Showing posts with label Handouts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Handouts. Show all posts

Monday, February 18, 2013

Writing Research Papers/ Citing Sources

What Makes a Good Literature Paper?

 
 
The following material is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/). When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice at bottom.
 
Contributors:Purdue OWL.
 
Summary:
 
This handout provides examples and description about writing papers in literature. It discusses research topics, how to begin to research, how to use information, and formatting.
 
An argument
 
When you write an extended literary essay, often one requiring research, you are essentially making an argument. You are arguing that your perspective-an interpretation, an evaluative judgment, or a critical evaluation-is a valid one.
 
A debatable thesis statement
 
Like any argument paper you have ever written for a first-year composition course, you must have a specific, detailed thesis statement that reveals your perspective, and, like any good argument, your perspective must be one which is debatable.
 
Examples
 
You would not want to make an argument of this sort:
 
Shakespeare's Hamlet is a play about a young man who seeks revenge.
 
That doesn't say anything-it's basically just a summary and is hardly debatable.
 
A better thesis would be this:
 
Hamlet experiences internal conflict because he is in love with his mother.
 
That is debatable, controversial even. The rest of a paper with this argument as its thesis will be an attempt to show, using specific examples from the text and evidence from scholars, (1) how Hamlet is in love with his mother, (2) why he's in love with her, and (3) what implications there are for reading the play in this manner.
 
You also want to avoid a thesis statement like this:
 
Spirituality means different things to different people. King Lear, The Book of Romans, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance each view the spirit differently.
 
Again, that says nothing that's not already self-evident. Why bother writing a paper about that? You're not writing an essay to list works that have nothing in common other than a general topic like "spirituality." You want to find certain works or authors that, while they may have several differences, do have some specific, unifying point. That point is your thesis.
 
A better thesis would be this:
 
Lear, Romans, and Zen each view the soul as the center of human personality.
 
Then you prove it, using examples from the texts that show that the soul is the center of personality.
 
Contributors:Purdue OWL.
 
Summary:
 
This handout provides examples and description about writing papers in literature. It discusses research topics, how to begin to research, how to use information, and formatting.
 
On Literature Topics and Research
 
What kinds of topics are good ones?
 
The best topics are ones that originate out of your own reading of a work of literature, but here are some common approaches to consider:
 
• A discussion of a work's characters: are they realistic, symbolic, historically-based?
 
• A comparison/contrast of the choices different authors or characters make in a work
 
• A reading of a work based on an outside philosophical perspective (Ex. how would a Freudian read Hamlet?)
 
• A study of the sources or historical events that occasioned a particular work (Ex. comparing G.B. Shaw's Pygmalion with the original Greek myth of Pygmalion)
 
• An analysis of a specific image occurring in several works (Ex. the use of moon imagery in certain plays, poems, novels)
 
• A "deconstruction" of a particular work (Ex. unfolding an underlying racist worldview in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness)
 
• A reading from a political perspective (Ex. how would a Marxist read William Blake's "London"?)
 
• A study of the social, political, or economic context in which a work was written — how does the context influence the work?
 
How do I start research?
 
• The Internet
 
Once you have decided on an interesting topic and work (or works), the best place to start is probably the Internet. Here you can usually find basic biographical data on authors, brief summaries of works, possibly some rudimentary analyses, and even bibliographies of sources related to your topic.
 
• The library
 
The Internet, however, rarely offers serious direct scholarship; you will have to use sources found in the library, sources like journal articles and scholarly books, to get information that you can use to build your own scholarship-your literary paper. Consult the library's on-line catalog and the MLA Periodical Index. Avoid citing dictionary or encyclopedic sources in your final paper.
 
How do I use the information I find?
 
The secondary sources you find are only to be used as an aid. Your thoughts should make up most of the essay. As you develop your thesis, you will bring in the ideas of the scholars to back up what you have already said.
 
For example, say you are arguing that Huck Finn is a Christ figure; that's your basic thesis. You give evidence from the novel that allows this reading, and then, at the right place, you might say the following, a paraphrase:
 
According to Susan Thomas, Huck sacrifices himself because he wants to set Jim free (129).
 
