Research Paper: Mini-Draft Guidelines, Sample, and Submission
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SampleResearchPaperMini-Draftrevised.docxLast Name 3
Name
Professor
LIT 2000
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Three Questions:
1. Is my thesis concise enough?
2. Do I reference the historical context correctly?
3. Is my MLA documentation correct?
Where Our Society Is Going: An Analysis of Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is a famous America writer, she has won many awards and she is among the most successful writers in the United States ("Oates, Joyce Carol”). Oates story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is one of the most discussed story and we continue to discuss it today; her story was inspired by one article on Life magazine in 1966, she described it as a psychological realism and realistic allegory (Lane). The story covers the life of a young girl name Connie that is being molested by a guy name Arnold that want to take her away from her family, he is a serial killer according to the origin the article that Oates read. In the end, Arnold intends to kill Connie, but it was her own choice to go with him. Connie chose to go with him and we don’t really know why, so there is a hidden meaning to the moral story. The story may not seem as psychological realism nor a realistic allegory, because is a short fiction but it’s based on true events that we still see today here in America.
The short story reflects some parts of Joyce Oates life. The famous America writer was born in Millersport, New York. She is the oldest of three children and her family lived in a farm ("Oates, Joyce Carol”). The life of a farmer is similar to a small town and the story is based on a small town. In addition, Oates wrote in an article of New York Times Magazine that her parents’ background contributed to a harsh and unsentimental world, that the environment she spent her childhood formed the basis and the setting of many of her novels and stories. Furthermore, she said that her writing is at least in some part an attempt to memorialize her parents' vanished world, not as art but as historical reality ("Oates, Joyce Carol”). As a result, the story “Where Are You Going, Where Are You Been” is at least in some part formed by her childhood life and her relationship with her family. Oates also said “I wish the world were a prettier place, but I wouldn't be honest as a writer if I ignored the actual conditions around me," she is an honest writer and nothing stop her when she writes her novels and stories with forms of brutality as beatings, rapes, incest, murders, and suicides ("Oates, Joyce Carol”). Therefore, most of her writing is from real events that she read, saw, or lived by experienced like her story and the story of Charles Schmid.
Works Cited
Lane, Ann J. "Gender, Power, and Sexuality: First, Do No Harm.” Historical Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, 2016, pp. 173-96. ProQuest, doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 27 Nov. 2016.
Oates, Joyce Carol. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been." Literature
and the Writing Process 8th ed., edited by Day, Susan. St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 193-207.
