Annotated Bibliography For Research Paper & Outline for Research Paper

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Research Project

How do I do the research essay?

Your task is to write a biographical, cultural, or historical context research essay.

 The biographical context essay presents research about the life of an author and demonstrates how the author’s life has directly influenced his or her literary work.

 The cultural context essay presents research about the culture (such as religion, race relations, gender relations, economics) of a time period and demonstrates how culture has

directly influenced a literary work.

 The historical context essay presents research about the historical events (such as the American Revolution, the Great Depression, World War II) of a time period and

demonstrates how the historical events have directly influenced a literary work.

DIRECTIONS: Write a five-paragraph research essay on ONE of the following texts.

(Remember, you are NOT summarizing the text. You are examining the author’s biography,

culture, or historical context and its influence on the author’s writings.)

***You may write on any literary text (poem, short story, or play) that is on the list of

readings for the semester. NOTE: You must write on a reading that is found on the

syllabus for this class.***

You will use the literary work as evidence for your three-point thesis. Be sure to argue a thesis

statement that goes beyond the obvious and is worth proving. (Note: The research essay is

worth 200 points toward your overall grade.)

Each body paragraph will be ONE point from the thesis. So you will argue three ways that the

author’s biography, culture, or historical context has influenced his or her writing (three ways 

three-point thesis  three body paragraphs).

Within your research essay, be sure to provide textual support (i.e., direct quotations). You

are required to incorporate at least two direct quotations for EACH body paragraph as evidence

for your claim. You will rely on your own reading of the text, scholarly online books, and

scholarly online articles accessed from a library’s databases (Shelton State Community College,

Stillman College, the University of Alabama, etc.). (See below under SOURCES for more

information.) You will need to quote BOTH the literary text AND the scholarly book/article in

all three body paragraphs, which will give you two direct quotations per body paragraph. (Note:

View page 10 of this document to learn how to cite your direct quotations correctly. The page is

typed in green-colored font.)

EXAMPLE: Let’s take an *imaginary* author called Tucker Smithfield. Smithfield created an

*imaginary* short story called “Three Generations.” In his short story, he has several characters,

including a grandmother who secretly sells illegal liquor out of her basement, a mother who is

put into an insane asylum, and a daughter who runs away when she is sixteen. As you research

Smithfield’s life, you find that he had a childhood friend who came to live with his family at the

age of five because the friend’s mom had a mental breakdown. You can then argue that the

insanity of the mother in the short story “Three Generations” was inspired by his friend whose

Research Project

mom came to live with his family because she had a mental breakdown. This is biographical

context research.

This example about Tucker Smithfield’s friend whose mom had a mental breakdown would be

just one body paragraph. You would need two other points from Smithfield’s life that influenced

his short story. The same format would be followed for the cultural or historical context

research essay.

ESSAY SUBMISSION: Essays should be submitted to Canvas. Each student will have only one

opportunity to submit an assignment to Canvas before the deadline. Therefore, students should be sure

to submit the CORRECT draft of the assignment when they submit.

SUBMISSION: See below for a list of due dates.

Assignment Due Date

Outline for Research Essay Midnight on Sunday, October 27

Annotated Bibliography for Research Essay Midnight on Sunday, October 27

Final Draft of the Research Essay Midnight on Sunday, December 1

SOURCES: You are required to incorporate a minimum of three (3) online books and/or online

articles for this research essay in addition to the actual literary text. (Note: These three

sources will be the same three sources that you use in the Annotated Bibliography that will be

assigned for you to submit. Keep reading to see the requirements of the Annotated

Bibliography.) These online articles are accessed from a library’s resources. Also, you may

access online books through a library’s resources. However, you may not use online

encyclopedias or dictionaries as sources—even if you access them through a library’s

online resources. You may find the following databases helpful: Gale Literary Resources,

Research in Context, Academic Search Premier, and EBSCOHost Search. You are not limited to

these databases! These are simply helpful suggestions.

NOTE: IF YOU CANNOT ACCESS THE ARTICLE OR THE BOOK THROUGH A

LIBRARY’S RESOURCES, THEN YOU CANNOT USE IT IN THIS RESEARCH ESSAY.