If the scholar states an important idea in a memorable way, use a direct quote.
 
"Huck's altruism and feelings of compassion for Jim force him to surrender to the danger" (Thomas 129).
 
Either way, you will then link that idea to your thesis.
 
Contributors:Purdue OWL.
 
Summary:
 
This handout provides examples and description about writing papers in literature. It discusses research topics, how to begin to research, how to use information, and formatting.
 
Literature Paper Formatting
 
What about the MLA format?
 
All research papers on literature use the MLA format, as it is the universal citation method for the field of literary studies. Whenever you use a primary or secondary source, whether you are quoting or paraphrasing, you will make parenthetical citations in the MLA format [Ex. (Smith 67).] Your Works Cited list will be the last page of your essay. Consult the section on Citing Sources/ MLA farther down this page for further instructions.
 
Note, however, the following minor things about the MLA format:
 
• Titles of books, plays, or works published singularly (not anthologized) should be underlined. (Ex. Hamlet, Great Expectations)
 
• Titles of poems, short stories, or works published in an anthology will have quotation marks around them. (Ex. "Ode on a Nightingale," "The Cask of Amontillado")
 
• All pages in your essay should have your last name the page number in the top right hand corner. (Ex. Jones 12)
 
Tip
 
If you're using Microsoft Word, you can easily include your name and page number on each page by following the these steps:
 
1. Open "View" (on the top menu).
 
2. Open "Header and Footer." (A box will appear at the top of the page you're on. And a "Header and Footer" menu box will also appear).
 
3. Click on the "allign right" button at the top of the screen. (If you're not sure which button it is, hold the mouse over the buttons and a small window should pop up telling you which button you're on.)
 
4. Type in your last name and a space.
 
5. Click on the "#" button which is located on the "Header and Footer" menu box. It will insert the appropriate page number.
 
6. Click "Close" on the "Header and Footer" window.
 
That's all you need to do. Word will automatically insert your name and the page number on every page of your document.
 
What else should I remember?
 
• Don't leave a quote or paraphrase by itself-you must introduce it, explain it, and show how it relates to your thesis.
 
• Block format all quotations of more than four lines.
 
• When you quote brief passages of poetry, line and stanza divisions are shown as a slash (Ex. "Roses are red, / Violets are blue / You love me / And I like you").
 
• For more help, see the OWL handout on using quotes.
 
 
 

Citing Sources MLA Style

 
(For an authoritative explanation of MLA style, see the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, available for purchase at )
 
 
In-text citation:
 
In MLA style, referring to the works of others in your text is done in two ways. When you make reference to someone else's ideas, either through paraphrasing or quoting them directly, you:
 
• provide the author's name (or the title of the work) and the page (or paragraph) number of the work in a parenthetical citation
 
• provide full citation information for the work in your Works Cited list
 
This allows people to know which sources you used in writing your essay and then be able to look them up themselves, so that they can use them in their scholarly work. Here are some basic guidelines for referring to the works of others in your text.
 
Parenthetical Citations
 
MLA format follows the author-page method of citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear in your works cited list (see Creating Works Cited Pages, below). The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:
 
Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).
 
Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).
 
Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).
 
If the work you are making reference to has no author, use an abbreviated version of the work's title. For non-print sources, such as films, TV series, pictures, or other media, or electronic sources, include the name that begins the entry in the Works Cited page. For example:
 
An anonymous Wordsworth critic once argued that his poems were too emotional ("Wordsworth Is A Loser" 100).
 
Sometimes you may have to use an indirect quotation. An indirect quotation is a quotation that you found in another source that was quoting from the original. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source. For example:
 
Ravitch argues that high schools are pressured to act as "social service centers, and they don't do that well" (qtd.in Weisman 259).
 
 

Creating Works Cited Pages

 
Formatting your works cited list:
 
• Begin your works cited list on a separate page from the text of the essay.
 
