Outline/Works Cited - due in 36 hours

English 102 Research Paper Assignment

Overview: Students will compose a research paper of at least five full pages and no more than eight pages in which they analyze a popular novel from the list below. Very short synopses of these can be found in Module 1 in the “Course Overview” page:

· Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

· No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

· The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

· The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

· The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

· Atonement by Ian McEwan

Each of these novels has many themes. A theme is an underlying message communicated through a piece of writing. Remember, a theme is rarely stated out loud but is rather implied by a text. The theme of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is to never tell lies. The theme of Titanic is to live in the moment, or not to judge people by social class. The theme of Frozen is the danger of hiding who we really are.

Your job is to read one of these novels, decide what you think the theme is (keeping in mind that a book can have more than one), and then to argue that your interpretation of the theme is the correct one. In your papers up to this point, you have only used quotations directly from the text for your supporting evidence. For this paper, you will still use quotes from the text but you will also add to that outside sources. The idea is to do research and find others writing about the same book (or the same theme in other works) as you are who have similar interpretations. You can then use their interpretations to support your own.

A Note on Longer Papers: Up to this point, you have written short papers. You’ve had three points in your thesis, which translated to just writing three body paragraphs, one paragraph for each point. So how do you expand a paper? You will still have just three thesis points. Each of those points, however, will now translate into multiple paragraphs. Imagine I have the following thesis: “Female empowerment is an important theme in Trifles as evidenced by the women’s defense of Mrs. Wright, the author’s depiction of the male characters as incompetent, and the ultimate justice being served.”

In a short paper, I would just write one paragraph about each point. I would only have to write one paragraph about the women’s defense of Mrs. Wright, for example. In a longer paper, however, I would have multiple paragraphs about the women’s defense of Mrs. Wright. I would try to expand that idea so that one paragraph covers their defense of her household and one paragraph covers their defense of her crime. Therefore, my paper is still divided into three sections, but each section will contain multiple paragraphs relating to the same point instead of just one.

General Guidelines:

· You cannot write about a novel if it is not on my list.

· You cannot even come close to passing the research paper by watching a film version. I intentionally chose books that are very different from their movie versions. There is truly, truly, truly no way around reading a book. Read a book! Read. A. Book.

· You may not do any of your research by Googling or random internet searching. All sources must come from BPCC’s library or library databases. In other words, there should be no websites on your Works Cited Page.

· You must generate your own thesis. I will help you organize your paper, work through your ideas, edit your mechanics, and sharpen your argument, but I will NOT tell you what to write or what the theme of a work is. That is part of your job as a 102 student.

Specific Guidelines:

1) Every outside source you use must have a corresponding entry on your Works Cited page. (Instructions for making a Works Cited page will be covered in the Week 10 module in the MLA Style Powerpoint.)

2) Every quotation from the novel or from an outside source must be placed in quotation marks and given an appropriate citation. (Covered in MLA Style Powerpoint.)

3) All sources must come from BPCC’s library or library databases. (I will provide you with a detailed video on how to do library research from home.)

4) No more than one brief quotation from the text and one brief quotation from an outside source should be included in a single paragraph. Long quotations (longer than three lines) are generally not permitted.

5) Your paper must be five full pages long, but can be longer. If you turn in a four-page paper, I will start grading it at an 80%. If you turn in a three-page paper, I will start grading it at 70%.

6) Any information in the paper from outside sources that is not placed in quotation marks and cited appropriately will be considered intentional plagiarism. Even one plagiarized sentence means that your whole paper is plagiarized, and will receive an automatic zero.