DO NOT GO TO GOOGLE, YAHOO, WIKIPEDIA, PBS, OR OTHER RANDOM

WEBSITES. GO TO A LIBRARY’S ONLINE RESOURCES.

IMPORTANT:

In order to get to the SSCC’s library resources to find the online articles and online books you

need for this research essay, go to Shelton State Community College’s website, which is

www.sheltonstate.edu, and then follow these links:

Instruction & WorkforceLibrary ServiceseResourcesAlabama Virtual LibraryAll

Resources

Note: You are not limited to the SSCC library; however, you are limited to online

resources.

http://www.sheltonstate.edu/

Research Project

ESSAY STRUCTURE: You will follow five-paragraph essay structure. All components of

an essay are required: hook, three sentences of background, three-point thesis, transitional

words, topic sentences, the thesis restated in the conclusion, and five sentences minimum per

paragraph. (Note: View page 9 of this document to learn five-paragraph essay structure. The

page is typed in blue-colored font.)

Note: This assignment is not considered a research paper because research papers are longer and

require more sources. This assignment is considered a research essay because you still are

following the five-paragraph essay structure; you are simply incorporating research into the

three body paragraphs.

A Work Cited page is required for this essay. (Note: View page 11 of this document to learn

how to format your Work Cited page correctly. The page is typed in red-colored font.)

The essay should be formatted as a Microsoft Word document so that it can be graded within

Canvas. Essays that are not formatted properly will not be graded, and re-submissions will be

subject to a late penalty. If you do not have Microsoft Word on your personal computer, then

load the essay onto a jump drive/flash drive or email it to yourself as an attachment. Once you

get to campus, you may then open the document on one of the computers and convert the file to

Microsoft Word.

FORMAT: The essay is to follow MLA guidelines for format and documentation. (Note:

View page 12 of this document to learn correct MLA format. The page is typed in black-colored

font.)

Do not use your cell phone to upload documents. There is a glitch that occurs between the

systems.

RECYCLING ESSAYS: Recycling essays is the practice of re-submitting essays for one class that

originally were submitted to another class. Recycled essays will not be accepted—even if the essays were

submitted in a previous semester for the same class with the same instructor.

ESSAY REVIEW POLICY: If students desire feedback, they are welcomed to email the first two

paragraphs (introduction and body paragraph A) of an essay to the instructor for review before the essay’s

due date. However, if a student wants the instructor to review a larger portion of an essay before its due

date, then the student should schedule a face-to-face conference with the instructor before the essay is

due.

RESOURCES: (1) The SOAR Institute, which is located on Shelton State’s Martin Campus,

should be open for free tutoring before this essay’s due date. (2) Smarthinking (an online, 24/7

tutoring program) should be available before this essay’s due date. (3) As always, I am here to

help.

Research Project

How do I do the outline for the research essay?

Provide the information below. Note: The direct quotations below should include specific

words that reflect what is written in the topic sentence. For example, if your topic sentence

mentions money, then the two direct quotations should mention money.

Student’s Last Name Page Number

Student’s Name

Dr. Regina Golar

ENG 102

Day Month Year

INSERT THE TITLE OF YOUR ESSAY HERE.

INCLUDE BIOGRAPHICAL/CULTURAL/HISTORICAL IN THE TITLE.

Hook (direct quotation from a piece of literature, direct quotation from someone famous,

personal short story, or definition):

______________________________________________________________________________

Three-point Thesis:

______________________________________________________________________________

Topic Sentence A (including a transitional word or phrase):

______________________________________________________________________________

Example of Direct Quotation (signal phrase, quoted words, and parenthetical citation): In “The Lives and Times of American Authors,” historian Alvin Blevins explains, “-------” (115).

Direct Quotation from Source A:

______________________________________________________________________________

Direct Quotation from “Poem”/“Short Story”/Drama:

______________________________________________________________________________

Research Project

Topic Sentence B (including a transitional word or phrase):

______________________________________________________________________________

Example of Direct Quotation (signal phrase, quoted words, and parenthetical citation): In “The Lives and Times of American Authors,” historian Alvin Blevins explains, “-------” (115).

Direct Quotation from Source B:

______________________________________________________________________________

Direct Quotation from “Poem”/“Short Story”/Drama:

______________________________________________________________________________

Topic Sentence C (including a transitional word or phrase):

______________________________________________________________________________

Example of Direct Quotation (signal phrase, quoted words, and parenthetical citation): In “The Lives and Times of American Authors,” historian Alvin Blevins explains, “-------” (115).

