Textual Analysis—

In this paper you have free range in how you interpret the texts you choose to write about and the topic you choose, but the structure I want you to use and steps I want you to take to construct the paper are fairly uniform—see this as a guideline to help you.

Step 1: Choose TWO of the following texts from Unit 2 to write about:

Beowulf
Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies

Step 2: Choose ONE of the following topics to guide your reading of the texts you chose in step 1:

Feminism Individuality/Autonomy Heroism
or Storytelling

(Keep in mind that these topics can be interpreted in any number of ways—I’m looking for you to explain your own particular focus on the topic in relation to the two texts you choose.)

Step 3: Title your paper—You will title your paper simply using the two texts and the topic you chose. For example:

Autonomy in Beowulf and Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji

(Note how the title is centered with no bolding or italics, except for the titles of the texts.)

Step 4: Writing the paper itself. As you read, take careful notes on the texts to help you interpret them and find appropriate quotations to support your claims.

See the next page for how to structure your paper. (Note: You can stray from this structure in your analysis, but know that you must have a good reason for doing so, and you may lose points if I find the structure isn’t effective. If you want to give your paper a different structure I highly recommend you email me about it ahead of time for my approval and support.)

The structure of the paper should be the following:

Introduction (1 paragraph/half a page): Explain how your topic is reflected in the two texts you chose, and how this topic can help us understand the texts in relation to each other (compare and/or contrast). (In other words, here you’re introducing the content of the paper by explaining why you chose this topic and these two texts—but remember to keep your language formal, as this is a formal paper!)

Reading of Text 1 (2 paragraphs, about 1 page total or more): In one short paragraph you should briefly summarize the first text you intend to analyze. In a second, longer paragraph you should analyze this text in terms of the topic—this is a much longer, more in-depth explanation of what you introduced in the introduction. Use at least one (no more than two) quote to serve as evidence of what you’re seeing in the text. Make sure all quotes have a citation (page number at the end of the sentence) and are fully explained.

Reading of Text 2 (2 paragraphs, about 1 page total or more): Same as you did with Text 1.

Conclusion (1 paragraph/half a page): Recap, in detail, the comparison you’re making between these texts and then, the most important part, tell your reader what this comparison does for us. Does it help us understand something better? Does it help us understand something curious in one of the texts better? This is called answering the “So what?” question.

When this is all done, your paper should be at least 2.5 pages. The best papers are usually at least 3 pages. Very thoroughly explained papers might reach to the bottom of the fourth page. Please don’t make your paper longer than 4 pages.

A quick note on plagiarism: ANY words you write that are not your own, even if it’s a small phrase you found on the internet, MUST be put into quotation marks and cited. Outside research is not a component of this assignment, so I don’t want you to use outside sources, but in the past people have found it useful to turn to the internet to define the topic they’re using—this definition, unless you put it into your own words, MUST be put into quotation marks and cited. If you put the definition into your own words, you STILL MUST cite the source where you got it with a parenthetical at the end of the sentence (Miriam Webster).

Plagiarism, no matter how minor, will NOT be tolerated in this class. Any and all forms of plagiarism WILL be reported.

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