while also addressing some other important concerns: what is the warrant for undertaking this project? Does it seek to correct problems in any current critical consensus about a work, author, or idea? Does it undertake any genuinely novel issues? Does it offer a necessary addition to others' work in progress? To effectively address important questions like these you will need to refer to other critics and criticism relevant to your project. If you quote directly from these other opinions, they should be cited parenthetically in MLA-style (author page) within your description text, as long as the source is then listed fully within your Works Cited bibliography.

Your narrative description frames your project as an argument, tells the story of your project, why it matters, what is novel about it, and why others besides yourself and outside your particular circle of knowledge and interest might care about it. Even though you are writing about what you are doing, make the main subject of the narrative the project idea itself rather than yourself as autobiographical subject. It is generally unnecessary to say, "I believe that x, I think that y." For example, note the difference between, "I believe that current Hawthorne studies are woefully inadequate" and "Recently, studies of Hawthorne have failed to address..." The state of Hawthorne studies, not you as individual, is the real focus of interest and therefore better merits being the subject of the sentence.

Remember your audience: educated laypeople. Do not talk down to them, but be vigilant about kinds of jargon that do not translate well across disciplines or fields. Define and explain terms as necessary. Remember that even abstract ideas do not demand abstract terminology to be comprehensible. Use that dictionary.

Part 3, Works Cited Bibliography. Single-space within entries; double between.

This section both shows that you've done the necessary reading in and around your chosen topic to convince others that you know what you're talking about, and demonstrates your mastery of proper MLA-sanctioned entry form. This section is often the most useful to others, because they can see, at a glance, how you arrived at your brilliant ideas. Each bibliography must have a minimum of 25 items--and at least 5 of these have to be electronic sources. Items may be books, articles, reviews, interviews, a discussion thread from an on-line newsgroup, a posted electronic text, a menu from a web page--whatever was necessary to your research. If you're working in truly uncharted territory, you may find that you'll need to turn to more broadly defined studies that parallel or complement your own specific ideas. It is also a very good rule of thumb to include in your bibliography those works in your field from the past 5-10 years that are most relevant to your project, because that's the working definition of the current knowledge in your field, the ideas to which your project is expected to respond and contribute.

If you want a further challenge you may turn in a web-page version of this project, but please also turn in a print copy.

Feel free to ask more questions live, or via email.

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