• Label the works cited list Works Cited (do not underline the words Works Cited nor put them in quotation marks) and center the words Works Cited at the top of the page.
 
• Double space all entries and do not skip spaces between entries. Arrange the items on your Works Cited list alphabetically by author, interfiling books, articles, etc.
 
• Indent the second and all following lines of each entry 5 spaces (or one half inch). To do this you usually can just hit the Tab key on the upper left-hand corner of the keyboard.
 
• If no author is given, start with the title.
 
 Abbreviate the names of all months except May, June, and July.
 
 Websites: include the title of the web page, the name of the entire web site, the organization that posted it (this may be the same as the name of the website). Also include the full date the page was created or last updated (day, month, year if available) and the date you looked at it.
 
 As for page numbers, different databases will provide different information. Include the range of pages (ex. 25-28.); or the starting page followed by a hyphen, a blank space, and a period (ex. 64-. If no page information is given, then leave it out.
 
 For documents and situations not listed here, see the printed version of the MLA Style manual.
 
Samples of the most common types of citations appear below (beginning on a new page, just as your own Works Cited page will)
 
 

Works Cited

 
(This is a sample. You of course would not include the identifier of (Book) or (Article) on your real Works Cited page, and the entries would be in alphabetical order.  The formatting, however, is to be followed down to the placement of periods and use of italics.)
 
(Book)
 
Okuda, Michael, and Denise Okuda. Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future. New York: Pocket, 1993.
 
(Journal Article)
 
Wilcox, Rhonda V. "Shifting Roles and Synthetic Women in Star Trek: The Next Generation." Studies in Popular Culture 13.2 (1991): 53-65.
 
(Newspaper or Magazine Article)
 
Di Rado, Alicia. "Trekking through College: Classes Explore Modern Society Using the World of Star Trek." Los Angeles Times 15 Mar. 1995: A3.
 
(Book Article or Chapter)
 
James, Nancy E. "Two Sides of Paradise: The Eden Myth According to Kirk and Spock." Spectrum of the Fantastic. Ed. Donald Palumbo. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988. 219-223.
 
(Website)
 
Lynch, Tim. "DSN Trials and Tribble-ations Review." Psi Phi: Bradley's Science Fiction Club. 1996. Bradley University. 8 Oct. 1997 .
 
(Newspaper or Magazine Article on the Internet)
 
Andreadis, Athena. "The Enterprise Finds Twin Earths Everywhere It Goes, But Future Colonizers of Distant Planets Won't Be So Lucky." Astronomy Jan. 1999: 64- . Academic Universe. Lexis-Nexis. B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Lib., Brookville, NY. 7 Feb. 1999 .
 
___________________________________________________________________________________
 
(Some material for this cheat sheet was stolen from the Long Island University C W Post campus website: < http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citmla.htm> and Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab website < http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_mla.html>.  We thank and acknowledge them.)

Symbol, Allegory, Archetype

Symbol, Allegory, Archetype



From The Literary Apprentice http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/fitchf/readlit/symbol1.htm

________________________________________

What are symbols? Why are they so powerful? Why do some readers relate strongly to symbols while others are reluctant to open their reading of literature to such meanings? What are the most fundamental distinctions we can make in talking about symbols in literature and what are some methods for determining if, indeed, our identifications and interpretations of symbols are warranted?

• What exactly are symbols and how do they differ from ordinary language and other figures of speech?

• How can we determine if a text invites a symbolic reading?

• How can we distinguish various types of symbols such as personal, conventional, cultural, archetypal and allegorical?

These are some of the questions we hope to answer. New readers of fiction are often thrilled by the power of symbols to point to larger meanings. In language and culture in general, when we strive to express great significance, meanings that can transcend our power to explain them in mere words, we turn to symbols.