Direct Quotation from Source C:

______________________________________________________________________________

Direct Quotation from “Poem”/“Short Story”/Drama:

______________________________________________________________________________

Research Project

How do I do the Annotated Bibliography for the research essay?

To begin, let’s understand the terms that are used in this document.

 source – a scholarly book and/or scholarly article

 MLA citation – all the information that states the author’s name, the title of the source, the publisher, the date of publication, etc.

 annotated bibliography – a document that lists the books and articles you plan to use in your research essay; provides a brief summary of each book and article

 summary – sentences that provide the main idea of the book or article

DIRECTIONS: This assignment requires THREE sources from a library’s online resources.

We are limited to online resources because we are an online class. Using online resources is the

only way for the instructor to review the books and articles that you use for the research essay.

Within the Annotated Bibliography, include the following for each source in the order listed:

MLA citation, two sentences of summary for the source, and two sentences that explain how you

will use the source in your research essay.

More Information

MLA citation: Be sure that you cite the sources based on MLA format. Online articles are

NOT cited the same as online books. Many times, you can find the MLA citation at the end of

the article or book. However, if the online source does not provide the MLA citation, then you

can reference Purdue OWL at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/. Click “Research and

Citation;” then click “MLA Style;” then click “MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” The three

MLA citations should be alphabetized based on the authors’ last names.

Two sentences of summary: These two sentences should summarize the parts of the books and

articles that you will use in your research essay. These sentences should provide good,

substantive information. Using a sentence, such as, “This is a source about the life of Tucker

Smithfield,” will earn zero points.

Instead, the sentence should state, “This source about the life of Tucker Smithfield discusses his

childhood years in PLACE, NAME who raised him, and NAME whom he married.

Two sentences about how you will use the source in your research essay: Be as specific as

possible as you state how you will use the source in your essay. For example, stating, “I will use

this source in my essay,” or “I will use this source to tell the reader about Tucker Smithfield,” or

“I will use this source in my thesis” will earn zero points.

If you mention the thesis, then mention the exact argument from the thesis that you will be using

the source to support.

See the next page for a sample Annotated Bibliography.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

Research Project

Student’s Last Name Page Number

Student’s Name

Dr. Regina Golar

ENG 102

Day Month Year

Annotated Bibliography

[NOTE: These are *imaginary* sources to show you how to do this assignment.]

Blevins, Alvin. “The Lives and Times of American Authors.” Journal of American Authors, vol.

54, no. 3. 2012, pp. 105-20. Academic Search Premier, doi:10.1017/D002646X0305966.

Accessed 25 Oct. 2018. Alvin Blevins devotes Chapter 13 to author Tucker Smithfield

and his childhood in Atlanta, Georgia. Blevins explains how the murder of Tucker

Smithfield’s father influenced his writing of “Three Generations.” I will use Blevins’s

article to support my thesis, which argues that the fictional character of Theo McAlister is

actually based on the life of Tucker Smithfield’s father, Adam Smithfield. Also, I will

use Blevins’s article to compare the drinking addiction of fictional character Theo

McAlister to the drug addiction of Tucker Smithfield’s father, Adam Smithfield.

Stewart, James. “Tucker Smithfield: A Biography.” Living in Literature, vol. 22, no. 5. 2001,

pp. 22-40. Literature Online, doi:05.2256/G826972954. Accessed 01 Nov. 2018. In this

article, James Stewart reviews the years that Tucker Smithfield spent in Rome, Italy.

During this time, Tucker Smithfield married Savannah Sylvester and had two sons. I will

use Stewart’s article to argue that the love affair that took place in Tucker Smithfield’s

short story was based on the love affair between Smithfield’s wife and their long-time

Research Project

friend. I will further argue that the wife’s lover in the short story was based on Tucker

Smithfield’s colleague, Timothy Rise.

Young, Heather. From Painter to Publisher: An Examination of Tucker Smithfield. Harcourt

Press, 2000. Accessed 02 Nov. 2018. www.literatureonline.com/tucker-smithfield/.

