Steps in Writing the E102 Research Paper EN102 B13C/B24C Spring 2015
You have chosen an author of a short story for your research paper. Your task is to find out how that writer came to write that particular story.
You will need to write a brief account of your writer's life, with special emphasis on the period of time when the story was being written and aspects of the writer's life which you feel resemble features of the story. The sources you need to do this sort of research are called biographical.
You will also need to write about the story itself, giving a brief description of the story's literary elements and incorporating what others have written about the story and the author's writing in general. The sources you need to accomplish this are called literary criticism.
1) Choose Author/Short Story from Kennedy and Gioia
2) Use Kennedy and Gioia to establish basic information about your author (vital dates, nationality, gender, race, etc.)
3) At the library (16/17 March) you are looking for sources in the following forms:
a) Books about the author-Use CUNY+PLUS
b) CUNY E-Journals and Reference Databases
Record sources on 3 x 5 cards.
4) Secure sources. Take notes on 5 x 8 index cards.
5) Research should take a month. At that point you are ready to write the first draft of the paper.
6) Insert citations into your draft. You should cite at least five sources in your paper, i.e., Your listing should contain at least five items. Infra dig sources are not acceptable.
7) Prepare annotated draft of your essay, using the MLA style sheet as a guide, for peer evaluation (29/30 April).
8) Prepare final draft after peer review for 6/7 May.
E102 Gene J. Mann About Paper #2 Spring 2015
Choose any poem from the list on Blackboard.
Place this page in your notebook as a guide to our poetry lessons.
Please note that the paper is in "outline" form, but must include the full text of the poem, a quote from a professional critic about the poem, and documentation for the poem and the quote.
In your paper you should be able to identify the following elements for your poem, if present
1. General Description: "Title," Author, Number of lines and stanzas
2. Genre: Is the poem lyrical, narrative, dramatic?
3. Occasion/Theme: What prompted the poem? What generalization does the poem offer?
4. Voice: Who is talking (persona)? Is a second person being addressed (apostrophe)?
5. Paraphrase: Can you restate the poem in ordinary speech?
6. Denotations: What are the meanings of difficult words in the poem?
7. Connotations: Which word choices in the poem evoke strong feelings? How are these choices different from their synonyms?
8. Diction: Is the diction particular to a special voice or class? Is the diction concrete or abstract? (Is it about sense images or ideas?)
9. Is the Word order (syntax) unusual? How?
10. Are there images? To what senses do they appeal?
11. Catalogue the figures of speech: simile, metaphor, implied metaphor, personification, apostrophe, hyperbole, understatement, metonymy, synecdoche, transferred epithet, oxymoron, paradox
12. Sound Repetition: Are there Refrains, Rhymes, a Rhyme scheme?
13. Sound Repetition: Is there accentual rhythm? Meter?
14. Sound Repetition and Mimesis: Is there euphony, cacophony, onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, consonance?
15. Sound and Pause: Are the lines end-stopped or enjambed? Are there caesuras?
16. Formality: Is the poem Open or Closed?
17. Are there Allusions? To what?
Are Myths embodied in the poem?