Image vs. Symbol: In discussing fiction, it is best to start with symbols rather than other figures of speech though symbols are often discussed with other figures of speech. Janet Burroway again is very helpful for the clear way she distinguishes symbols from other figures of speech:

A symbol differs from metaphor and simile in that it need not contain a comparison. A symbol is an object or event that, by virtue of association, represents something more or something other than itself. (273)

She goes on to explain that although the cross, for example, can symbolize Christianity, its symbolic meaning does not arise from a comparison. The cross is "not similar to redemption" (273). If, in your personal life, a particular stuffed toy comes to symbolize your relationship with someone, it is not because the relationship is like the stuffed toy in any way, but rather because you have, for some reason, associated it with the relationship. Perhaps it was gift that came to express more than itself. Relationships often acquire such things: songs, places, rocks, anything, in fact. It becomes your personal symbol of your love because no one else is aware of its special meaning. In that sense all souvenirs aspire to be symbols of your experiences. But these things can be quite arbitrary and are associated by a mere physical presence in the relationship.

Holmon and Harmon define a symbol as "something that is itself and also stands for something else. . . . In a literary sense a symbol combines a literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive aspect." They also go on to say, "it is advisable to distinguish symbol from IMAGE, ALLEGORY, AND METAPHOR" adding two more concepts to the distinction Burroway makes. This is how they distinguish symbol from IMAGE.

If we consider an image to have a concrete referent in the objective world and to function as image when it powerfully evokes that referent, then a symbol is like an image in doing the same thing but different from it in going beyond the evoking of the objective referent by making the referent suggest a meaning beyond itself; in other words, a symbol is an image that evokes an objective, concrete reality and prompts that reality to suggest another level of meaning. (Holman and Harmon)

Without images there would be no literature at all, much less symbols. To Holman and Harmon images are either literal or figurative. The literal image calls up "a sensory representation of the literal object or sensation" while the figurative image involves us in a "turn" toward this other meaning. In "Young Goodman Brown" he takes a walk down "a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind it."(8) This is an image of the path with its "trees." Does the path "turn" to another meaning? Do the trees? If so, they are symbolic.

One important idea here is that symbols begin with imagery. The reader is rarely told directly that the image also suggests another level of meaning; instead the image functions in the play of literal meanings in the narrative. Brown walks on the path. The image is particular, concrete, and sensuous. But does it have symbolic associations? Here you must make interpretive decisions. Your tendency to be willing to let an image reach beyond the literal may have as much to do with your own cognitive style as with the shape of the text.

[ ... ]

The Norton Introduction to Literature (Jerome Beaty, J. Paul Hunter. The Norton Introduction to Literature, Seventh Edition, 1999) textbook gives readers this excellent advice:

A single item, even something as traditionally fraught with meaning as a snake or a rose, becomes a symbol only when its potentially symbolic meaning is confirmed by something else in the story, just as a point needs a second point to define a line. (184-bold type is my emphasis.)

Reading for symbols then becomes a matter of connecting the dots, so to speak, to form patterns. Beaty and Hunter say that two ways that the symbol can be confirmed are through repetition and through explicit statement. Look over, for example, the titles of many of the stories you may have read. Almost always a title is an invitation to think about an image from the story in terms of symbolic meaning. A title repeats an element in the story, and it is an explicit statement by the writer of significance. So if the title names "the yellow wall-paper" we can be sure that the writer is nudging us toward a closer examination of this image for its symbolic status.

Symbol vs Allegory: The second term which Holman and Harmon distinguish the symbol from is ALLEGORY.

They distinguish the symbol from allegory this way: "In allegory the objective referent evoked is without value until it is translated into the fixed meaning that it has in its own particular structure of ideas." In allegory, it seems to me, the goal of the work is to bring the reader to that "particular structure of ideas," and, in that case, the reader who tends to read literally is likely to miss the point entirely. That is a hard thing to do, by the way, since the allegorist is usually pointing all the time to this other level of meaning. Allegory is:

A form of extended METAPHOR in which objects, persons, and actions in a NARRATIVE are equated with meanings that lie outside the NARRATIVE itself. Thus, it represents one thing in the guise of another--an abstraction in that of a concrete IMAGE. By a process of double signification, the order of words represents actions and characters, and they, in turn, represent ideas. Allegory often clarifies this process by giving patently meaningful names to persons and places. (Holman and Harman, emphasis mine)

Have you heard of John Bunyon's The Pilgrim's Progress, a Seventeenth Century work? It is probably the most famous allegory. That should give you a clue that allegories are not as popular as they once were. Perhaps you have read a work like George Orwell's Animal Farm, however, a political allegory in which animals on a farm take over and attempt an ideal state. It was also made into a movie for TV recently. Here are more definitions of allegory.