Heather Young reviews the private journals of Tucker Smithfield from the years 1920-

1945. She relates his personal hobbies to different elements in the works of Tucker

Smithfield. I will use this source to argue that Tucker Smithfield used basketball as a

recurring symbol in his literary works due to his personal love of basketball. Also, I will

argue that he made his protagonist a basketball star in the short story as a way of living

out his personal dreams through the written word.

http://www.literatureonline.com/tucker-smithfield/

Research Project

Five-Paragraph Essay Structure

Note: Each paragraph should have a minimum of five sentences. Paragraph One: Introduction

 Hook –interesting statement that grabs the reader’s attention. The hook should be the very first

sentence(s) of the essay. Here are some ways to create an interesting hook to begin your essay:

o Begin with a quotation from a piece of literature. (Be sure to cite the source!)

 Example: In “Roman Fever,” novelist Edith Wharton writes, “So these two ladies

visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope” (119).

o Begin with a quotation from someone famous. (Be sure to cite the source!)

 Example: Actress and singer Reba McEntire states, “To succeed in life, you need

three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone” (www.brainyquote.com).

o Tell a personal short story. (Keep the story short, and do not get TOO personal!)

o Ask an interesting question. (Make sure the question is actually interesting!)

o Define a word. (Be sure to cite the source!)

 Example: Merriam-Webster dictionary defines heroine as, “the principle female

character in a literary or dramatic work” (“heroine”).

 Background information - provides information about the topic of the essay. The background should

be a minimum of three sentences in length. The background is NOT the hook, and it is NOT the

thesis. The three sentences of background are separate from the hook and the thesis.

 Thesis – main idea of the essay. The thesis should have three points that you plan to discuss in the

essay (point A, point B, and point C). The thesis is never a question; it is a one-sentence statement.

The thesis is the last sentence of the introduction.

Paragraph Two: Point A from the thesis.

 The first sentence of the paragraph is the topic sentence.

o Topic sentenceprovides the main idea of the paragraph.

 Be sure to use a transition in the topic sentence.

o Examples of transitions: First, Second, Next, Also, Last, etc.

 Be sure to use a keyword from the thesis.

o Keywordthe main word(s) stated in point A of the thesis.

Paragraph Three: Point B from the thesis. (See notes above about Point A.)

Paragraph Four: Point C from the thesis. (See notes above about Point A.)

Paragraph Five: Conclusion

The conclusion provides the final thoughts about the topic. Here are ways to create a conclusion:

 Review the main ideas of the essay.

o Restate the thesis. Note: Do NOT restate the thesis word-for-word as stated in introduction;

change the wording and the sentence structure just a bit.

o Summarize main points of the essay. To summarize the main points, take the three points

from the thesis and turn them into three separate sentences.

Note: Be sure that the conclusion has at least five sentences (just like the other paragraphs should have at least

five sentences).

Research Project

Quoting Literature within Your Paragraphs

As you analyze the short story, you will need to quote certain sentences from the short story as

evidence.

Below is a brief review of how to incorporate direct quotations:

1. Include a signal phrase. [Example: Douglass writes, ] 2. State the actual direct quotation. Remember to enclose the borrowed language in

quotation marks. [Example: “--------------” ]

3. Provide a parenthetical citation, which is the page number enclosed in parenthesis. [Example: (75) ]

Be sure to vary the verb that you use in your signal phrase. (See below for a list of verbs that can

be used in a signal phrase.)

acknowledges claims disagrees observes

admits comments disputes points out

Remember that you do not have to follow the 1, 2, 3-model above. You can also follow the 2, 1,

3-model.

Sample

(1) signal phrase: Douglass writes, (2) direct quotation: “I never saw my mother—to know her as such—more than four or five

times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night ”

(3) parenthetical citation: (14). 1, 2, 3 model:

Douglass writes, “I never saw my mother—to know her as such—more than four or five times in

my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night ” (14).

2, 1, 3 model:

“I never saw my mother—to know her as such—more than four or five times in my life; and

each of these times was very short in duration, and at night,” Douglass writes (14).

The FIRST time you mention a source:

Remember, the FIRST time you mention a source, you should include title of the source, a brief

introduction to the author, and the author’s full name:

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, well-known American abolitionist Frederick

Douglass writes, “I never saw my mother—to know her as such—more than four or five times in

my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night” (14).

