Thesis Assignment | Get Paper Help

Thesis

Below are the instructions for the paper from my professor. I chose to write about why did Gaines narrate the story by all the characters. What was the importance and how did it effect the story.

. The text. Choose the text(s) you want to write about. You may select from The Awakening, A Gathering of Old Men, or the Kate Chopin stories that were assigned. The reason that the Chitimacha material and the Tim Gautreaux stories are not options is that they do not afford you the same amount of online resources that Chopin’s and Gaines’ work would. This is to make your job easier. All the research that you will do for the assignment will be online only.

2. The topic. Think about a topic in those works that interests you. Maybe it’s Kate Chopin’s depiction of marriage in her stories (many of you did very well with that question on your last quiz). Maybe it is Gaines’ depiction of power relations in A Gathering of Old Men, or how masculine ideals are defined in that novel. Maybe— indeed, hopefully— you will come up with your own original ideas about these works that spark your attention even more. Just figure out what appeals to your own interests and tastes. If you are stumped, go back to your notes from early in the semester about the fundamentals of narrative: character, plot, theme, imagery, point-of-view (that’s a good one for Gaines!), setting, and style. Any of these would make a fine place to start as you begin to develop ideas about the stories.

3. Browse. Do some online browsing about your topic. I have already introduced everyone to www.KateChopin.org , which is an excellent resource; look for others. I was going to organize a little field trip to the Ernest Gaines Center in our library, but that’s now off-limits. Not to worry, though; there is a great abundance of research materials out there on both Gaines and Chopin. Your objective at this stage is just to get acquainted with what’s available to you online, and then to identify sources that pertain directly to your chosen topic. Let what other readers and scholars have written help you to develop your ideas until you’ve learned enough to begin crafting a thesis statement. Bookmark good sources that will later help you to support your thesis when you begin writing the paper. Just be sure that the sources you select are strong resources; things like SparkNotes and GradeSaver do not count as good sources. Look for articles and essays. I have reduced the number of required outside sources that must appear in your paper to a minimum of just three, which should make your workload easier, but I strongly encourage you to use more than three to help bolster your grade.

4. Compose a thesis. The researched essay assignment is much like the paper you wrote earlier this semester in that it is an analysis; you will be arguing to prove your thesis from evidence within the text. The difference, however, is that this time you can also appeal to the sources you’ve researched to help support your argument. It’s perfectly fine to use ideas from your sources to help you develop your own thesis—as long as you are not just taking their ideas outright and representing them as your own. (This part is key; you must ALWAYS credit your sources for anything that you borrow.) You will all produce well-crafted thesis statements (usually from 1-3 sentences) and send them to Louisiana.literature333@gmail.com on or before Friday, April 10. (I realize that’s Good Friday, but I can’t put the date off any later than that; however, to avoid having to do it on Good Friday, I will accept them earlier than April 10.)

5. Outline. Once you’ve developed a good, provable thesis and identified research sources to help you defend that thesis, you are ready to map out your arguments in the form of an outline. Your outline should lay out what you are going to write in a clear, logical order. The outline should also specify where you are going to use your various sources in the paper. If you are careful and thorough in completing this outlining step, I promise that you will have a much stronger, more well-written paper.

6. Draft. Following your outline, begin drafting your paper. The intro and conclusion are always the hardest parts to perfect, so don’t get too hung up on those during the drafting phase—as long as you go back and work hard to craft a good intro and conclusion during the revision phase.

7. Review. Since we can’t do peer review in class, I am asking everyone to send your rough draft to the two peer reviewers that you worked with during the last essay assignment. If, for whatever reason, you can’t do this, then have someone else give you feedback on your paper. We can’t use the writing center, and I cannot check on whether you actually do this peer review, but I highly recommend that you seek out feedback on your rough draft from whomever you can. It’s for your benefit. You should plan to send your rough drafts for peer review no later than Monday, April 20. Remember, the finished paper is due to me on Wednesday, April 29.

8. Revise. Revise your draft, using the feedback from your peer reviewer. Carefully—very carefully!— look for grammar errors, unclear writing, and imprecise wordings. Those are the things that tend to undermine students’ papers the most. The other thing is sloppiness. Avoid careless mistakes at all costs. The length of your final draft must be at least 4-6 pages, not including your Works Cited page; anything less than four pages of writing is not acceptable for this assignment. This page length is revised down from what was originally required on the syllabus, so this should make your workload a little easier. (And for those eager beavers, don’t go over 8 pages. Please.)

9. Works Cited. The rule is simple: if you borrow from a source, you must cite the source. You will use in-text citations in parentheses, with the full citation on the Works Cited page. If you are a little rusty about how citations work, you can find all the answers to your questions here: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html