Symbol vs Archetype: As symbols attain a cultural life beyond any particular work of the imagination, they can become archetypes. Not all conventional symbols would be called archetypes. At this site, for example, we find a dictinary of symbols (Dictionary of Symbolism, Allison Protas, Geoff Brown, Jamie Smith, and Eric Jaffe (2001) ). If you explore it you will find fairly obvious and standard interpretations for common objects. But keep in mind that dictionaries such as this one are all culturally determined. The color symbolism, for example, will hardly ever translate from one culture the next. [...]

But archetypes are hypothesized as transcendent symbols. We might see Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown as allegory, but also myth, and archetype. As the structure of ideas which a set of symbols in an allegory convey through characters and their narratives becomes more associated with spiritual and cosmic significance, as well as with cross cultural patterns of significance, the allegory becomes mythic and archetypal. In fact, an entire area of literary criticism tries to uncover the universal or collective unconscious patterns of symbol and allegory that lie behind all cultures' narrative and artistic production. Sometimes called Archetypal or Myth Criticism, or Jungian Criticism, it is associated with major scholars such as Carl Jung, Northrup Frye and Joseph Campbell. The famous concept of the quest or journey motif, which structures "Young Goodman Brown," is one of the major common patterns which a critic such as Joseph Campbell has traced in his famous book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. You may want to read about one of the basic structuring stories behind YGB: The story of man's fall in the Garden of Eden. Clearly you can also read this story in Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3.



Why Will You Say That He Is Mad?

Why Will You Say That He Is Mad?: Re-examining "The Tell-Tale Heart"


Susan Amper, Bronx Community College, CUNY (Abstract)

From 1838 to 1844 Poe lived and worked in Philadelphia. "The Tell-Tale Heart" was written in Philadelphia at a time when the public was all abuzz about the issue of insanity as a defense against a charge of murder. Prior to 1835, insanity pleas had been entered only in the defense of idiots or raving maniacs. The situation changed beginning in 1835 with the publication of a book by James Cowles Prichard that popularized the notion of "moral insanity," a condition in which a person, while retaining his intellectual faculties, is nevertheless considered incapable of conducting himself with decency or propriety. The concept quickly became the focus of extensive political, social and theological debate, which filled thousands of pages of publications both serious and otherwise.

Nowhere was the controversy hotter than in the legal arena, where defenses on the grounds of "moral insanity" began leading to acquittals of violent criminals who seemed in perfect possession of their senses. Public suspicion of deception in such insanity pleas became widespread, and by 1840 trials featuring such defenses were major events, their proceedings splashed in detail across the front pages of the nation's daily newspapers. In the highly publicized trial of Singleton Mercer in Philadelphia in March, 1843, two months after Poe's story, "The Tell Tale Heart," appeared, the defense attorney himself acknowledged in his opening statement that the insanity defense had become "an object of ridicule," for having been used where no insanity existed. Poe's own knowledge and interest in the topic is beyond question: he actually reported on the case of James Wood (found not guilty of the murder of his daughter by reason of insanity) in Alexander's Weekly Messenger in April, 1840.

Philadelphia, then, and the happenings in the legal arena surely affected Poe's writing of "The Tell-Tale Heart." The story begins with a question: "Why will you say that I am mad?" Yet this question and the denial it implies have given modern readers little pause. Critical opinion is unanimous, and usually unhesitating, in pronouncing the narrator of the tale mad. On the contrary, there is much room for doubt, and I will argue that the narrator merely feigned madness to escape punishment. Such a reading finds strong support in the text, and the historical context corroborates such a reading.





