Topic Proposal: Due APRIL 4

ENG 141 Sec. 04, 05

Bro. ROBERT PEACH, FSC

• Topic due: April 4

• Narrowing the focus (with list of 15 questions) due: April 11

• Thesis Statement due: April 18

• Outline due: April 25

• Index cards due: May 8

• Paper due: final exam date

Brothers,

For your topic proposal, due in class APRIL 4, I would like you to type a paragraph in which you explain an issue that you would like to address in relation to a specific piece of British Literature that we have covered in this course, or that you have read on your own and would be interested in covering. Please use the proper MLA heading and type in 12 pt. Times New Roman font or 11 pt. Georgia font.

Select a meaningful subject that reflects your personal interests (and of course meets the requirements of the assignment). Shape your thoughts about this subject to understand it better by focusing on a specific part of the subject that you would like to write about. (See reverse for an example of a prospectus from my own experience as student—attached is feedback from my professor at the time.)

If you’ll recall, the requirements of the assignment are as written below:

Develop a research topic that involves some theme on which you would like to focus for the purpose of completing a five page term paper due the day of your final exam in May. The paper is to be done in MLA format, 12 pt. Times New Roman or 11 pt. Georgia font with one inch margins all around. You must include a Works Cited page (as a sixth page).

You are required to use at least:

• You must have one book with research on the topic

• You may, but do not have to include a popular literary medium related to your topic such as song, magazine article, film, newspaper article, etc.

• You must have two scholarly articles (may come from an online source)

Below is a list of works compiling literary criticism that may be helpful for you in establishing a firm, specific research focus. They are available in the library. Ask the new librarian for aid in conducting your research. You will also want to check a local college library (Pitt or CMU) to research their catalogue and their online databases for scholarly articles (namely: JSTOR if they have it). Otherwise, take advantage of using the library’s tools for researching the online card catalogue. It will point you in the right direction as regards criticism. Sources like GoogleScholar and Wikipedia are OK to get started, especially if they provide decent bibliographic references to works that would help you in your own research. But they are not the end of the research; they are the MEANS to an end. That said, I will not accept any citations from Wikipedia. However, if you find a decent scholarly article through GoogleScholar, then I will accept that as legitimate.

• See Ref 820 (+)

• British Writers

• Masterplots

• A Library of Literary Criticism

• Modern British Literature

• The New Moulton’s Pre-Twentieth Century Criticism of British/American Literature to 1904

• Twentieth Century British Literature

• Poets of Great Britain and Ireland

• Chaucer A to Z

• British Novelists since…

• Shakespearean Criticism

• See Ref 700 (+)

• Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, etc.