American Lit Research Essay 19th/20th Century, Modern, Lit Since 1945

Follow MLA format for documenting citations. If you are unsure of MLA format, the best resource for MLAcan be found at Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (Google the words “OWLPurdue MLA” and you’ll get a quick link to it).

A Research Essay

Task:

Select a theme, issue or idea treated in one or more texts assigned during the semester and discuss it in an essay of at least 1000 words.

The tone of your writing should be argumentative and your thesis spelled out early on. Your introduction should include a clearly worded thesis and mention of the major ideas you will develop. The introduction should be followed by one or two paragraphs that provide a general cultural context for your discussion.

This means that you will need to research the particular time period during which the text(s) you’re studying was first published. Questions that concern you here are:

What were commonly held attitudes regarding issues addressed in

the text?

To what elements in this culture does the text respond?

What views does it endorse?

What views does it condemn?

Body paragraphs should begin with a clear topic sentence that states the idea or topic to be treated in the paragraph and followed by examples from the text(s) under discussion and your analysis of these examples.

Analysis of your examples is often the area that separates “A” writers from “B” writers. Analysis–that is, your particular interpretive slant–should be the strength of your project and the area in which you can flex your intellectual muscle.

Select examples that illustrate precisely the major points you want to make. How, exactly, do these examples speak to the issues / ideas that interest you?

A one or two paragraph conclusion should assess, in your view, the relevance of this text to American literature.

Include quoted material from the texts you are treating and the commentary of at least three (3) literary critics, from the online CPCC Library Research Databases collection (you can use ProQuest there the Literature Resource Center), but nothing a generic internet source.

http://www.cpcc.edu/library/databases

Your grade will be determined primarily on the overall organization of the essay, the quality of your research, and your ability to provide clear, insightful analysis of the examples you provide.

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Basic Format and Documentation Reminders:

In the upper left hand corner of page 1, identify yourself, your instructor, course number and section, and the date.
Double space throughout the essay and in the upper right hand corner of each page include your last name and the page number.
Quoted material never stands alone; it is incorporated into a sentence you create. Use an attributive verb to introduce a quotation.Example: As critic John Smoltz argues, “Gish Jen’s Typical American informs white Americans of their / our obsessions, greed, and racism” (38).
The last page of your essay is a Works Cited page, in which you list alphabetically primary and secondary sources found in your project.
Quoting and paraphrasing can be troublesome when you’re unfamiliar with how to do it. The Academic Learning Center’s writing tutors or a librarian on campus can help if you need it.

A Word on Scholastic Integrity and Plagiarism

Teachers recognize material that should have been quoted in a student essay and is not. They see it instantly. Teachers also recognize the differences between the writing of literary scholars and that of students. I know that forgetting to document the writing of others will not be a problem. Be cool, express the way you feel about a particular text(s) or idea, and use secondary sources to demonstrate your ability to conduct research responsibly. No one reads the world the way that you do!

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Student’s Name

Instructor’s Name

Course Number

Date of Submission

Realism and Naturalism

The legitimate outgrowth of literary Realism transformed into the perspective alluded to as Naturalism. This literary movement, similar to its forerunner, discovered expression in the novel. Naturalism also watched its most prominent assortment of experts in America in the blink of an eye before the twentieth century, (Pizer 47). Naturalism looked to go encourage and be more informative than Realism by making sense of the fundamental purposes behind a man’s moves or goals. The reasoning turned into that positive components, together with heredity and social conditions, had been unavoidable determinants in a solitary presence. An awful worker couldn’t get away from their ways of life of neediness on the grounds that their preconditions were the handiest developmental figures his or her life that mattered. Naturalism………………

MLA

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