Close Reading

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/). When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice at bottom.

Contributors:Purdue OWL.

Summary:

This handout covers major topics relating to writing about fiction. This covers prewriting, close reading, thesis development, drafting, and common pitfalls to avoid.

Close Reading a Text and Avoiding Pitfalls


(Also see the OWL handout on Writing about Literature and the OWL handout on Literary Terms.)

Writing about a story or novel can be difficult because fiction is generally very complex and usually includes several points or themes. To discover these interwoven meanings, you must read the work closely. Below are three techniques for reading fiction actively and critically. Close reading takes more time than quick, superficial reading, but doing a close reading will save you from a lot of frustration and anxiety when you begin to develop your thesis.

Close Reading a Text

Use these "tracking" methods to yield a richer understanding of the text and lay a solid ground work for your thesis.

1. Use a highlighter, but only after you've read for comprehension. The point of highlighting at this stage is to note key passages, phrases, turning points in the story.

Pitfalls:

Highlighting too much

Highlighting without notes in the margins

2. Write marginal notes in the text.

These should be questions, comments, dialogue with the text itself.

A paragraph from Doris Lessing's short story "A Woman on a Roof" serves as an example:

The second paragraph could have a note from the reader like this:

Marginal Notes Text

Why is the man annoyed by the sunbather? Is Lessing commenting on sexist attitudes? Then they saw her, between chimneys, about fifty yards away. She lay face down on a brown blanket. They could see the top part of her: black hair, aflushed solid back, arms spread out.

"She's stark naked," said Stanley, sounding annoyed.



3. Keep a notebook for freewrite summaries and response entries.

Write quickly after your reading: ask questions, attempt answers and make comments about whatever catches your attention. A good question to begin with when writing response entries is "What point does the author seem to be making?"

4. Step back.

After close reading and annotating, can you now make a statement about the story's meaning? Is the author commenting on a certain type of person or situation? What is that comment?

Avoiding Pitfalls

These four common assumptions about writing about fiction interfere with rather than help the writer. Learn to avoid them.

1. Plot Summary Syndrome

Assumes that the main task is simply recalling what happened in detail. Plot summary is just one of the requirements of writing about fiction, not the intended goal.

2. Right Answer Roulette

Assumes that writing about fiction is a "no win" game in which the student writer is forced to try to guess the RIGHT ANSWER that only the professor knows.

3. The "Everything is Subjective" Shuffle

Assumes that ANY interpretation of any literary piece is purely whimsy or personal taste. It ignores the necessity of testing each part of an interpretation against the whole text, as well as the need to validate each idea by reference to specifics from the text or quotations and discussion from the text.

4. The "How Can You Write 500 Words About One Short Story?" Blues

Assumes that writing the paper is only a way of stating the answer rather than an opportunity to explore an idea or explain what your own ideas are and why you have them. This sometimes leads to "padding," repeating the same idea in different words or worse, indiscriminate "expert" quoting: using too many quotes or quotes that are too long with little or no discussion.

Contributors:Purdue OWL.

Summary:

This handout covers major topics relating to writing about fiction. This covers prewriting, close reading, thesis development, drafting, and common pitfalls to avoid.

Developing a Thesis

1. Once you've read the story or novel closely, look back over your notes for patterns of questions or ideas that interest you. Have most of your questions been about the characters, how they develop or change?

For example:

If you are reading Conrad's The Secret Agent, do you seem to be most interested in what the author has to say about society? Choose a pattern of ideas and express it in the form of a question and an answer such as the following:

Question: What does Conrad seem to be suggesting about early 20th century London society in his novel The Secret Agent?

Answer: Conrad suggests that all classes of society are corrupt.

Pitfalls:

Choosing too many ideas.

Choosing an idea without any support.

2. Once you have some general points to focus on, write your possible ideas and answer them.

For example:

Question: How does Conrad develop the idea that all classes of society are corrupt?

Answer: He uses images of beasts and cannibalism whether he's describing socialites, policemen or secret agents.