NOTE: The title of the short story should be enclosed within quotation marks—not

italicized. The titles of books and plays should be italicized.

Research Project

Works Cited

Blevins, Alvin. “The Lives and Times of American Authors.” Journal of American Authors, vol.

54, no. 3. 2012, pp. 105-20. Academic Search Premier, doi:10.1017/D002646X0305966.

Accessed 25 Oct. 2018.

Smithfield, Tucker. “Three Generations.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. 12th ed., edited

by Kelly J. Mays, W.W. Norton & Company, 2016, pp. xx-xx.

Stewart, James. “Tucker Smithfield: A Biography.” Living in Literature, vol. 22, no. 5. 2001,

pp. 22-40. Literature Online, doi:05.2256/G826972954. Accessed 01 Nov. 2018.

Young, Heather. From Painter to Publisher: An Examination of Tucker Smithfield. Harcourt

Press, 2000. Accessed 02 Nov. 2018. www.literatureonline.com/tucker-smithfield/.

****************************

NOTE 1: You have to include the citation for the actual short story from the textbook on the

Works Cited page.

NOTE 2: Other than the short story, the entries on the Works Cited page are the same entries

from the Annotated Bibliography WITHOUT the paragraph of explanation included.

Note 3: The Work Cited should be on its own page—not typed at the bottom of the last page of

the essay.

Note 4: Alphabetize the entries by the last names.

http://www.literatureonline.com/tucker-smithfield/

Research Project

Student’s Last Name Page Number

Student’s Name

Dr. Regina Golar

ENG 102

Day Month Year

Biographical Context of Tucker Smithfield’s “Three Generations”

Introduction

o Hook

o Background Information

o Thesis Statement: Based on the context of his life, it is evident that the murder

of his father, the love affair of his wife, and his personal hobby of basketball all

influenced Tucker Smithfield’s writing of “Three Generations.”

To begin, overcoming the murder of one’s own father is almost impossible to

comprehend, yet Smithfield did so by incorporating the death into his short story “Three

Generations.” In “The Lives and Times of American Authors,” biographer and journalist Alvin

Blevins reviews the murder of Smithfield’s father, Adam Smithfield. Blevins explains that

Adam Smithfield was first a lawyer and later a judge in Dallas, Texas. He explains, “Adam

Smithfield’s tenacity as a lawyer was transferred into his ethics as a judge. His reputation for

justice and equality was far-reaching. However, not everyone commended Smithfield for his

dedication to the judicial system” (56). Blevins goes on to explain that one night after Smithfield

sentenced a notorious gangster to prison, he was found murdered in his home (59). Blevins

notes, “Of all the individuals who could have found the murdered body of Adam Smithfield,

sadly, the horrendous task fell upon the shoulders of his son, Tucker Smithfield” (59). Although

Research Project

he rarely discussed the incident, it is believable that Tucker Smithfield used the death of his

father as the inspiration for the death of Theo McAlister in “Three Generations.” Both

individuals had addictions. Whereas Adam Smithfield would take prescription drugs for chronic

back pain (thereby becoming addicted to them), Theo McAlister would drink every evening for

his chronic depression. Concerning Theo’s death, Smithfield writes, “However, the silky

smoothness of the wine would prove to lull Theo to sleep one time too many as his murderer

led him into an everlasting sleep” (189). Both Adam Smithfield and Theo McAlister had

addictions, and both men were murdered mysteriously. Therefore, it is logical to argue that the

death of his father influenced the writing of Tucker Smithfield’s “Three Generations.”

NOTE 1: Choose biographical, cultural, or historical in the title of the essay so that the

instructor will know how to grade your essay.

NOTE 2: The introduction paragraph was not typed out in the example above. Only body

paragraph A was typed out to show students how to incorporate library research into the

essay. Nevertheless, students will need to type out their introductions completely for the

research essay.

NOTE 3: The keyword murder was typed in red font to demonstrate the close connection

that should exist among the thesis statement, topic sentence, and two direct quotations.

Students do not have to type their keywords in red font.

NOTE 4: When quoting from the library research, be sure to use the author’s complete

sentences—not bits and pieces of the sentences—so that the reader can understand what

the author is saying.