Submission Guidelines, Formatting Guidelines, and Proposed Topics
Paper Assignment: Submission Guidelines, Formatting Guidelines, and
Proposed Topics
Submission Guidelines:
- When you’re ready to review the final draft of your paper, check off the guidelines below, as you read through and proofread your draft.
- Run the final draft of your paper through a grammar app. Author Derek Haines reviews free grammar apps, in this article:
https://justpublishingadvice.com/the-best-12-free-grammar-check-and-grammar-corrector-apps/
Once you’ve run your final draft through a grammar app, and have corrected any grammatical, stylistic, or spelling errors that have been flagged by the app, re-read your paper one more time to make your last set of revisions and edits.
- Upload the final version of your paper to our Assignments page on Blackboard, prior to or no later than the due date and time: Monday, Nov. 16th, at 4:30PM.
- Keep in mind that I will return your paper to you, without a grade, if you fail to fulfill the guidelines outlined here, and/or if you do not upload your paper to the Turnitin Assignment on Blackboard, as required. You will then have to revise your paper to fulfill these guidelines, and your grade for this paper will be reduced by one full grade, at a minimum.
- Also keep in mind that I will only accept papers in which the primary citations are taken from the edition(s) of the book(s) that I’ve ordered for this course.
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Formatting Guidelines (Check off each requirement below when you edit the final draft of your paper):
___1. Create an original title for your paper that conveys your analytical perspective on the topic. In addition, list your full name, the course title, the professor’s full name, and the submission date on the upper left-hand corner of your first page. Also be sure to paginate your paper, i.e., to number each page;
___2. In your introduction, provide the full name of the author(s) and/or film director(s), the full title of the literary text(s) and/or film(s), and the first and last names, if relevant, of the principal characters you will be analyzing. Thereafter, you can shorten your references to titles and names, as appropriate;
___3. Your paper should be 5 pages or longer in length, excluding any endnotes and the Works Cited page;
____4. Use 12-point type and standard margins;
____5. Format your paper in Modern Language Association (MLA) style. If you need help with the MLA formatting, review the Sample Papers, from the Modern Language Association, that I have uploaded to our Course Documents page. If you need additional guidance with any aspect of your paper, set up an appointment with a tutor at the Writing Center;
____6. Compose your essay in present tense (i.e., whenever you write about a form of cultural expression, such as literature, music, or film, write in present tense). However, keep in mind that you might need to use past tense on occasion, to clarify the sequence of events in a literary work and/or film;
____7. Your paragraphs should be approximately ½ page in length. Re-structure paragraphs that are either too long or too short, in accordance with this guideline;
____8. Double-space your paper, with the exception of block quotations (also known as indented quotations). I prefer block quotations to be single-spaced;
____9. Be sure to compose strong topic sentences, i.e., the first sentence in each body paragraph should be analytical in nature, rather than a plot summary or a plot point;
____10. Aim to incorporatetwo quotations, from your primary and/or secondary sources, into each body paragraph. (Of course, you can include quotations in your introductory and concluding paragraphs, but this is not required.) I allow for some exceptions to this requirement, as follows:
–If you organize a paragraph around one block quotation, then that one quote will suffice. However, be sure to limit the number of block quotations that you include in your paper, as they tend to break up the flow of an analysis;
–In the rare case where you’ve found only oneshort quotation to support your analysis in a given paragraph;
–You can include more than two quotations in a single body paragraph, as long as that paragraph is no more than a ½ page in length.
Thus, be sure that you’ve integrated textual evidence into each body paragraph (textual evidence consists of at least one quotation).
____11. When you review the final draft of your paper, carefully check all of your quotations, for accuracy of transcription. In addition, if the quotations, taken from one literary work or film, appear in your paper out of chronological order, consider putting these quotes into chronological order, or make sure that you’ve presented your analysis of that literary work or film in a clear and logical way, to support an advancing argument.
____12. On a related note, whenever you quote spoken words, be sure that you have identified who is speaking, to whom this character or person is speaking (if relevant), and in what context;
____13. If you fail to edit, proofread, and spell-check your paper, and/or if you fail to follow these guidelines, I will return the paper to you ungraded. You will then have to revise your paper to fulfill these guidelines, and your grade for this writing assignment will be reduced by one full grade, at a minimum.
On a related note, I strongly recommend that you print out your final draft, edit it with a pen or pencil in hand, and then transfer your hand-written editorial changes onto your computer file;
____14. Add a Works Cited page to the end of your paper, per MLA format. In addition, add a Works Consulted page if you conducted research, or drew ideas from any secondary sources that are not listed on your Works Cited page. If you’re looking for a quick way to review your citations, try a formatting app, such as EasyBib.
____15. If you draw directly on an idea or ideas that came up during one of our class discussions, you will need to cite this class discussion in your paper. Use the MLA format for citing a class lecture, as follows: “Include any in-text citations for class notes on the Works Cited page. Begin with the last name of the professor, followed by a comma and the first name. Within quotation marks, put the title of the class, followed by the name of the college or university, and a period. Lastly, add the month and the year of the lecture.” Here is an example:
Chopin, Larissa. “Musical Odysseys.” Music 205. Clearwater University, New York.