3. To write your thesis statement, all you have to do is turn the question and answer around. You've already given the answer, now just put it in a sentence (or a couple of sentences) so that the thesis of your paper is clear.

For example:

In his novel, The Secret Agent, Conrad uses beast and cannibal imagery to describe the characters and their relationships to each other. This pattern of images suggests that Conrad saw corruption in every level of early twentieth century London society.

4. Now that you're familiar with the story or novel and have developed a thesis statement, you're ready to choose the evidence you'll use to support your thesis. There are a lot of good ways to do this, but all of them depend on a strong thesis for their direction.

For example:

Here's a student's thesis about Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

In his novel, The Secret Agent, Conrad uses beast and cannibal imagery to describe the characters and their relationships to each other. This pattern of images suggests that Conrad saw corruption in every level of early twentieth century London society.

This thesis focuses on the idea of social corruption and the device of imagery. To support this thesis, you would need to find images of beasts and cannibalism within the text.

Contributors:Purdue OWL.

Summary:

This handout covers major topics relating to writing about fiction. This covers prewriting, close reading, thesis development, drafting, and common pitfalls to avoid.

Pre-Writing Activities and Drafting Your Essay

Pre-Writing Activities

1. Freewrite

Without referring to the text or your notes, write for five to ten minutes on all the images (or the device you have chosen to examine) you can recall. This will provide an initial list which will make up your body of evidence.

2. Review

Look back through the text and your notes to further identify evidence, keeping focused on the particular device you want to discuss.

3. Research

Optional: Ask your instructor about outside sources before you use them.

Once you've identified enough textual evidence to support your thesis, you may want to see what other writers have had to say about your topic. This kind of appeal to other authorities helps you back up and interpret your reading of the work.

4. Evaluate

You will probably generate more evidence than you can use. One way to decide which evidence to take and which to leave is to limit your choices to the best, most illustrative examples you can find. Focus on how the devices are used to develop major characters, major scenes, and major turning points in the work.

Drafting Your Essay

You've read and annotated the work, developed a thesis, and identified your evidence. Now you're ready to work your evidence into your draft. Here are some effective techniques.

1. Quoting

What is a quote?

Quoting involves taking a word, phrase, or passage directly from the story, novel, or critical essay and working it grammatically into your discussion. Here's an example:

In his novel, The Secret Agent, Conrad describes Verloc as "undemonstrative and burly in a fat-pig style.... " (69). The pig image suggests that Verloc is not a lean, zealous anarchist, but is actually a corrupt, complacent middle class man who is interested in preserving his comfortable status.

Notice three things about the example above:

o The passage from the novel is enclosed in quotes and the page number is indicated in parentheses. For more help see our handouts on MLA and APA.

o The passage is introduced in a coherent grammatical style; it reads like a complete, correct sentence. For more help, see our handout on using quotation marks.

o The quote is interpreted, not patched on and left for the reader to figure out what it means.

When should I quote?

o To make a particularly important point

o When a passage or point is particularly well written

o To include a particularly authoritative source

How should I quote?

o All quotes must be introduced, discussed, and woven into the text. As you revise, make sure you don't have two quotes end-to-end.

o A good rule of thumb: Don't let your quotes exceed 25% of your text.

2. Paraphrasing

What is paraphrasing?

o This is using your own words to say what the author said. To paraphrase the quote used above, you might say something like:

o Conrad describes Verloc as a big man who isn't very expressive and who looks like a pig.

When should I paraphrase?

o Paraphrasing is useful in general discussion (introduction or conclusion) or when the author's original style is hard to understand.

o Again, you would need to interpret the paraphrase just as you would a quote.

o For more help, see the OWL handout on paraphrasing.

3. Summarizing

What is summarizing?

o This is taking larger passages from the original work and summing them up in a sentence or two. To use the example above: Conrad uses pig imagery to describe Verloc's character.

When should I summarize?

o Like paraphrasing, summary is useful in general discussion which leads up to a specific point and when you want to introduce the work and present the thesis.

o For more help, see the OWL handout on Summarizing.

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