Image/Text

Overview

Applying gathered feedback, you will use your outline from the previous step to write an analysis of a medieval manuscript illustration and utilize the source text from the Bible to support it.

Instructions

Images are often created as a part of larger works. This is true of illustrated pages in medieval manuscripts, which correspond to the text of the Bible. Like any visual narrative, these illustrations are an interpretation of a story, but unlike Greek myths, these images are dependent on clearly defined source material that must be interpreted by the artist and viewer. Due to the limitations of the medium, the illustrator must make choices regarding how to tell the story, what parts of the story to tell, and what parts of the story to omit. Those choices often serve the artist’s, patron’s, or broader culture’s ideological motives and priorities.

In this assignment, you will use the outline you wrote in the previous step to write an essay that analyzes the manuscript illustration utilizing both the relevant vocabulary and carefully selected passages from the corresponding text. As with the Mythological Comparison, your paper must have the following: an introduction paragraph with a thesis statement, a formal analysis that supports that thesis, and a conclusion paragraph that reinforces that thesis and provides any additional interpretation to the reader.

Step 1: Review Outline and Instructor Comments

Look at your outline from the previous step along with any instructor comments. Building on your previously acquired skills and knowledge, make sure that your thesis is clear, and specific, and argues something with stakes. Review any instructor comments for guidance on meeting those qualifications. If you need to review the materials on thesis statements from the Mythological Comparison, do so at this time. Feel free to make any changes you need to the thesis statement to write the best paper you can. Once you have a strong thesis statement, review your supporting analysis. Pay special attention to instructor comments on quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing, and review the resources from the Purdue OwlLinks to an external site.. If you significantly edited or rewrote your thesis, be sure that your supporting points still argue the thesis statement you currently have. You may want to return to the image and text (Genesis, Chapters 7-9Links to an external site.) to make sure you have all of the important points to support your argument.

Writing your paper

Using your reviewed and edited outline, write your paper. As you write your paper, make sure you have a strong introduction that sets up your topic and thesis statement, providing any background information about the myth or images necessary to understand your analysis. Your introduction should be around 150 to 200 words long. For your supporting analysis, remember to utilize the relevant vocabulary you have already learned and effectively transition from one point to another. Effective transitions help you connect the individual points of your argument and the argument as a whole. The Purdue Owl Links to an external site.provides some good background on transitions and useful devices for writing strong transitions.

Your supporting analysis should be 1000-1500 words long. Your paper should end with a strong conclusion that wraps up any of your points, reinforces the argument, and provides any additional interpretation you would like to leave your reader. The conclusion should be 150 to 200 words long and not have any new points or supporting information.

Citations

The Bible is a bit of a different animal when it comes to citations. In many ways, this is easier. There is only one footnote format you need to know.

1Book Title Chapter: Verse Version.

For this particular assignment, a footnote might look something like this:

1Genesis 7:2 NRSV.

At the end of your paper, this should be in your Works Cited:

Exodus. In The Holy Bible: NRSV, New Revised Standard Version. New York: Harper Bibles, 2007.