Requirements:
This paper is to be an analytic argumentative essay,
3-4 pages
and typed, double-spaced,
in a normal size font (Times 12 or Verdana 11, for instance).
Please use only black type. You should follow MLA formatting and citation protocols.
No outside sources
Cite in mla
give examples from passage
must use two characters
underline thesis
for how to write a good, thorough, well-developed, analytic argument, but, in brief, a successful paper will include the following:
- a clear introduction that tells me what texts you will be using and what topic you will be exploring.
- an analytic argumentative thesis statement delivered in the first paragraph of the paper.
- a carefully and thoroughly developed argument that is sustained throughout the paper.
- a central idea, established in the introduction and thoroughly explained throughout the paper.
- clearly articulated connections between your ideas and the text.
- paragraphs that each explore one idea and move the argument forward
This paper is intended to be a moderate exercise in close reading and analysis. I want to see you working with portions of texts — reading closely and drawing inferences about the significance of details that you notice. Listed below are a number of broad essay topics. Your task is to find a narrow focus for whichever topic you choose. The best essays will focus closely on brief passages from the text in order to answer the broad question that I have asked. Your essay should seek to answer the question through a careful, close reading of the text, not through generalizations. Be sure to offer discussion explaining what, in the text, leads you to interpret it the way you do.
As you begin to think about the direction you want to go with your paper, the first and most important thing you want to do is make sure that you have defined a clear, specific, and limited focus. A large subject area is great to get you started – that’s what I have given you in the topic questions I posed – but that is only the first step. From there you need to narrow things down into a more specific topic. You will want to select specific passages to write about that address the focused topic you have selected.
The best papers always find specific passages to focus on – to read (analyze) thoughtfully, carefully, and pointedly for the audience. You will be using those passages to illustrate or illuminate some point that you are making about the topic.
Example of proper layout and expectations:
To begin:
Offer a thesis or topic sentence indicating your basic observation or assertion about the text or passage.
Offer a context for the passage without offering too much summary.
Cite the passage (using correct format).
Then follow the passage with some combination of the following elements:
Discuss what happens in the passage and why it is significant to the work as a whole.
Consider what is said, particularly subtleties of the imagery and the ideas expressed.
Assess how it is said, considering how the word choice, the ordering of ideas, sentence structure, etc. contribute to the meaning of the passage.
Explain what it means, tying your analysis of the passage back to the significance of the text as a whole. That is, relate it to the thesis of your paper.
Repeat the process of context, quotation, and analysis with additional support for your thesis or topic sentence.
Assignment: Select two characters from the Prologue whom Chaucer seems to be satirizing and explain the satire.
Here is the reading: No Fear/ The Canterbury Tales
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