15 April, 2018. Lecture.
Also, if you are directly referencing either the attached paper topics, or printed materials from the course, you must include these sources on your Works Cited page as well.
____16. Review policies on academic honesty, which are summarized below:
- University Honor Code: “As a member of the community I pledge to demonstrate integrity and ethical behavior in all aspects of my life, both inside and out of the classroom. I understand that I am accountable for everything I say and write. I will not misrepresent my academic work, nor will I give or receive unauthorized assistance for academic work. I agree to respect the rights of all members of the community. I will be guided by the values expressed in the P.R.I.D.E Principles. I accept the responsibility to follow this Honor Code at all times.”
- Academic Honesty: Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are serious ethical and professional infractions. For information regarding the statement of principles with respect to academic honesty, see Faculty Policy Series #11 for undergraduate students.
____17. Review my guidelines, on the syllabus for this class, before submitting a late paper. In addition, note that I reserve the right to decline to accept a late paper, in fairness to students who complete their work on time.
____18. At the end of your paper, type out the Honor Code below, and electronically “sign” the code, by typing in your full name and the submission date. In addition, indicate which grammar app you used to check the final draft of your paper.
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Honor Code: I pledge on my honor that I am the author of this paper, and that I have done this work with honesty and integrity, without seeking or receiving unauthorized assistance.
Signature:
Date:
The grammar app that I used to check the final draft of my paper:________________________.
Proposed Paper Topics:English 80: Global Anglophone Literature
Choose a paper topic from the list below, or develop a paper topic of your own. If you would like to pursue the latter option, email me a detailed paper proposal, at least one paragraph in length, no later than a week before the paper is due. Keep in mind that you will need to receive my go-ahead before proceeding with your own paper topic.
- Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock: Tabloid Journalism and the
Disappearance of Young Women
The last chapter in Picnic at Hanging Rock consists of “an extract from a Melbourne newspaper dated February 14th, 1913,” in which an unidentified journalist reflects back on the principal events recounted in the novel: “It is exactly thirteen years since the fatal Saturday. . .of the picnic to Hanging Rock. . . . It was thought at the time that the missing persons had attempted to climb the dangerous rock escarpments near the summit, where they presumably met their deaths; but whether by accident, suicide, or straight out murder has never been established, since the bodies were never recovered” (Lindsay 103).
The striking phrase here is “straight out murder,” as it ties together narrative threads that appear throughout the novel relating to the way in which Lindsay indicts journalists, and the Australian newspaper business more broadly, for publicizing the most lurid rumors about what might have happened to the women on Hanging Rock, and thereby failing to apply the practices of investigative journalism to this missing persons case. Lindsay correlates these journalists to “hyenas drawn quite frankly and openly by the smell of blood and scandal” (47). One of the consequences of their interest in promoting a lurid story about the possible rape and murder of young women, in the absence of any supporting evidence, is their failure to track down, and to expose to public scrutiny, the facts about Mrs. Appleyard’s past life in England and the manner in which she exercised her authority within Appleyard College.
Thus, analyze why and how Lindsay holds journalists and the newspaper business to account throughout the novel, and also reflect on the kind of scandal-mongering that she is critiquing: namely, why are these journalists so certain that their readers will eagerly read stories about the disappearance of young women, but have little interest either in the related fate of Miss McGraw or in chronicling and investigating the inner workings of Appleyard College, and the actions of those who held authority over young women within this institution?
- Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock:
“There Were Certain Things that Animals Knew More about than People”
Mid-way through Picnic at Hanging Rock, the narrator offers the following reflection: “there were certain things that animals knew more about than people” (Lindsay 80). The narrator goes on to suggest that a wallaby, a relative of the kangaroo, was perhaps “trying” to convey “something” about what happened to the young women on the Rock “with its gentle eyes” (80).
Throughout Picnic at Hanging Rock, Lindsay intertwines the perspectives of human beings, who are observing the natural world, with the perspectives of non-human animals, who are, in turn, closely observing human beings and their behavior. (It’s a challenge to phrase this binary opposition precisely because human beings are, of course, animals who generally prefer not to recognize themselves as animals.) In any case, taking this as a starting point for your paper, analyze the most significant passages in Picnic at Hanging Rock in which animals observe human beings, i.e., how and why do animals (such as beetles, ants, lizards, swans, spiders, and wallabies, among others) engage in such observations? For one, some animals closely observe human beings out of fear that they will be injured or trampled to death if they are not vigilant; other animals seem to observe human beings out of sheer curiosity; strikingly, other animals, such as the wallaby and the swan, seem to know “something,” or maybe everything, about what happened to the young women who disappeared on the Rock; while other animals, particularly in the closing passages of the novel, seem to know or to suspect that human beings are capable of evil acts, and they implicitly pass judgment on the kinds of evil acts that they themselves would never commit.
